a commenter screams at me about suicide

"Pete" writes in a comment to my old post on Shawn Matthews's suicide:

YOU ARE A SIMPLE AND UNEXPERIENCED IDIOT. YOU ARE ALSO INSENSITIVE AND UNCOMPASSIONATE BESIDES BEING RUDE. BESIDES THE PAIN OF THOSE LEFT BEHIND. THOSE WHO COMMIT SUICIDE ARE NOT "FREE." THAT IS WHY THEY COMMIT SUICIDE. THEY ARE EITHER IN SO MUCH PAIN, SHOCK, OR TRAUMA THEY CAN'T BEAR ANY LONGER, OR BELIEVING ALL IS HOPELESS THAT THE ONLY SOLUTION TO THEM IS DEATH. TO GIVE ANOTHER EXAMPLE, IT WOULD BE SELFISH OF A FAMILY TO DEMAND A FAMILY MEMBER WHO WAS IN CHRONIC EXTREME PAIN TO KEEP LIVING SO THEY DON'T HAVE TO FEEL GUILT, WHATEVER ETC. ITS A COMPLICATED ISSUE AND IS NOT THAT SIMPLE. BUT WHAT IS A FACT, IT WAS HIS LIFE, NOT HIS FAMILIES AND NOT YOURS OR MINE.

"Pete,"

Thank you for your intelligent, rational, and civil comment.

Let me ask you something, though: if you had the chance to help someone about to commit suicide, would you tell them what you just told me? Would you "respect" their decision to kill themselves and heartily agree with them that there's no way out? If so, why? If not, why not?

[NB: I have written about terminal illness and mentioned that I reserve the right to kill myself in such instances. My position is a bit more subtle than you think. Would such a decision be selfish on my part? I won't deny it. Note, however, that terminal illness is an objective reality: who can seriously argue that I need to hang on in order to continue living a fulfilling life when, for example, cancer is in the last stages of eating me alive? In the case of someone who gets depressed over a girl (or over school or test grades), a much stronger argument against suicide can be made: one's troubles are all in one's head, and constructive responses to such troubles are possible. Do you deny this?]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, "Pete." Am I rude because I'm honest about the selfish nature of suicide? I do contend that suicide is a selfish act-- perhaps the most selfish of acts. As I wrote to a friend recently:

I look at the selfishness issue this way: selfish people either lack awareness about the consequences of their actions vis-a-vis others, or they possess awareness but lack simple empathy for others. Suicidal folks, because they are in a state where their horizon has narrowed so that only one course of action seems most plausible, are selfish almost by definition.

However: one of the things I was at pains to do in writing about Shawn Matthews-- and this was missed by people like commenter [XXXX deleted XXXX]-- was to distinguish between a blanket condemnation of Shawn as a person and the idea that suicide is a selfish act. To say that Shawn's life ended in a less-than-ideal fashion is not to say that Shawn was, by nature, a chronically selfish person. No one is totally selfish their entire lives; it'd be more accurate to say that some folks live lives generally characterized by selfishness, while others of us have a series of selfish moments.

Shawn struck me as an unusually compassionate person. However, suicide's irrevocability makes the act EXTREMELY selfish, even in his case. Suicide cannot be undone. People who loved the dead person must now deal with this rending of the fabric of their lives forever. The person committing suicide is either unaware of this, or is aware of the matter but has dismissed it, having allowed him-/herself to become a prisoner of his/her own emotions.

For those reasons, I condemn suicide. Suicide is almost always preventable, because human freedom enters the equation even in extremis. A suicidal person might not be able to wrest themselves totally free of their own deadly momentum, but they can at least make the fundamental decision to step away from the ledge or put down the gun and consider the possibility that they need help. Those who seek such help have done the hardest, best work of all: they've nudged the steering wheel and kept themselves on the road a bit longer. That basic decision can't come from outside.

One thing I learned from my two little brothers, both of whom are talented musicians, is that it's important, when playing a piece of music, to FINISH it well. A poor finish casts a pall over all that went before. Life isn't so different from music in that regard, and this is obvious in how we organize someone's life into narratives. Untimely ends usually translate into tragic narratives, as was the case with JFK Jr., who died along with his wife and sister-in-law in a plane crash. That event got absorbed into the larger Kennedy Curse narrative. Same goes for Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, and others.

"Pete," the condemnation of suicide is not the condemnation of a person's entire life. You and others routinely miss that fact. You and others also strike me as approaching the issue with far too much emotional delicacy and not nearly enough clarity of thinking.

Thanks again for stating your opinion with such grace.


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