(May 2, 2016 at 3:03 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote:

(May 2, 2016 at 9:22 am)Losty Wrote: Well if you didn't read anything at all but the poll, then it's just a lack of reading altogether lol. I don't believe that to be the case considering you started out saying its a lack of deep thinkers then after a few more comments added in that it must be a lack of thinkers instead. You read at least some of the comments and were either incapable of realizing that they agreed with you or you chose to ignore them because you love being a drama queen.

I have repeatedly affirmed that I haven't read anything but the poll results and the OP, and yet you keep insisting that I did.

You'll continue to play dishonestly no matter what, you think you're being righteous after all. I have no patience for such shenanigans, though. So feel free to talk about me - you won't be talking with me anytime soon.

* Losty squishes your cute litta penguin belly

I attempted suicide and I am glad it failed. But if the option had been available I would have wanted to go to a medical center to die. I am glad the option was not available.

(May 2, 2016 at 4:37 pm)Losty Wrote:

(May 2, 2016 at 3:03 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: I have repeatedly affirmed that I haven't read anything but the poll results and the OP, and yet you keep insisting that I did.

You'll continue to play dishonestly no matter what, you think you're being righteous after all. I have no patience for such shenanigans, though. So feel free to talk about me - you won't be talking with me anytime soon.

* Losty squishes your cute litta penguin belly

* Edwardo Piet resists urge to stare at that Gif for 15 minutes.

Thank you to those who answered my hypothetical I find the answers very interesting.

I've craved death and spent all day thinking about nothing but suicide, at times in my life. Somehow, I never got as far as making any actual plans. But it would have been as easy as pie, and I wouldn't have blamed myself. It's puzzling to me how I made it through.

I'm still troubled by suicidal thoughts, but they are now much more in check. There has only been one time when I think I genuinely might have killed myself. It was that incident when I went to A+E due to a stomach blockage, after being deprived of sleep and in constant pain for 24 hours+ on top of everything else. I had what felt like some sort of breakdown (my therapist didn't think this was an accurate description though) and I felt like I had lost my mind and would never get it back. I was so desperate to die, that I think I would have jumped off a cliff had one been available, without a second thought.

I am glad I was "restrained", so to speak, during this episode. I was in an environment where they could easily stop me harming myself. But if the diagnosis was that I had actually snapped, and the chances of me regaining lucidity were slim to none, I would definitely have preferred they let me kill myself than live like that.

(May 2, 2016 at 4:37 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: I attempted suicide and I am glad it failed. But if the option had been available I would have wanted to go to a medical center to die. I am glad the option was not available.

So this is why I absolutely think soundness of mind is a prerequisite. I believed no one loved and cared about me even when they did, it was a temporary highly depressive state of mind that I recovered from. To those who support the right to die for any reason: that means if a medical center would have been available they would have supported my decision to go there, despite the fact I absolutely did not have a sound mind and despite the fact that not only was my depressive state temporary and rather psychotic and delusional (but harmless to anyone else other than myself): it did not represent the whole of who I am.

If tomorrow I randomly for no reason felt super suicidal and wanted to die, I hope that my decision to want to die would not be taken seriously. It would not represent me and so in a very relevant sense it would not be me

As far as I am concerned, that would be like allowing someone else to choose for me to die. Who we are is not simply our whims in a particular moment, we're more than that: soundness of mind is relevant. Please don't ever take me or my decisions seriously when I'm highly psychotic.

As far as I am concerned "the right to die for any reason" is just another form of absolutism, and hasn't been fully thought through. The same goes for those who think no one has the right to die for any reason. I lie somewhere in the middle. The whole problem with this is it's not a simple all or nothing thing.

Right, this would be my reasoning for stopping someone jumping off a cliff. I couldn't be sure if they were of sound mind or not. Maybe they would thank me the next day for having stopped them.

Or maybe they were in a sound state of mind, and I'd be prolonging their misery after they made an educated decision.

Which is the lesser of the two evils? I feel almost certain I would try and stop them; you could say that a suicide attempt is in itself a sign of quite possibly not being in your right mind.

(May 3, 2016 at 8:08 am)robvalue Wrote: Right, this would be my reasoning for stopping someone jumping off a cliff. I couldn't be sure if they were of sound mind or not. Maybe they would thank me the next day for having stopped them.

I try not to interfere with the lives of people I don't know as a general rule, but I may take the risk in this case and assume they were not of sound mind.

Quote:Or maybe they were in a sound state of mind, and I'd be prolonging their misery after they made an educated decision.

They way I see it is: If they are of sound mind it will show. They will be able to calmly explain to me that they want to die and it is a decision they are making. It's very different to someone listing a bunch of paranoid reasons for wanting to die, for example.

Quote:Which is the lesser of the two evils? I feel almost certain I would try and stop them; you could say that a suicide attempt is in itself a sign of quite possibly not being in your right mind.

I think that if the person is of sound mind and rational you can talk it through with them and support them if they're still sure, whereas if they're not you can't

I would try to stop them, talk to them to discover if they were of sound mind and if it turns out they were I would apologize, explain that I wasn't sure if they were of sound mind or not, and then fully support their decision to go to jump off the cliff if they were still sure.

This is ideally how I would behave at my most rational, I am not sure if it's how it would play out in reality.

That sounds very reasonable. I agree, talking to them would be my first strategy, in a real situation. I just excluded it originally to contrast it with the poll options.

I'd do everything I could to get through to them, to see if I could change their mind. If I can, then obviously they're not completely sure about it in the first place.

I'd only resort to physically restraining them if talking was no longer an option; maybe I got there too late for that, or they just ignore my words.

Hmm, that's interesting... If they convinced me they were of sound mind? I get your point, but I'm still a little wary. People could probably fool me, just to make me allow them to go through with it. Could I take that chance? I'd have no way of knowing if what they said was "normal" for them, or if the reasons they gave were real. Maybe they have had a psychotic break. I don't know if I could "permit" them to go ahead with it; although I don't like how that sounds either. It's a difficult one.

If a person is of sound mind at the time, then they should be able to kill themselves. Face it, they're gonna do it at home anyway if you don't let them.

Hand them a gun or pump them full of drugs; personally I'd choose the gun.

It's as simple as that. You have absolutely no right to deny someone the opportunity to end their life especially when they're suffering in some form or another. Hell they might just wanna do it for other reasons. Overly Strict oversight will just lead to an increase in home suicides, of which most are painful. Give them an opportunity for a painless death fuck sake.

Posts in this thread make me sick. If you were in agony, you'd be begging for death too.

I don't know if it's possible for someone of sound mind to fool someone or not.

I only know from my own experience when I was suicidal -- I was laughing at the idea of pointing and laughing at my own corpse, I was switching between anxiety and anger at myself, and deep sorrow and despair at feeling unloved: Not only was my mind not rational enough to consider a suicide note but I wouldn't have been capable of one. One minute I was throwing all my medication in the trash, the next minute I took it out and overdosed it.

Suicidiality is different for everyone. For me personally it certainly wasn't calculated: but I know for a lot of people it is.

I think you can probably tell from my description above that not only was I not have sound mind but it makes no sense to take my decision seriously and support my "right to die" in that situation because that in a very relevant sense was not me as it does not remotely represent who I am.

If 'I' randomly felt like that tomorrow, it wouldn't be 'me' feeling like it. And supporting my decision to die in that situation, would be like letting someone else decide for me.