Choose to Reach Out For Help: That is Truly a Choice

Today's post is a philosophical look at suicide and life. I believe, in most instances, choosing the latter over the former even when in your bleakest, blackest moments is both the moral imperative and the choice people would make if they were feeling well. This is my opinion, but I believe there are good reasons to hold this belief. I hope the reader sees those too.

I am a great proponent of personal choice. I do not believe the State has any business interrupting a person's choice to do whatever it is they wish with their body and their life. As long as you are making your choice of your own freewill, and your choice is not harming another human being, or any sentient being, you should be able to do what you want in any given situation.

Your choosing to commit suicide may seem like it should be your choice. It is after all your body, and your life. In some instances, I believe it truly should be your choice. However, in many, probably most, instances suicide both is not a fully informed choice, nor is it one of those choices in life that harm no one else.

Even a Libertarian, those avid endorsers of freewill and choice, might agree. I suggest this because based on my initial criteria: "You have the right to choose any action as long as it is a choice based on freewill", and, "As long as it harms no other sentient being". Suicide as a valid, moral choice is limited by both.

Is suicide a choice based on freewill? I argue most times it is not. I say this in a moment of clarity, in a moment where suicidal thoughts are not floating through my mind enticing and often imploring me to end my life. Many times over the years (even a few days ago) I would have argued the opposite. When my brain is thinking clearly I can see living is important for so many reasons.

When I feel well, or even if I have brief remissions from my symptoms, I recognize my capacity to "choose" suicide is severely limited by my depression and its symptoms. It is not me who chooses to end my life. It is my illness.

I never plan or decide to commit suicide, or have suicidal ideation, or start pulling out all my hoarded meds, or plan to hang myself when I am thinking clearly. I do these things, think these thoughts, when my illness takes hold of my brain, when it renders me helpless and makes my life seem worthless and hopeless. When I believe suicide is a choice; when I believe I should be allowed to decide to die, I cannot truly choose because reason has left my mind and fear, sadness and desperation have taken over.

The scary thing is the thoughts and plans seem perfectly reasonable, and of my own freewill, at the time. It is only afterwards that I understand my capacity to choose has been impaired by my depression and my cycling mood. I cannot tell the difference between reason and false reason while in the midst of my suicidal sufferings. This is where I have learned to listen to my friends and my psychiatrist, Dr. X. I understand my brain is not "well". I need medication and therapy and extra support. I have learned that when my mind is moving, or stuck in this direction, I need external support and help. When depressed, mentally unwell, or thinking about and planning suicide I need to trust and accept an other's support and opinion.

What about the criteria of not harming another sentient being? The choice to commit suicide, actually the action of committing suicide, cannot fulfill this criteria either.

A very close friend's father committed suicide when my friend was 9 years old. He is 43 right now and he thinks of his father's suicide, is saddened by it, every single day of his life. His father's suicide led to a chain of events that may have been avoided had his father sought treatment and support rather than hang himself.

I won't go into details, but every single person in my friends family, and his family's life has been devastated by a choice his father made while his father was severely depressed. The sad thing is his Dad should have known he was not thinking clearly. His dad was a psychiatrist.

Even professionals who treat others with depression, or any mental illness, may lack the capacity to reason, to clearly choose, when it comes to their own suicidal thoughts, urges and actions. The thing is there are always people hurt and affected when a person commits suicide.

I know in my darkest moments I have sat down and written letters to my family, believing I could explain why I needed to go, and how they would eventually understand that my "choice" was best for us all. I have been so sick that I didn't care if I affected others; times where I kept thinking over and over again I just cannot take it anymore.

When I become less depressed I see how much my suicide would impact those I love. Even if I have no one, which in my depressive episodes has sometimes seemed the case, maybe my death would impact others I am not yet aware of, others who need me, or want me to live.

When depressed, or mentally ill the brain sometimes attempts to, and sadly too often succeeds at, telling us suicide is a choice; that it is the right choice, that it will not harm others. This is an illusion. The choice is not free, nor is it true others will be left unscathed.

Please, please, please...before you make a decision that is not really based on freewill and unbiased choice, a choice all too informed by depression, or an untreated/or undertreated mental illness; before you make a decision that will devastate the people you leave behind (and it will) please seek help.

There are family doctors, therapists, social workers, nurses and psychiatrist who really care about people struggling like we do. I know because I have a psychiatrist who makes my worst days survivable and sometimes even worthwhile because I am able to learn something about myself and others.

Please seek help. Every human being deserves to want to live, to have the option to live, and to build there sad or difficult life into a life that is worthy of their beautiful selves.