I wonder why more people don't opt to do it in a less messy way. I always figured that if I was going to Do the Deed, I would arrange it so that I was on a tarp, had a sufficient backstop so that I didn't hit any innocent bystanders, etc.

Of course, that sort of thinking might be exactly why I'll never commit suicide.

Yeah, that is a scary title. And it wouldn't matter if a person left a 100-page, point-by-point list of reasons, the survivors (family & friends) will still be wondering why, and what-if.

"Still, I wish I could've been there to help in some way. Maybe just to listen or lend a shoulder to cry on. To try to point out some small sliver of silver lining they might not have thought of. To keep them from feeling so damned alone."

You probably do this every day. You probably hold a door open and say good morning to a coworker, you help a kid lauch a rocket, you take an interest in a sullen teen friend of your daughter. You never know which person out there is in desperate need of a kind gesture, and sometimes the smallest act from a stranger can have a big impact.

I've also been thinking about why people kill themselves lately, as did Iris Chang, author of the Nanking Massacre. Regrettably, she did more than think about it. It is, probably all the time, a very selfish act.

To keep them from feeling so damned alone.

That's the msster's choice, in't it? To selflessly go where s/he wont go alone...?

I've come to believe that some people choose suicide (i.e.: die of lonliness) because they are tragically chronically lonesome. But also that they are distraught. Not just from lonliness, but from Life itself.

As hard as it is to try to put ourselves into the head of someone who actually goes and does it, it's even harder to understand what true lonliness even is.

Even when we're most alone we are never apart from our imagination. To feel so alone that he'd wanna just end it all probably means that he was in a state of mind that we will hopefully never completely understand.

I don't think of suicide as a selfish act but as an act of profound surrender. Selfish acts you do for your own best interests. Surrender you do for nothing.

The thought crosses my mind all the time now. Mom's got a bit of a suicidal streak herself, and I've yelled at her for years about it, telling her that's just great, and gee thanks for not considering what that would do to me. But I've been so despondent lately that I've found myself realizing how very easy it would be to plow the car off a bridge or into a landfill somewhere. And I hate having those thoughts because I still have a lot of people I haven't sufficiently pissed off enough to say I led a fulfilling life. ;) If I can't change the world, then damn it, I need to make certain people wish they were dead when they see me rise to be successful again!

From someone that is completely and utterly despondent and suicidal....I actually believe that I would be doing those around me a favor (that they won't see) by killing myself. See, if I am not around to do damage to them because I am so angry, lonely, full of self hate and worthlessness then they will be better off. Until you have starved, you can not contemplate the feeling. Until you have been abused you can not contemplate the affect and the destruction. Until you have been abandoned, you can not know the lonliness...and I am not talking about some teenage love where I was left. I am talking about being abandoned as a child and some how being overlooked over and over and being abused over and over....knowing in one part of my brain that I am not worthless, but not being able to own it because the actions of others speak louder than words.....Don't tell me I am being selfish because I am the poison in the pond killing the fish.