If this is wrong forum please let me know.

First I'd like to say that religion and god are not a valid argument for this discussion. Not everyone agrees with the notion of a god or religion and the differences in the people of the worlds views should always be respected. This is an argument of why thinking about or attempting suicide means you have a mental disorder.

I'd also like to apologize for the sensitivity this issue brings, but this is something I have always wanted an open discussion about.
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I believe there is little doubt that there are some people in this world who have the desire of suicide that do have some kind of mental disorder. That being said, I have a serious problem with our society forcing anyone who has the desire to end their own life into mental rehab, and for people to try to force someone else to continuing to live an existence they no longer desire to live. We live in a country based on freedom to live your life as you desire, but what if you truly believe life sucks? How is it okay to force someone who no longer wants to be alive to continuing living? How is it other people's business to try to tell you what you should be thinking? It is each individuals choice on what they want to do in their lives, and I believe it should be their choice to decide if their life is something they want to continue living. Some people make the argument that suicide is the most selfish thing someone can do because they are hurting people around them. To me its the people around them that are being selfish by saying that. If a 25 year old wants to die because they find life to be undesirable, it is selfish of everyone around them to force that person to live another 50 years in an existence they do not desire because it would hurt them. "Don't do something to yourself because I would be hurt by it." That person is saying the 25 year old must continue to have pain because that person doesn't want pain themself. How is that not whats selfish?

I know some poker players who have stated that if they totally run out of money they would kill themselves. They might be crazy, they might not be. One reason being that poker is the only method of generating income that makes them happy, and they would rather die than be forced to generate income in ways that would make them have unhappy lives. Reality is that we need money to survive and thrive, and its a tough world for many people with regards to that survival and generating income. So if the world they live in is too hard to live outside of what makes them happy, and they realize their life will be miserable to continue, why are we forcing them to live a miserable life they do not desire?

There is also senior citizens and terminally ill patients. I believe I have read that the suicide rate is highest among the elderly. I assume this is either due to health problems they no longer want to suffer from or from hating the feeling of their age. Does this automatically mean they are crazy? Same for terminally ill people. They are suffering and guaranteed to die in the near future, are they crazy for wanting to end their suffering knowing they are going to die anyway?

I understand this is a sensitive issue and maybe my points come off crazy or flawed, and I do not believe I did the best job of expressing my true viewpoints. I also understand that when someone truly wants to commit suicide they usually do it. What I am looking for is some kind of scientific studies or analysis that proves that suicidal thoughts or attempting suicide is always a direct cause of some kind of mental disorder.

Garrett Hardin is an interesting case.

Anyone who labels an elderly person as insane just because they want to commit suicide is insane. I'm not sure many do (except the religous perhaps but they do have a mental disorder).

Otherwise healthy people wanting to commit suicide and its more or less true by definition.

The case of an octogenarian having lived his life and now wanting to exit when he chooses, is completely and utterly different to a young person wanting to commit suicide

CDC

Well, because generally people who commit suicide have mental illnesses.

Also, suicide is such a taboo subject (at least in the US) and seems to contradict the natural desire to live most people have.

That sort of research is of very limited value when trying to understand this.

"mental illness" is subjective and suicide is associated with states of mind. The view that those states of mind are a mental illness may be correlated with the view that suicide is a mental illness.

Thus, by definition.

Yes but that's not telling us anything.

Someone has terrible events happen to them. They are in an accident, wife and only child a baby is killed, they lose a few limbs, they lose their job, they end up with nothing or minimal benefits.

They are depressed for a while, they commit suicide.

Were they mentally ill? Might we not say that if they were very happy they were mentally ill but being depressed is normal. Maybe suicide in this case isn't mental illness at all - that's the sort of question we want to consider not just avoid it with a definition.

Right, but it will still be by definition, we will just be making the definition more sophisticated.

Instead of if X then Y, it will be if X then Y except if also Z.

Most of us can describe a scenario where we think suicide is a rational response, but generally this is an uncommon scenario (excluding old age + illness, which is becoming less and less uncommon).

I think the real question here is assuming you have a definition whereby the desire to commit suicide is a form of mental illness (in specific circumstances), does society have a right and/or obligation to do something about it when society becomes aware of it?

I don't think there is a simple answer there.

Being defined as mentally ill can result in you being incarcerated and drugged against your will because of something you haven't actually done but might do, and someone in this situation has fewer rights than someone accused of assault or robbery.

Understanding is what we are after. definitions follow, more sophisticated definitions are not the result not the starting point.

maybe maybe not. Maybe many if rational would commit suicide but dont because they aren't rational. Plus rationalilty and mental disorder are not alternatives or yes kits true all suicides are done by the mentally as ill as is not committing suicide and everything else.

Judgement is far more important than definitions imo. Sure we have the right and some obligation, just as we have the right and obligation to do stuff to kids against their will. The question is what and when.

The judgement needs to be made as to whether they are mentally competent or not. Protecting someone temporarily out of their mind from committing murder or suicide isn't against their will.

Is the inference here that 10 to 20 percent of people who die by suicide NOT suffering from any mental illnesses, or are suffering from an undiagnosable mental illness?

Agreed. The what and when is the tricky bit.

It's the bit about who makes that judgement and what re-course you have if you disagree that I don't like, but I guess that is basically politics.

I dont mean to derail the thread from the core questions that you are trying to have answered, but i want to touch on what you said about the 25 year old as your example. I think that It would be more selfish for the 25 year old to commit suicide then it is selfish for his family to try to stop him. Reason being is his family will probably suffer much more and much longer then he would. The phrase, " Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem" is often true, and Many people who attempt suicide unsuccesfully go on to eventually live a happy life. What that 25 year old does not realize is usually that pain that they feel will end. They will usually become resilient to their situation given time or have some sort of epiphany. So for them to impatient and take their own life, and take themselves away from their mothers and fathers and possibly spouses and children is incredibly selfish. Especially since no amount of depression they are feeling will ever add up to a parent having to live through their childs suicide. That being said, I can understand where some terminally ill people would not want to stick it out. I get that.

Back to the actual question at hand. I dont necessarily think that if someone has a moment of weakness and kills themselves that they are mentally ill. I just think it is usually a tragedy and a lot of those people could have eventually lived good lives, and whatever momentary pain they were feeling, as severe as im sure it is would have probably passed or lessened.

Let's assume you have a brother and living parents... And you kill your self...
What happens to your parents? Well, you will likely RUIN their lives. They will probably cry every day. Now, how does that affect your brother? He will always be worrying about your parents, as well as grieving your death.

I know for a lot of people on here, everything is black and white, but experience matters and changes people. If you've ever seen this, you would understand.


also.. Jay0582 made a great post.

For people who are not terminally ill - your entire speel is predicated on the assumption that happiness should primarily depend on the circumstances of one's external environment and one's aspirations and wants. For me, happiness consists not in fulfilment of any desires or wants, but in the knowledge concerning the rarity of life, and in the fewness of such wants. It is not difficult to get in control of your mind, and change what you want/desire. It is those who believe that doing so is impossible that generally happen to be labelled 'mentally ill'. Why? I can't answer that either.

The simple answer is that every society defines certain behaviors as appropriate and inappropriate ones. The inappropriate ones are given various and sundry labels denoting how society views them: absurd, strange, eccentric, crazy, weird, insane, etc.

It doesn't take much time studying history and different cultures to see that what societies consider inappropriate and how societies respond to inappropriate behavior varies wildly.

For example, we would call someone who burned people alive for not adhering firmly to a specific mythology to be insane, but in a different time and place, that person would be a leader of society and the people being burned would be called insane.

Regarding contemporary western society and suicide, most of us see it as inappropriate because it creates an enormous amount of unnecessary harm.

I agree with you here. When it comes to a clinical diagnosis of depression, these people's brain chemistry is not 'mentally ill'. It's simply different to the average population. That's all we know for certain. Hence when we attach 'illness' or 'disorder' to their diagnosis, we're judging them based on nothing but a measure of conformity to society's average behavioural patterns.

As you say, is this just damage-mitigation? By labelling them as people with a 'disorder' or 'illness' are we simply trying to contain the damage that their behaviour may cause to other people's welfare? If so, the big follow up question is that: is this sort of genetic discrimination ethical (benefits outweigh costs?)? and, does discriminating against them in this way make it easier or harder for them to pick up new ways to change their mindset (desires/wants)?

I don't think this quite hits it correctly. Take a person with Type I diabetes, so their pancreas isn't making insulin. That's how they're born. You wouldn't say that they are just different or that their pancreas isn't conforming to the rest of our pancreases. We call it a disease because it's not functioning the way we believe it should.

Depression is the same way. If someone meets the criteria for a diagnosable depression, then we are saying that we believe the brain is not working as it should and is causing suffering. We call it an illness because we want to help that suffering stop and feel the person is afflicted by a disease process, and isn't just acting differently.

Well we can solve your problem quite easily -- suicidal thoughts are not ALWAYS a result of a mental disorder, and people aren't AUTOMATICALLY labelled as having a mental disorder just for suicidal thoughts.

Now, for some discussion on that, there are certainly times when someone would like to die or kill themselves that we don't consider to be stemming from a mental disorder. The artist of my avatar, Dr. Kevorkian, actually assisted such people in their suicides. As of now, 3 states in the US (I believe) allow for doctor-assisted-suicides, so they clearly recognize this concept.

Even in other states, though, just because the doctor can't help/commit consented homicide doesn't mean they don't get it. Take, for example, someone who needs some sort of intervention to fix a problem or else they will die. If the patient refuses, the other doctors typically call in the psychiatrist to decide if the patient is suffering from some sort of mental illness or cognitive impairment that is getting in the way of them truly understanding the decision they are making. It's very possible for the psychiatrist to decide that the person's desire to die is coming from a well-functioning brain.

And how are we judging 'how a brain should work?' By looking at the average population yes? and the behaviour associated with their brains...no?
From personal experience - 3 of my close friends actually - calling it an 'illness' they believe, does nothing but harm for them. It re-enforces their destructive behaviours and allows them to self-rationalize any kind of behaviour that a person would normally not be able to self-rationalize. They thus get stuck in a vicious cycle, incapable of seeing that they indeed have control over their thoughts/desires/wants and consequently, behaviours. So are we really helping that 'suffering'? or perpetuating it? and more importantly, is that even the aim of pharmaceutical giants and the medicine industry behind the funding?

People who want to commit suicide do have a slight mental disorder. They do need help. I don't know who should help them the most though.

From an evolutionary perspective, do you think it makes sense that a human would commit suicide? If it's "survival of the fittest" how does suicide fit into that?

Its probably a defense mechanism like when someone admits to something and everyone says "eww, i would never do that" when really everyone does it but no one admits it but this guy. I dont mean a literal comparison but more of an analogy. Although I wonder if anyone has ever made it to age 25 without having thought about suicide or what it would be like or what would happen (i dont mean wanted to have killed them self I just mean wondered about it).

I have seen this as well -- people who are told they have an illness basically interpreting that as a reason to not even bother trying to control or question their own mental processes anymore.

It's frustrating and sad.

+1

I just had a good friend go through with it and I suspect this is how he felt. He had quite a lot of mental anguish stemming from a rough childhood and he'd had suicidal thoughts from such a young age I think it had become routine, pretty much habit. Not being in his shoes, I could never relate entirely, but his attitude was always so sour... glass always half empty.

It seemed like if he would have been able to look at things more optimistically, focus on all the good friends he had, family, his great career prospects, etc., he could have put those horrible thoughts aside more easily, but he was never able to do that. He was so realistic and blunt about life. He may have been mentally ill, or perhaps as I suspect he was just too "honest" with himself, in that he could never fool himself into looking at the bright side of life. Either way, I'm no more ill than the next guy, but if I were as pessimistic as he was I'd probably off myself too.