Do you believe that only mentally ill people commit suicide?

[Mr Greene]

And this is why you talk to a psychiatrist about mental health issues and not a psychologist...

[TAW]

I've struggled with the concept for suicide for many years with myself, two close friends, and my own mother. My mother suffers from bi-polar disorder and has been put into a clinic at one point after she had an episode that landed her in the hospital with terrible injuries to her hands. I was for the longest time, in a lot of fear for her life but never let it get the better of me because I had my own problems with depression. Having depression for the past five years has given me plenty of time to question the implications of suicide and to weigh the consequences against the benefits. While I've decided that my life is too great to just throw away, I have set up situations under which I'll just exit out early. It's not something I'm too afraid of anymore, it's just one more option that I have available to me. I figured there will be a year when I know it's my time. I'll wrap up all lose ends and leave on good terms. While I'm so comfortable with the idea of suicide, I've always seen it as a mental illness. The sole purpose of humans is to survive and procreate. At the end of the day, committing suicide is something external or internal over-powering the natural will to survive. The forces put on people on a constant basis are extreme if they're willing to kill themselves over it. I think society as a whole doesn't understand the pressures the general populace are under, or they just don't care.

Despite that, I'm convinced my susceptibility for suicide has more to do with my comfort in the idea rather than some over-arching mental illness. I'm not skulking around all day thinking of how I should kill myself, but the option is there when I'm ready.

[Ryantology]

And this is why you talk to a psychiatrist about mental health issues and not a psychologist...

Clearly, talking to you about them is a waste of time.

[Fenix]

It depends on what your definitions for 'mentally ill' is.

[Angrboda]

A lot of the replies here seem circular, answering the question of whether non-mentally ill people commit suicide by asserting that their doing so is evidence of mental illness. That reduces to a bare assertion and is an argument without merit, because it is essentially ipse dixit, "because I say so."

[MindForgedManacle]

Yeah, I noticed that too. If you define suicide in such a way that it is only done by mentally ill people, congrats. You've essentially made a sort of Anselmian argument, trying to turn this into an analytic judgement. God exists because I define him this way; suicide is only done by the mentally ill because of the way I define the terms.