I think he will kill himself with that short-barreled shotgun.
Couple of advices you can pass on (heh, “pass on” – dark humor alert) to him:
- Do it outside. Less to clean up.
- Don’t take any other lives.
Suicide can be a graceful exit to suffering, or it can be a tragic symptom of disease. I don’t judge people who try to end their lives, but I don’t think suicide is always the answer. I think it’s tragic when a 16 year old believes suicide is the answer, for example, and I think that person was failed pretty significantly to get to that conclusion, but I have different thoughts about someone with a terminal, painful illness choosing to end their own life.
I don’t think we do enough to address and prevent suicide in a way that is meaningful. I think it should be legal for a person to kill themselves if that is what they desire, but I also think it’s really hard to determine if a person who is making that decision is of a sound mind.
1 Like
My sister was committed to inpatient for a while because she had suicide ideations, and owned a gun. Thankfully she didn’t pull the trigger, and fought for her life back. She agreed to give up her gun because she recognized in a moment of clarity during treatment that it would have made a tempting decision that she ultimately didn’t want, a permanent one.
I’m against guns for a lot of reasons, but that’s one of them. Not everyone who shoots themselves truly wants to die. It’s too easy to give mental illness a leg up when a person owns a gun. There are a lot of ways for a person to kill themselves quickly, so it’s not like not having a gun will eliminate suicide, but I think it would give a lot of people a chance to seek treatment first.
Sound mind implies there’s some sort of “normality” on an individual basis. There might be normality amongst the population, but as far the individual is concerned, the norm might just be chronic depression, and there’s no way out of it.
Paternalism can be condescending or presumptuous to the individual, making the situation even worse.
I don’t think people should be prevented from killing themselves, even if we have examples of people apreciating the chance of a second life after failed attempts.
If you want to do something, just do it. Live (or die) in the moment. There are too many “what ifs” that if you live like that, you’re not living at all.
I think just buying a gun is being selfish. Shotgun suicides are messy. He needs to determine a location that reduces the trauma his suicide will cause others. Depression is a mental disease, he needs to do his best not to spread it by ending it.
Location.
- Please do not choose a public place like the secluded parts of a park (a popular choice). Finding a body can cause PTSD for the individual.
- Shooting himself in his car parked in a public place when no one is around is an option. Ideally after hours when the person finding the body in the car is a police officer. The car will make clean up and inconvenience less intrusive to the public and easier for the police. If he chooses this method have a large note placed on the drivers side dash stating, “I committed suicide.” The police will still have to investigate but that and a clear concise suicide note will go along way to easing the burden on the public.
- Shooting himself anywhere in the home will pretty much ruin that home for his family. The family member that finds his body will associate that location with the horror of finding the body forever.
- Also shotguns are messy. Death is messy, lots of body fluids everywhere. If he is considerate he needs to do what he can to mitigate the mess heavy sheets of plastic and a chunk of three quarter inch plywood behind his head to reduce splatter would help the person needing to clean up after him.
That’s off the top of my head, I’m sure there’s more.
At what age can a person make that decision for themselves?
Without some definition of normal, there is no such thing as mental illness. Is that what you believe?
+1. Fwiw he’s a pretty considerate guy and has probably considered all of this, though maybe not the level of detail.
He is definitely mentally ill. But, he has always been mentally ill, and there is no treatment. So, I think he deserves the option. That said, he also has “bad days” and “good days”, and it’s hard to define which one is normal.
I completely see your point about not making it too easy.
I have sleep hallucinations at night. In those moments, I am not myself, I am not of sound mind, I could probably at some point believe I wanted to kill myself, and do it with easy access to a gun. I would hope that someone would try to save me from that, because that is not what I actually want. I should not be allowed to pull that trigger in that moment.
I’m not comparing my situation to depression, or mental illness. Those are far more complicated situations. But a decision for a person to kill oneself is not always made with all the information or facts, and shouldn’t there be some way to save people from themselves? A waiting period, maybe? People are required by law to have a period of time after buying a home to recant, and the decision to end one’s life is a bigger commitment than buying a home.
Mental illness is always defined against what the population norm is. To want to cure mental illness implies there’s a way to alter the mind to get to this population norm. Whether or not this can be achieved for the individual is a presumption. I think if we’re making this decision for the individual, that’s inappropriate. If the individual wants to take a chance at seeing if this can be achieved, then we can go ahead and experiment.
I think I’m generally against paternalism.
I agree kids probably need more of it than adults. Where should the line be drawn? Not sure. Probably around when kids can sign up to go to war.
Except, in those moments, you are yourself. And if you succeed, you would not likely have regrets. Your regrets spawn from being in a different mindset, and only in retrospect. There’s no way for your suicidal self to have the guarantee that you’ll ever return to sound mind in those moments.
Now, if you know from past experience that there’s a chance you’ll return to non-suicidal mindset, then I say do wait it out.
In those moments, I am in my body, but I am not myself. I have no sense of self-identity. I have no control over my actions.
A person who is overwhelmed with the thoughts of suicide does not always have the ability to think logically about returning to a non-suicidal mindset. A person who is suicidal cannot think past the crushing feeling of hopelessness in that moment. Logic and reason are not variables in that equation, and they don’t always have the option to choose to wait it out.
I disagree. Mental illness is about not being able to function healthily as an individual. Does the behavior, choices, emotions, moods of an individual keep them from functioning or lead to negative outcomes for them, and in certain cases for society. No norm needed. For example, a bit of anxiety heightens awareness, a lot of anxiety can be limiting, overwhelming anxiety stops a person from functioning. The last two states are associated with mental illness.
functioning healthily is defined by population norms.
Kind of separate… but it’s also just a reminder of how easy it is commit murder. He is not capable of holding down a job, feeding himself properly, or even taking out the trash most days, but he could totally kill a bunch of people tomorrow.
He’s thankfully not at all murdery.
1 Like
This is based on the presumption that “not having the ability to think logically (per population norms)” or “not being able to think past the crushing feeling of hopelessness” require paternalistic care and attention. That’s what other people want for them, or what they want for themselves looking back, but not what they want for themselves in the present.
We all do things that we might regret later. We don’t stop doing things because of that possibility.
You might not, but I certainly do.
You need to explain this because I do not have a clue what you are trying to say here.
And that’s fine. Then you likely won’t be the kind of person that commit suicide. But other people might not be like you. And if you tell them, “don’t kill yourself just yet, you might regret it later”, that is being presumptuous as you’re projecting your own mindset onto theirs.
do you think people need to be saved from themselves? why?