What are your thoughts on suicide?

I think unless you've been personally touched by suicide you don't know. Further I think those personally touched each have their own personal journey that brought them to their feelings that they are expressing. It is a tragedy for all who are left behind. How one picks up those pieces and survives a tragedy of such immense and devastating pain is a personal experience that only they can express, or not.

I think each person here who has suffered the devastating affects of this occurrence has my deep respect. Anyone who can survive that is in my book a true survivor. That they can continue is a miracle in of itself. So, my words will always be kind. I will listen with my ears and my heart. I will respect your journey and your feelings. I think that if you lost someone to suicide you might be sensitive to being heard by people you frequent or love. Because once someone couldn't hear you or didn't give you a chance to be heard before they made a fatal choice. So, the importance of being heard in regards to this subject when you can is not lost on me.

Thank you all for sharing such personal stories. I hear you.

I hate it when people makes jokes about suicide, depression, self harm or anything like that. I think only people who have experienced anything like that should be 'allowed' to make jokes about it, and they don't because they know it's not funny.

People who don't know what depression is like and who make jokes about it are being very insensitive.

Edit: I think it's awful to call them selfish, but I can understand why people think that. Having said that, I think it is horrible when they jump in front of a train, because it psychologically and emotionally scars the driver (and anyone else who might see it happen), sometimes for life, and that's not fair.

I lost a son to suicide. It's devastating and it takes a long time for the survivors to recover.

But what of the person who suicides? There's no point blaming them for they have reached a level of despair when rational thought no longer exists. They are, temporarily at least, unable to conceive that anything could be worse than what they now feel.

I don't know the solution. The current fad is to rush to "counsel" them, whatever that means, but to a person who has lost hope that may not be enough.

One study I found after losing my son suggested that suicide may be the outcome of lowered levels of serotonin in the brain. If that's the case, I'm not sure what steps could be taken to help. Love and support are necessary, but suicidal people really shouldn't be encouraged to wallow in self-pity.

What are your own thoughts, Megan?

Suicide rears its head for many reasons. But one thing is for certain. Almost everyone who has taken their own life was not of sound mind and is usually depressed. There are rare occasions that make exceptions to this rule. I read a story today of an elderly couple that were both battling cancer and were growing sickly. They decided to lock themselves in a hotel room and take cyanide capsules. They spent their last moments together, in each others arms, happily.

I've read some of the answers on this Q , not all of them. The ones that are saying people who commit suicide are cowards and selfish are upsetting to me. People who threaten suicide for attention , yes, maybe. But the ones who go through with it are so very lost .. And in too much pain to see how they will hurt the ones left behind. Mental illness and depression is an illness. You can be angry at the illness. That is fair. BUT DO NOT be angry at people who took their lives due to depression, they are victims of an illness.

As someone that was left behind after a suicide, I can say from personal experience, that it is the most selfish, self serving, horrible thing to do to your loved ones.

For the most part, I find it sad and horribly disturbing. I cannot understand, and hope I never find out, how someone can be so desperate that they think that killing themselves would ever be an answer for anything. 

The only time I can see anyone wanting to commit suicide would be if they were doomed to a dibilitating disease that was going to rob them of any quality of life and lead them to a slow painful death.

A person commits suicide when they are a shadow already.

Unseen, unheard, out of touch, no one to reach, no one to talk to, no one to listen to you, no one talking about you, no one seem to care, being ignored, asking for help.everyone shut you up. Being mocked, being counted useless, so much pressure and no hand to take. When everything in your life turns into a burning hell, suicide is a paradise that you want to drown in.

What do I do to ignore them behind me?
Do I follow my instincts blindly?
Do I hide my pride from these bad dreams?
And give in to sad thoughts that are maddening?
Do I sit here and try to stand it?
Or do I try to catch them red-handed?
Do I trust some and get fooled by phoniness,
Or do I trust nobody and live in loneliness?
Because I can't hold on when I'm stretched so thin
I make the right moves but I'm lost within
I put on my daily facade but then
I just end up getting hurt again.

I have had so many situation that i could end my life. But i always found a way out and each time it worked! That's where i realized "i find a way or i'll build a way" i learnt myself to be tough when everything gets tougher.

The central issue in suicide is not death or killing; it is rather, the stopping of the consciousness of unbearable pain which – unfortunately -by its very nature entails the stopping of life.

I am sorry for all those who suffered of pains of suicide, i understand the feelings. But i consider it selfish to say those who suicide are selfish. We shouldn't judge if we can't understand someone's reason and how they feel.

It must be devastating to both the person who does it and those who loved him who are left behind.

A complete lose---lose outcome.

I once had to wrestle a gun away from a girl who was pretty serious about using it for that purpose.  She had also taken some pills, but I was able to get a doctor friend of mine on the line and monitor her long enough to see she was recovering.  She thanked me later, and never tried it again; but that's closer than I ever want to be to such a situation again.

(She wasn't a "girlfriend;" she was the sister of a friend of mine.)

When the pain that you feel is so bad - when you feel that no one will understand when you try to tell them how you feel - when your feelings are brushed aside and you're told to "just get over it", it's easy to get sucked into the black hole called depression.

You can't see anyway out. You tried reaching out for help but were rebuffed. You feel that no one understands how bad it hurts. You don't know where to turn to get help.

Day after day, the black feeling of hopelessness swallows you up. You can't breathe. You can't eat. Sleep brings you nightmares. 

Sometimes, you feel that this is the only way to end the pain and if someone cared enough to help you out of the hole, you could have some hope - you could get some help. But no one sees you. No one hears your cries for help. It's the hardest thing in the world to do, to swallow the pills, to end the pain.

Then you wake up in the hospital. Everyone is shouting at you - WHY DID YOU DO THIS?

You're temporarily deaf from the quinine pills you took. You look at them and say - there was no other way to go but out.

And they walk away.

well... The case must be REALLY bad if you actually wanna do that. Also bullies never learn their lesson. WHY DONT THEY GET THE MESSAGE??? (don't do it) (the following is hypothetical) if bullies would learn their lesson, but nobody actually ever committed suicide cuz of bullying, and i got badly bullied, i would be the one to do it so that the whole world would learn their lesson and bullying would be gone.

1 word

Cowardly.....