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> I see what you're getting at, but I think the reason that suicide is linked with mental illness is because it goes against our very nature as living beings.

So does contraception, yet we don't consider people using it mentally ill.

I only say this to imply that "going against our very nature" isprobably not the main reason we link suicide with mental ilness, not to be disrespectful or anything. My mother killed herself so I am not someone to mock suicidal people.

> If anyone as any counter points I'd love to hear them - but for the most part I think suicide stems from mental instability or an otherwise inevitable physical death (terminal illness, old age, etc).

My mother had been diagnosed as depressed so at least part of society deemed her mentally ill, so the link from that to suicide can be made. However, having dealth with a similar diagnosis myself, and having learned to properly cope with it while staying as far away from psychiatric medication as physically possible I am quite skeptic about mental diagnosis.

On "Lila", Robert Pirsig proposes the completely not medical and just-a-personal-theory idea that, however, resonates a lot with me, that "crazy" is a social thing (you're only crazy if we have 'non-crazy' people to compare yourself against) and that taking such people to anthropologists in the hope of helping them find a culture where they would be a better fit could yield better benefits than psychiatry. Personally, while I did not physically relocate to another place, I severed myself from a big part of society that I found harmful and I have been as good as can be ever since (12+ years now).

> So does contraception, yet we don't consider people using it mentally ill.

Boy, you got that backwards. Abstinence is what "goes against our very nature as living beings". Contraception allows us to engage in sexual activity without the consequences of unwanted pregnancy or STDs.

> Boy, you got that backwards. Abstinence is what "goes against our very nature as living beings". Contraception allows us to engage in sexual activity without the consequences of unwanted pregnancy or STDs.

Where did I mention abstinence?

While not my choice, I consider it just one more approach that falls under the 'contraception' umbrella, not sure how you made the link from my sentence to abstinence honestly.

You didn't mention abstinence...that's the problem. I was arguing against your claim of contraception "go[ing] against our very nature as living beings". Contraception is not going against our nature...it's the opposite, as it allows us to safely satisfy our biological urges. On the other hand, something like abstinence is definitely "against our very nature as living beings".

I think I get your point, and the misunderstanding may be that by "nature as living beings" I went beyond just humans. For the vast majority of living things, avoiding reproduction seems, to me, unnatural, hence it would go against our very nature.

Now, from a anthropocentric view of this contraception is quite natural as, like you well explain, it let us satisfy biological urges while reducing the risks and potentially undesired side-effects of them.

The point that I tried to make was that being for or against "our nature" does not feel, to me, to be a good measure of mental health.

>So does contraception, yet we don't consider people using it mentally ill.

I don't think contraception and suicide are in any way comparable. Taking a contraceptive enables to continue having sex, which is perfectly natural, without becoming pregnant. Yes, the fact that you won't become pregnant is "unnatural", but it is used so you can continue to experience a natural part of life with less risk. Suicide, on the other hand, does not have a similar risk/reward, response, or permanence. I could take a birth control pill knowing that I would still be able have a child in the future, and without an extreme response mentally or physically. However, if you point a loaded gun at yourself most people will automatically have an intense response that may include anxiety, fight or flight, fear, and self preservation. I understand the point you're trying to make, and I agree to some extent, but I disagree with that example as a counterpoint to protonimitate's comment

I'm gonna stray away from talking about mental illness, cause I'm not a doctor and there are a lot of grey parts.

Suicide is about giving up. There can be a number of reasons for throwing the towel in.

For seemingly normal people, I tend to think it's because they feel like they have failed in a way that is irredeamable. Like the samurai guys, that have disgraced themselves and there is no way to go on without their honor. It is all in their head as expectations they have created.

Aside from clinical cases, I would say that most people throw in the towel because they feel like they failed and it's over. Expectations manage them. If you feel like you have nothing to live for, you can live for anything. Change thos expectations.

I'm not trying to be reductionist, this is obviously a serious issue and it many people struggle with it. But that the hedge fund manager that is "living the dreams" and wants to end his life out of that toxic environment and maybe we won't think about giving up anymore.

>Suicide is about giving up. There can be a number of reasons for throwing the towel in.

This is one of the most accurate depictions of suicide that I've heard:

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”

-David Foster Wallace

DFW was very insightful in his quote.

There are different reasons people attempt or commit suicide. That said, do we blame someone who succumbs to cancer when they die? That somehow they failed at trying harder?

For some, depression is an episode or collection of episodes in life. For others, it's a chronic condition. He lived decades (from other accounts) with a chronic condition and succumbed to it.

Sometimes, toxic environments contribute and I don't want to suggest otherwise, but for those with chronic unipolar depression, it is a condition that people die of. It's sad, but so long as we understand that it's illness, we can get over the polemics.

I think that analogy brings up a good point. Does someone consciously choose to succumb to dying of cancer? And this probably evolves into a discussion about choices and free will.

I guess what I'm trying that isn't isolated to depression and mental illness. If you have asthma you use an inhaler, but you should probably not smoke.

If you have clinical depression there are medical ways to address that, but you probably should not put yourself in situations that will make that worse.

>Like the samurai guys, that have disgraced themselves and there is no way to go on without their honor. It is all in their head as expectations they have created.

It's not "all in their head". If they don't meet society's expectations of them, then society will treat them very negatively (probably making them an outcast, if not a prisoner, depending on what happened). People in that position, in that society, take that step because they really don't have any good alternatives: society has forced it on them.

This is somewhat like saying "it's all in their head" when someone facing a life prison sentence commits suicide. Prison is essentially torture, so it's entirely rational to commit suicide if you have precisely two choices, spend the rest of your life in prison or kill yourself.

This is true. There are some societies that are very strict and unforgiving and give people very few options. Make departing from societies expectations an options. Those expectations are in their collective head.

A person in prison is facing a real prison. The expectations society sets are not prison bars. But it harder to say that society has a fundamental problem with expectations.

> I see what you're getting at, but I think the reason that suicide is linked with mental illness is because it goes against our very nature as living beings.

This is not really correct. There is in fact an evolutionary advantage in depression leading to suicidal behaviour, and it can be found in animals as well.

The theory is that every member of a species generally consumes from the same pool of resouces. If one member deems himself as a non-contributor, it is better for the species as a whole if that individual perishes. I don't have any references right now but there are recorded instances of animals 'giving up' and refusing to feed and or care for theirselves, leading to death, usually after a series of unsuccesful mating seasons. It makes perfect sense from an evolutionary standpoint.

This explanation helped me significantly in being able to overcome certain emotions. It's not an 'illness', and there is nothing wrong with me. It's a natural thing, and I have the ability to resist it, just like I have the ability to resist other natural urges.

No expert here, but....

I think the impulse to suicide can arise in people of sound mind who are (or who feel) trapped by their circumstances and see no way out.

Job loss in late middle age combined with financial load (mortgage, kids in college, increasing medical costs) added to declining health and energy with which to meet life's challenges and maybe add in loss of spouse through divorce or illness - I can see how events could leave someone of sound mind feeling locked into a chronic path of decreasing rewards and agency, coupled with increasing stress and loss.

It's not clear to me that suicide is an irrational choice in such circumstances. It's certainly not the only choice, and it's terribly painful for those left behind, but I think it can be rationally chosen by someone who is not otherwise mentally ill.. No idea what proportion of suicides might be in that category.

> our very nature as living beings.

That might be true but another poster already debunked that apparently.

Regardless of the other living beings, you are too quick to dismiss the human side of things, specifically our complex minds and our irrationality regardless of mental fitness.

Does the primitive survival instinct kicks in when suiciding? Surely.

Can it be outweighed by every single bad instant that a person has lived and what they see coming down their way? I don't see why not, and probably more so if your mind isn't thinking rationally.

But I'd argue that none of us are completely rational and so at times even 'healthy' minds can do the unthinkable.

I believe our biggest gift - powerful brain, self awareness and other capabilities that contribute to making us unique; is also our biggest curse :

"What's my purpose?"

"Is there any meaning?"

"Why do all my relationships fail?"

"Do people really like me?"

And so on ...

-- My uneducated perspective.

"Mental illness" gives us all a safe little place to store the horror.