Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2017 16:10:50 GMT
Aw man, I just knew when I wrote "mental illness" that someone was going to call me out on it. Let me elaborate...
When is say mental illness I don't mean that a person is certifiably crazy. Mental illnesses are a spectrum disorder, just like any other. For example, ever have a cold that went away in two days, and another cold that went on for two weeks? Ever hear of anyone having a fight against cancer that was taken care of with one chemo treatment and they never had it again and lived a happy life, and another person who nothing worked for them and died from it? Mental Illness is like that. It ranges from anything to mild depression or phobia to outright schizophrenia and running around in the street covered in peanut butter yelling "I love frogs".
If we all accept that being alive, healthy and happy, is the desired state then it is not reasonable, it is not within healthy parameters, to think about killing oneself. All things being equal, if you are thinking about killing yourself, you fall into one of two categories: You're crying our for attention, or you're thoughts are not within healthy parameters. Cutting oneself is not healthy. Over or under eating is not healthy. Thinking about dying all the time is not healthy. And thinking that your problems are SO insurmountable that its better to die than to face them is not healthy.
Any healthcare professional in the world, any priest, any loved one, any decent human being, is going to try to get you some help rather than say "yeah, sure, killing yourself is reasonable."
p.s. this has nothing to do with religion as I am not a religious person, and I completely disagree that there's any scenario (other than some of the ones I mentioned in my first post) where "careful consideration" will bring you to the conclusion that death is the best option (unless, like I said above: You're dying of incurable painful cancer, etc).
If anything "careful consideration" would bring you to the conclusion that with life all things are possible whereas with death your options are over.
If you have to be alive, then of course being healthy and happy is the optimal state of mind in which to be. But being 'alive' isn't necessarily preferable to being dead, given that if you were dead, you would not feel deprived of any of the things that you enjoyed or may have enjoyed when you were alive.
Death is the cessation of any desire of need to chase the elusive goal of happiness and fulfillment, and it is completely rational to foreclose on the chances of having an enjoyable life if the conditions in which you are living your life make those outcomes unlikely. Considering the fact that one cannot be deprived of anything if one is dead, and that the pleasures in life mainly consist of relief from deprivation will lead one to the conclusion that dying peacefully is better than a life of suffering.
The idea that the worst life is always better than the best death is incomprehensibly absurd, and is the hallmark of superstitious thinking.