http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5eIC...eature=related

David

Hello, Waves: Thanks for your comments, penetrating as always -- waves are that, to say the least.

Regarding the burning towers: If I understand you correctly, your basic position is that suicide "is intentionally causing one's own death. FOR WHATEVER REASON." Now, the objective fact is that the 200 people who leaped, caused their own death from impact. If I accept your position, the REASON they did so doesn't make a bit of difference; that they thought they "might" land on a haytruck, etc., then, is irrelvant. FOR WHATEVER REASON... That includes running away from death, etc. Something follows: those people, in causing their own death for whatever reason, committed suicide. I disagree.

I think there are occasions when circumstances trump intentions. Of those 200, I am sure that at least one previously thought about opening the window and jumping. Let's say one of them arrived at work on 9/11 with the INTENTION of leaping to his death. He actually goes to the window, unlocks it when ... the airplane hits. The fire builds; co-workers are leaping to their deaths. The person then thinks: ah yes, now I can go through with it, and nobody will ever know that I committed suicide. He then opens the window, leaps.

Question: did that man commit suicide? He certainly had the INTENTION of doing so, which none (presumably) of the other 200 had.

If you believe that the 200 committed suicide, then the answer is simple: yes, he committed suicide. However, if you think they did NOT commit suicide, that they were murdered, then what is the status of that man? He performed the same act as the others; however, his intention was different.

I would suggest that the circumstances were so overwhelming, that his intention DOESN'T MATTER. He, too -- even if he broadcast his wish to commit suicide seconds before he leaped -- did not commit suicide. This point is of course fiercely debatable. And even if somebody agrees with me, what is meant by "overwhelming"? Where are the dividing lines?

So, I agree with you that under certain conditions, REASONS and INTENTIONS don't count. However, I score it the other way, i.e., certain circumstances exist which are the overriding factor so as to exclude suicide. Question: is an incurable, debilitating disease one of those circumstances? Once more, where are the lines to be drawn?

You are right, Waves, I abhor suicide. As I wrote elsewhere, to think that ANYBODY is driven to that point, well, I regard that as atrocious. That thought, by the way, entered my head a year ago when I was walking back and forth to the woods near my house, making plans, making sure I had enough pills and water, making sure nobody was watching, and so forth. "I can think of no more degrading act": such was my thought seconds before I performed it. So, then, why do it?

Now comes the "however." I was watchng my health deteriorate without any hope of curing it; I figured that soon I would not be in a condition even to exercise my "last right" (what words: look at them again) of getting it over with. Such was the situation of my mother in a nursing home; she hated every minute of it, for almost 4 years. Well, I'm still here, a year later, so my timing was off; however, I see no cure and I can now no longer even take that 20 minute walk to the woods.

The long and short of it: if I "take the long way home" as the song says -- it will not be voluntary, LET ME ASSURE YOU. Every step will weigh 2,000 pounds. In fact, I love life, which is what -- as you correctly perceived -- makes "suicide," "taking your own life," whatever you or I want to call it -- so extraordinarily difficult. At this point, the burden of life -- and everything now, even the smallest act, feels like a burden (which makes me a burden to others) -- is just too much. I, who put in thousands of hours in a gym over a 13-year period to avoid this condition, well, here I am.

You ask, why does it matter if what I'm contemplating is called "suicide" or "taking my own life"? Most of my concern over what is and is not suicide came from the following incident: my elderly aunt, who was in good health, was in a car wreck with her husband. My brother and I flew out to see them. They were in need of an assisted living arrangement until they got better. We went to see them in the morning to tell them we were going to find a place for them. I will never forget the angelic look on my aunt's face: she kept asking us, "Are you O.K.? Is everything all right?" We went to make the rounds when, a few hours later, we got the call that she had died from a heart attack. That happened in 1990; well, I set for myself the goal of having that SUPREMELY contented look on my face when my times comes. If you commit suicide, I don't see how you can have it. I certainly didn't when I took two glasses of wine and a box of Stilnox. If you do something else other than suicide, well, maybe it's possible. I'm not sure.

Waves, may your tide always be high, as are your thoughts, your attitude.

Tom

a giant

NO

i think i even said that in my post. i was explicit. those people were running AWAY from death, not towards it. they did NOT commit suicide. they did not choose their own death. they did not jump onto a pavement. i don't believe they contemplated that. i believe they jumped OUT OF a burning building. they moved AWAY FROM death. if any intention at all was present, it was NOT to die... the OPPOSITE of suicide!!!! and i already said so!!!

instinct... i think that PANIC and panic-induced-adrenalined best explains their behavior.... panic that results from the instinct of life-preservation, not escape from PAIN, but escape from DEATH!!!!

i said, IFFF,, hello???? IFFFFF. and my premise before that was

my words have been (inadvertently?) misconstrued.



~ waves ~

Tom, it sounds to me like you have just told us that you do not want to commit suicide.

Again, i will say it till i turn blue in the face (NOOOO pun intended... oh dear, arghhh! ), the fact that you are trying to separate "taking your own life" from "suicide" using semantics is not something we can tackle. oh, we can try, for the sake of all the depressed readers on this forum who may be seduced by the the thought that they can just slap another label on asphyxiating themselves in a garage and make it "ok" ...

but we can't convince you. the point is... why are you trying to convince others? do you want to to give others permission to kill themselves too?

do you want our permission to kill yourself? we will never give it...

do you want your own permission... ahhh, now i think this is more likely. i think this is about your own permission....... you need to argue it, every argument we make against your "auto-euthanasiac" theory, you can counter with some better-or-worse constructed reasoning.... and you are building a house of cards... you are making a costume.

you are dressing up suicide... paving your psychological landscape to feel OK with committing suicide... because you will have justified calling it something OTHER than the label you so abhor.

Tom please treasure the life in you.

please treasure that life, even in pain, even in suffering.... IS. it IS, it CONTINUES, it DOES, it ACTS, it BECOMES, whereas death ... isn't, doesn't, can't.

i have met people on these forums, one in particular comes to mind, who live in daily, constant, excruciating pain... a beautiful beautiful person... her writings bring light to my days. she could easily, easily, apply the reasoning you are... i so pray she does not... she is a gift to the world... she may never know it... but she is... as are you.

~ waves ~

Hello, Waves: Thanks for your comment. Sorry if your basic conclusion was misconstrued on my part. You did state specifically that you didn't think the 200 committed suicide.

However, I think I located the source of my confusion...

First, I will note here again the medical dictionary definition of "suicide": "The act of causing one's own death." No doubt about it: the act of falling from the height of those Twin Towers windows caused deaths, and if autopsies were performed, that was surely the conclusion. Therefore, if somebody strickly holds to the dictionary definition, the 200 people who leaped out windows committed suicide. Again, such is not your argument (mine either).

Waves, you note, "i believe the medical dictionary is accurate, missing only the word 'intention' - suicide is intentionally causing one's own death. FOR WHATEVER REASON." Intention and reason: these are often the same thing; there's the source of confusion.

You make a needed nuance: the 200 people, when they jumped, did not intend to cause their own death; in fact, you say, they were trying to avoid death (by fire). Therefore, they did not commit suicide. I'm not convinced you are right about a clearcut intention to escape death; I suspect that you would probably find 200 different intentions/mixtures of them if you could interview those people. Some of them, in a panic, did want to escape death -- you are no doubt right about that --, but others intended to die instantaneously rather than suffocate slowly.

My point is that in such an extreme case, CIRCUMSTANCES TRUMP INTENTIONS -- it doesn't matter what the intentions were. Even if one of those people was overjoyed with the fire because it gave him the excuse to commit suicide and not shame his family -- it doesn't matter; the circumstances overwhelmed everything else. EVEN GIVEN HIS INTENTION to cause his own death that fateful day, that person, in my opinion, in jumping, did not commit suicide.

With 9/11 we're looking at an extreme case. What about the 90-year-old woman dying of cancer, debilitated and in pain? Are those circumstances overwhelming? Moreover, what if she is religious and believes she will go to heaven after she dies? She then intentionally, voluntarily, decides to take a lethal dose, then dies. Question: did she commit suicide? Her intention is NOT to die but to live on in the afterlife. She escapes life in order to live: life after life -- such is her perspective, her intention. Again, did she commit suicide? We're in a complex area.

As a side note, apparently the suicide bombers don't think they will die --- not really; they expect to live in the afterlife. Despite their intention to live in paradise, I got a feeling they commit suicide -- that they are appropriately named. Maybe, I am culture-bound in that regard.

Waves, I like your distinction between intention and reason when it comes to suicide. I have the feeling it is a fruitful area to investigate further. I hope we can do it together.

Again, I am sorry for any confusion or misunderstanding I created.

Waves, keep rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river. And elsewhere.

Tom

Hello, Waves: Thanks for your latest contribution.

What I'm trying to do here is create a legacy that is NOT destructive to my nieces and nephews and brother. "Why?" "What if?" I'd like to answer those questions if I can for them, as well as for anybody else facing certain dilemmas.

No, I am not seeking your permission. It would be completely against the spirit of this string, "Survivors of suicide," for you or any other member to grant such a permission (It may be illegal to do so, by the way, I'm not sure). Nor do I seek anybody else's permission, for that matter, other than -- as you correctly note -- myself. Which may be the most difficult person to get it from.

No, I am not encouraging depressed people to dress up their desire to kill themselves with frosty logic, detailed arguments, etc. "It's O.K. to kill yourself; just don't forget to call it something else" -- well, such is not my position. I am hoping that somebody desiring to take their life will read my words, your words, everybody's words, think and talk about what they are considering, then think about it some more. My basic point to them, if I could talk to them: this whole suicide thing is not as simple and clearcut as it first appears. In taking your own life, what would you be doing -- really?

What is suicide? 9/11 forced me to reconsider what should be a fairly straightforward question. I'm trying to work through it, in all its dimensions. It started me thinking that the medical dictionary definition -- which seems to be the conventionally excepted one -- is flawed. There's something that doesn'r ring true about it.

Finally, you state eloquently, "please treasure that life, even in pain, even in suffering.... IS. it IS, it CONTINUES, it DOES, it ACTS, it BECOMES, whereas death ... isn't, doesn't, can't." In life, there is definitely "something there." In death, MAYBE there is, maybe there isn't, something there. (I suspect there isn't, but that's another subject).

Until the next wave, Waves:

Tom

may i humbly suggest to you that whether you call it

suicide - euthanasia - self-mercy - gobbledygook

the legacy it will leave them will have the same bitter taste...

a rose by any other name...

likewise, suicide, by any other name....

i have stated my impressions of the 9/11 tragedy. we agree that those folks didn't commit suicide. we don't seem to agree on why, that is alright.

i shan't further contemplate cases of 90 year old terminally ill women or folks trapped in a building or other hypothetical cases as a means to drawing lines through suicide to make it more acceptable in this case or that.

the person in consideration here, Tom, is you. your case. it is not comparable to other cases. and i will not parttake, by distinction or by simile in furthering your attempts to label taking your own life as something more palatable than suicide.

call me a stick in the mud, but i am stuck on the idea that you are clamouring to convince yourself that killing yourself is "ok" ... the label applied to it being the chosen means to making it ok, no more, no less, and not just for your survivors, but for yourself.

yes. and please consider the spirit of this string in a broader sense too in your quest to make what you are wanting to do "ok."

some of us here have survived the suicide of ones we loved.

some of us here are struggling to survive the very recent suicide of ones we loved.

some of us have survived our own suicidal lure... never sure if it might not lurk again in future....

some of us are currently, actively, moment after aching moment, trying to survive the suicidal lure.

the suicidal lure begs, pleads, for rationalizations.... and will latch on to any logic that is convenient...........................

it is difficult to survive the suicidal lure.

rationalizations are just as or more seductive for 20 year old kids with a pistol in the closet, as they are for 90 year old women with terminal illnesses .... neither of whom deserves to die just because the have numbers and statistics of a certain kind, both of whom have intrinsic value. ....as do you, Tom, i shall say again.

you have an incredible intellect.... i am sad to see its current bent in justifying an untimely demise.

~ waves ~

I can totally relate to where you're at. For 12 years I have been plagued with chronic back pain and it just keeps getting worse. Unable to obtain a clear diagnostic picture and hence treatment, I am fighting off suicidal thoughts all of the time. I will be 50 in December. I feel like giving up. I have a great wife and 20 year old twins. They are the only thing keeping me from going through with it. At least I now found this forum where I can talk to others who are capable of genuine empathy. So, you are in good company here I think...

Dear Tom

Your recent and progressive struggle with a debilitating and incurable condition
is heartfelt, saddening, distressing, and soul destroying to you....and also to those who heard your message via cyberspace....

You are a special person Tom...in so that you have made me reveal more about myself in 5 days or so than anyone else....and i have been floating around here four about 3 years

I have tried...to convey my belief that suicide is an act of desperation....a means, to end of pain and physical and/or emotional torment.... at times it it is a cry for help, at times a 'F***' you to the world....at times a 'I told you i was ill',
at times its enduring everlasting pain. Suicide knows no boundaries.....it manifests itself....when all the ingredients are in the pot......what ever the ingredients might be......

it shows no regard for age, gender, colour, religion, sexuality, intelligence, social economic status. The lure of suicide needs only circumstances to arise that tip an individual over the edge....where death is preferable to life.............

TRUTH TIME..........[SUCKING UP AIR HERE]

My Father was born in 1922....he died in 1996 aged 74.

He was born in Londonderry Northern Ireland......he forged his aged in 1939...so as to join the British Army [although a Catholic] to escape poverty..He was the eldest of 14 children.

He joined the Medical Corps. [17] In 1940 he was assigned to the Dunkirk evacuation....as his first combat mission

He landed on 6 June 1944 he landed at Sword beach....and was now classed a Mortuarer [dealing with the deceased]

His subsequent journey took him through Cannes [France Major battle] Nijmegen bridge [Holland..the not so famous bridge, but fierce battle] and Bergan-Belsen Concentration Camp.........[Germany]

The latter expedition was greeted by 60,000 dead and dying human beings.
[My father carried a tooth with him in his wallet for 50+years ..that of a man who snapped it out of his jaw in thanks for liberation..........more of a F*** you to the Nazis who extracted Gold teeth from their captives.]

My Father continued in the Army until 1950...........he was dishonorably discharged as medically unfit for duty.....because he questioned his posting to Korea.....because he had by then 4 young children,,,[and Army housing only counted if you were in England....therefore my Mother and siblings would have no home]..........his insubordination's was treated with contempt....they were marched out of barrack housing in 4 hours from discharge....utter humiliation.

Upon civilian life my father was a Singer a Coal Miner...a Security Guard......
He was an Alcoholic......and for all my childhood years i recall nightly screaming from his room [he slept alone] from night terrors..............

I am the youngest of 9 children ....................my second eldest a sister.........told me whilst on leave from the Royal Navy 1981 [aged 17] that my FATHER raped her and my eldest sister............................................ .............................


I held that in my head until 1992.....................then upon the knowing i was to become a Father i exploded.............and asked my parents for the truth.................................

it was all denied...............even by the elder sister........

the sister who told me..................has been in a secure residential home since 1998 when her third husband [a wife beater] died of Cancer....she believed she had killed him......her true diagnosis is Alcohol induced schizophrenia....90% of the time she is in a catatonic state............with fleeting moments of her past........no present...at all .................dimentia..........at 60 years old


I can only accept in what my parents and elder siblings say to be the truth..........and i struggle for the truth daily...........i loved my Father......and my Sister .........greatly......[the two who always really cared about me........]

My Father like i said died of Stomach Cancer...............in 1996...........he was brought up in destitution and absolute poverty...........his schooling was governed by Catholic Priests..........who taught hell....and brimstone.....wrath and damnation..........


He had a 5inch scar above hi right eye where a priest.......hit him with a wooden cane.....................for not wearing shoes to mass [his father had pawned them for food]


He feared death from an early age..........the horrors of war that tormented...fifty years of sleep.......that he only discussed in 1995 with British Army Doctors.........who only then acknowledged he was suffering WAR STRESS //+ PTSD.............SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

On his Birthday 12/4/96 he was diagnosed with stomach Cancer and told he had three months to live............

I remember being in my parents house when a priest came to visit from the hospice.........My dad spent 2 hours telling jokes............

The priest upon leaving.....stated to me ..my Father was coping very well..........

I went ballistic..........................I asked the priest if he had ever spoken to my Father about his debilitating fear of death.......and fear.........of hell..as proclaimed by his teachers in 1932...........

He looked shocked...........when i told him talk to my father and resolve his peace on this earth.........or never come to this house again.............

thankfully after i returned home this priest came to my parents home..........and cast aside the jokes..and dragged out my fathers fears.....giving him some peace of mind................

he died 21/6/1996/////////////the longest day.............[and always will be]

I will never know if my FATHER was not the hero i remember.........i can only accept his , my mothers and siblings denial of untoward..............

But if any man had a reason to take his life.....my father had one.[maybe several] .maybe fear of the assumed afterlife prevented.........his personal intervention on the timing of his death.............................and he allowed creation to decide ..................................



MY FATHER WAS THE ONLY PERSON TO CONTACT ME AFTER MY ATTEMPTED SUICIDE .............HE JUST SAID .........................' SON LEARN TO LIVE LIFE'.................NO CHASTISEMENT...ONLY ...........................LOVE...................
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWuBS...eature=related


PLAYED AT HIS FUNERAL...............WHERE NO ONE WAS ALLOWED TO SAY EULOGY?????????????????????????????????????????


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwCPAo5e_F8

and my fears................continue..................... ...............


David

.....the details of that day will no doubt be a focal discussion across our country....and since it has been brought up repeatedly in this very heavy, yet respectable debate regarding those 200 who jumped......

I can't help myself and felt compelled to post.......(believe me, it took a lot of balls to do this, as I am usually afraid to show up on this very sensitive forum - for fear of coming across as insensitive ..... with my 'silly' avatar, and the fact that I enjoy spreading humor and 'stupidity' around the other forums in trying to spread a bit of joy...of which I don't feel appropriate for the SOS forum...) .....

But my heart is pounding and so I'm going to go out on a limb here.....

I tried to put myself in the shoes of those people on that horrific day at the towers. Waves has repeatedly said exactly what I want to say and Tom continues to have a counter-intuitive retort to this scenerio, even to going to extent of painting a scenerio of 'that ONE man' who may have been suicidal, ready to jump out a window and used that as his 'perfect opportunity' to carry out his plan.....

When i did the best i could at my attempt to 'put myself at that scene'....and try to actually 'smell' those aero-jet toxic fumes in the thro's of incineration that would FAR excede any 'regular' building on fire......probably zero visibility at that point, choking for every last breath that could be had.......they certainly would not have had the capacity to actually contemplate 'hmmm, let me assess my situation here......I'm going to die......which choice would be the most logical of the two that I am faced with here........should i sit here and die in these flames and smoke......or should I jump out the window and land on the concrete......'
Think about it. There WAS no time to rationalize. Panic was rampant.
Those people were probably taking their last final gasps at that horrible smoke inhalated moment of DEATH.......I would strongly venture to say, in considering the scenerio.......the ONLY choice they had at that moment, the ONLY last ditch effort they had - was to know that they could gasp at ONE LAST breath of air to save themselves from choking on the smoke and flames.....they took that leap out of desperation to LIVE and attempt to breath in that air that was outside those windows.
And I can't even begin to try and speculate what could possibly have been going thru their minds on the way down as they fell to the ground. Perhaps their eyes were blinded by the smoke and if they even were capable of rationalizing anything, perhaps in their blind leap, they hoped that the firefighters were waiting below with those huge round things that look like trampolines..... ?...... i doubt they had any clue that they were the victims of the worst terrorist attack on American ground.......and am certain they had NO clue that hundreds of firefighters were dying at that moment in time as well.

Ok, I'll butt out now......this is a very interesting and intellectual discussion by the way.......aLOT of people are reading this I'm sure.
....perhaps a family member or two of those 200 people will come across this thread....?....
I feel very strongly that the word 'suicide' and those 200 people should not even be in the same sentence.

Do carry on......
....hopefully without continually centering in on those 200.

Tom, you are a very colourful man. It's a pleasure having you share
Glad you're here
Rae