faster pussycat... type! type!

re: penultimate and final sentence, isn't that just the truth, probably not at all what they had planned.

Every time you tell us about a jumper... it think of this painting, which is a very interesting painting, but if you look at the bottom of the frame... the little rivulets... I remember the one jumper I saw... when I was 13 and traveling by myself and stepping over little rivulets in the LAX atrium... it is just never easy to forget.

Seems like better fencing may be in order...you know something you can't climb easily.

Or maybe you can put signs up there stating "Please don't hit my car"

well, hitting my car is not a concern, since i am parked in the garage.

Happy little area you work in! ;-)

That's really sad, especially considering how fun your POE is. I guess it's true, then - Seattle is the suicide capitol of the US...?

Rarely painless, yet, it still brings many changes.

Cruel reality. No one was there to help feel all the pain inside. We all need to appreciated. Another no win mess.

People who commit suicide are selfish.

My nephew, God rest his soul, selfishly blew his head open with a shotgun because he couldn't cope with the real world. I know he was sick, and that his mental illness lead him from his last big manic episode to that last, fatal, darkest depression, but his pain didn't end when his life did. Instead, his pain grew up on its own. It thrived on our tears, on our loss. In the end, we all ended up taking a little piece of that pain home with us wherever we went.

Thomas, I agree with you 100%. They are selfish.

My brother-in-law took his life over some very mundane issues that he didn't want to face. It would have been funny if not reality.

He hung himself from the Garage Door Opener track. When my sister came home with pre-teen daughter she hit the door remote, the door opened, rope got snagged in the motor and he came jiggling forward, dangling puppet-like and bumped into the front of the car (feel free to laugh, I did at first.) My sister went into shock, this left little girl (9yr) to make phone calls for ambulance and police.

I know this will sound really brutal, but all you suicide wannabees out there listen up. 1. Don't do it, you hurt the ones you love that love you. 2. If you're gonna do it have consideration for others, leave a note saying you won't be home for tea, dig a hole and bury yourself.

Suicide is the most selfish act. It does cause tremendous, life-long pain, to those that the deceased leave behind, I know, one of my own brother's committed suicide when he was 18, and I was only 5. That pain will always be with me, and my entire family, and it's worse now, with my father's passing, but I ask you both, Thomas, and Perry, have you ever felt that depressed and alone? I know the feeling, although I am not a suicide risk, and when I think about the pain that I have felt, and just how much pain those that have taken their own lives must have felt, it saddens me worse for the lost, than it does, for me.

We all feel depressed at some point or another. It has more to do with coping. Sadly suicide is reaching epidemic proportions; in the U.K alone there were 140,000+ attempts last year. One of the key considerations towards this increase is the 'acceptability' of suicide. Less than 200 years ago the Church considered it a mortal sin, less than 50 years ago it (attempted suicide) was a criminal offence.
I am not advocating a return to those dark, unenlightened times, but I don't think we are helping the victims of suicide by 'not' attaching a clear negative stigma. I am not suggesting financial penalties (invalidating insurance, etc.) I am talking about getting a message to the repeat self-harmers and suicide attempters who try again and again until they succeed. Maybe if we made it clear how bad they make us (society) feel and that they are taking the coward’s way out, they would reconsider.
The easiest way of making someone feel insignificant and alone is to have an entire culture/society hold a blasé attitude towards what they do.

Marie, you, Thomas and me know that suicides not only hurt themselves, but people who really do care about them. They need to see that it is not themselves they are harming, but all of us. Sorry if I sounded too harsh…its my way of dealing with it.

It is a really tough area, we all have our own ways of dealing (or not) with it…I recommend the two following links:
http://www.mind.org.uk/Information/Factsheets/Suicide

http://www.mind.org.uk/Information/Booklets/How+to/How+to+help+someone+who+is+suicidal.htm

I don’t think suicide is a subject that you should quickly quantify and apply broad labels too. Like people themselves, the reasoning of it can be similar or divergent. I agree suicide is almost never a good choice and often is mean and cruel to the people who care about you.

I would just suggest caution in judging someone with a fatal disease.

Platypus, have you ever had a blood relative kill themselves? If not, then you don't know the pain that reverberates through the entire family structure. How some topics can never be spoken of again, how you can never simply relax in a conversation again, how you have a minefield of pain in front of you whenever you're together. Yes, I've felt the darkness: I was recovering from major back surgery and my father's death when I found a lump on my testicle. While it turned out to be nothing but a mild infection, they dicovered I was Diabetic. In less than 4 months, my world was shattered. Death would have been welcomed at that point, but I knew that if I magnified it by having it be by my own hand I would only infect everyone else who loved me. I refused to let them suffer, so I "manned-up" and took it on the chin. I ended up a better man because of it. I know suicide, and it is selfish.

this whole post is just so sad. i mean who likes suicide? and i'm sure the people who go through with it aren't that happy about it, or their situation either. they just don't see another way out.

been there, considered it. i'm just glad that i was able to see my way clear before doing something that couldn't be undone.

so, as sad and angry as suicide makes me i can't judge others or their decisions. i don't live in their shoes.

The whole growing attitude of non-judgementality and permissiveness is what's making America irrelevant. I'm not saying I want to see anyone persecuted for dating someone outside of their race or inside their own gender. Similarly I don't want to deny anyone their civil rights. I do, however, think it's funny that a book about a woman who plays around on her husband is considered empowering when you consider the real world consequences of what such an act would bring. I also think it's funny that a man can be sodomized to death by a horse and society barely raises an eyebrow. When we live in a world that allows NAMBLA and NAWGLA to sing the praises of "young love", how soon will child molestation be given the same indifferent shoulder shrug and mantra of, "I can't judge the guy, I mean he has his own daemons to wrestle."

Some things are patently wrong. Suicide is murdering yourself. Murder is wrong.

thomas, i can see how an argument against pedeophelia woudl be COMPLETELY relevant in this situation. i'm glad you "manned" up during your darkness, lord knows a woman would have caved. what a dreadful thing to say. i can't believe you even used that term. i'm actually livid right now.

i've lost friends and blood relatives both. i also have had friends who have tried and failed. i've lost someone to suicide who had a fatal disease and i've watched someone die of a fatal disease who wished he could just end it quietly before all the pain. and don't get me started on depression, because i could write a book about that. i've been on both sides of that, and i am not sure which is worse, but i will NOT take kindly to a crass generalizations.

lordplatypus is right. no one is saying that suicide does not leave victims behind, but don't be so quick to judge what the person is going through. when all of society has lost it's ability to step outside of it's own view and empathize with others is when we are truly doomed.

Yes I used "manned-up" because that is what I did. Women have a fortitude all their own, but I refuse to accept my role as a pussified metrosexual androgenous entity. I am a man and I'm sorry of being a man and PROUD of it pisses you off. I can kick ass, Bad habits and doors in.

No, just being a woman wouldn't have made you cave. Being selfish and weakened would have. I may be very selfish in some ways but I repeat: WRONG IS WRONG. Mental illness is an illness by definition and affects the ability to make decisions. My nephew was bipolar-manic/depressive. He was sick.

He was also selfish.

I cry for the decision he made, but in the end it was his decision, not the disease. And his decision was wrong. It doesn't make it any less tragic, just plain wrong.

My Father dies of lung cancer that ate away his mind as it starved him of oxygen. I heard his voice rattle on a Saturday, barely able to talk, but still as much of a man as he always had been. I was to see him the very next Friday.

By Monday, he was gone.

He never gave up despite the constant pain of chemo and the various shots. He never gave up when he forgot my own fucking name. He never, ever gave up. My brother, faced with the death of his son, was battling pancreatic cancer, a 5% success rate. every bite of food he ate would later leave him wracked with pain. He never gave up. He survives now as a symbol of how being close to death and in constant pain does NOT equate to dying.

Out of respect, I'll speak no more of this. I'll merely agree to disagree. I have to go puke now, thanks.