Thoughts on Suicide from Someone with Severe Depression Experience

The thing that really bothers me about suicide isn't something you'd typically expect...


While there are lots of aspects of suicide that are important, and consistently demand attention in both the online and offline worlds, such as seeking help, sharing experiences, opening up to others, death toll figures, causes, and motivations, the one I'd like to speak about today is entirely different.


At this point you're probably wondering to yourself what I might talk about, and probably also hoping this isn't another one of those generic copy-paste self-help posts that you can find strewn around online. Well, it's not. This post is blunt, and rightfully so, because I'm tired of seeing things like this happen. You've been warned. While I do care for the people that suffer from depression and the struggle of everyday life and the temptation of suicide, this is not the topic of this post.



The topic of this post are the victims and senseless deaths caused by said person's suicide.


If you decide to take your own life, for any number of complicated reasons, that is your own choice. It's your own life. What is NOT your own, are the lives of the people around you. If you're going to commit suicide, and you've actually dedicated yourself to doing it and not just talking about it, and you choose to do it in such a way that endangers the lives of others in the vicinity, you're a selfish piece of shit.


While the above statement might seem harsh, let's take a moment to understand what I mean. If someone chooses to drive head-first into the oncoming lane of traffic because they've lost their will to live, they're part of the problem. If someone chooses to start their car in their garage and fill their house of loved ones with carbon monoxide, that's a problem. If someone decides to take their own life by setting their house ablaze, risking the lives and property of other people in the house or neighbors, that's a massive problem.


Not every attempted suicide is a danger to others. I would say a good majority are fairly private and harmless except to the person committing the act.



However, how could someone even consider committing such an act that would put others in danger?


I have personally struggled with severe depression for most of my life, witnessed some horrible, jaw-dropping moments from within my own family, been in some very, very dark times, and I have never, not even once, considered taking someone else with me if I were to commit suicide.


How could someone be so selfish? They're unhappy with their life, maybe they've lost a couple marbles, but they decide to take an innocent, happy person into that pit of despair with them? They're going to deprive them of love, of freedom, of life, in an act of self-hatred? How could someone even find logic in that at all?


I understand that when people are in the suicidal mindframe, logic is not their strongest feature. But taking their own life in a way that could potentially end and ruin other people's lives? Why should they get to decide that the people around them don't get to live anymore, just because they're depressed?


I could ask these questions all day, and I'd never have any answers, but I wanted to take a moment and describe my feelings towards this little-spoken subject. So many posts and articles and books are dedicated to the people that commit suicide, but hardly anything is done to speak for the surrounding victims. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's an atrocity. And that's what really bothers me about suicide.

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