Understanding Suicide

Although many associate suicide with mental illness or depression, I believe there are three types of suicides. Two of those deal with emotions - ones easily influenced by brain chemistry and depression. The third scenario deals with rationale; it's the logical suicide.

Disaster:
Joey finds out his wife is cheating on him. He confronts her, and she wants a divorce. She moves out and takes the kids with her. He gets fired from work because he's just not functioning anymore. Everything he's ever wanted just left him.

Joey killed himself because of short string of unfortunate events. By short, I mean less than a couple years worth of baggage to carry around. Metaphorically speaking, someone just took his life and threw it into a trash can. At the bottom of that dark pit it looks like it's pretty far down, and he can't get up. He doesn't feel like trying, or maybe he has tried but didn't get anywhere. The short-term pitfalls of his life killed him. Things might have even got better, but he didn't give them a chance.

This is the majority, I believe, of attempted suicides. These are closer to 'calls for help'. If Joey could look back in retrospect posthumously, he'd say it was a rash decision, and he should have waited a bit longer before making such a permanent decision. When these attempts don't succeed and their life gets back on track, these people can be happy again.

Decline:
Suzy has been struggling for years. She has a perfect academic career, she wins awards for sports and community service projects - but her parents have eyes only for her older sister. For years she's tried so hard to make them happy - and failed. Metaphorically, her life has been a steep slope that she's been sliding down her whole life. Any upward progress is met by an even worse drop. Life's a continual struggle without meaning. Everything is a struggle. Why get out of bed? Why wake up? Why go to school? Life's short. We're all going to die anyway. There's no point to it anymore, let's stop pretending.

Suzy might have been in and out of therapy for years; it's likely there was some outward signs of this depression. There might have been quite a few suicide attempts. This is a pretty common scenario. For Suzy, the normal ups and downs of life were always heading downwards. This wasn't a rash decision, but one that might have been compromised by chemical imbalance or a skewed perception. If she could have only gotten out that pit, she would have chosen life. If Suzy could look back on life, and see that in 2 years she'd be OK, she might choose to live.

Detachment:
"If you were playing chess, but you HATED playing chess, and wanted to play monopoly, or just go take a nap, or never play chess again, you would quit, correct?" John sees life as no different. It has no higher "purpose", there's no "supernatural being" to decide good and evil (and punish/reward us for our actions). Life is temporary and has no meaning unless we assign it value. He's decided that if life's pros outweigh the cons then it'd be worth living. He enjoys life like any normal person, and unexpectedly commits suicide at the age of 39.

John wasn't depressed, he had (what he believed) a rational reason to die. There were no fickle emotions involved in the choice he made. He wasn't sad to leave life, but looked back and smiled at the good times he had. This is the minority of most suicides. There probably wasn't any warning of such action even though his logic had been in place for many years. If he could look back posthumously, he'd say he made the right choice.

Conclusion:
In the first scenario, despair sinks in because the quality of life goes down acutely. The second and third scenarios are alike because both people are seeing life as a series of ups and downs. The problem is that the second person isn't acknowledging the importance of the ups because they're so concerned with the downs. The third type of suicide is one of clear-headed thinking. Because it is one backed by logic and reason, the third person doesn't need to be "saved" from suicide.

How about an example?

If John was being held hostage, and a rescue team was about to walk into a trap while trying to save his life, He'd not have eight lives destroyed pointlessly for his own. He'd be obligated to stop the rescue attempt by forfeiting his own life if necessary.

Does this mean I advocate suicide? Of course not! It seems like the majority of suicides waste lives that these people could have wanted to continue living. I can understand the third scenario because I try to think through my actions first. If cool logic shows suicide as the answer, then I'm not one to prevent it. In any case, I understand that emotional pain can be unbearable and sometimes suicide seems like the only way to get out.