Subtleties of Suicide / Self-harm

[emily47017]

hey there, moderators: i don’t intend this thread to be a counseling session for anyone actively considering suicide. it could instead be about where suicidal thoughts come from, what factors of mental illness or a person’s situation could be exculpatory (or not), and an opportunity to share experiences. is that okay?

anyone else here thought about or attempted suicide? anyone have a loved one who committed suicide?

i made an attempt when i was 21, and suffering from undiagnosed and untreated depression. it was weird, because i knew i was depressed, i knew i was loved, and i knew i could get help if i wanted… but i chose death instead. what’s up with that? does that constitute full knowledge and deliberate consent?

also, 8 years later my diagnosis was expanded to include obsessive-compulsive disorder, because even though i didn’t want to hurt myself anymore, i couldn’t get the thoughts out of my head – thoughts about methods, timing, logistics, do i kill the dog too, do i write a note, do i try to avoid making a mess… gah! these were totally irrational thoughts that were coming unbidden and couldn’t be inturrupted.

anyone else have experiences to share?

(and for gosh’s sake, if you’re actively considering suicide, get off the computer and call 1-800-SUICIDE)

here’s the relevant catechism:

Suicide

2280
Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.

2281
Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.

2282
If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.

Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.

2283
We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.

 

[Church_Militant]

Good post Em!

So many of us at some point in our lives have considered suicide that it’s worth knowing the real position of the Church on it.

I have heard many n-Cs make statements to the effect that a suicide is damned for self murder, but search as I might, I have never found a scripture to support that and so I reject it an rejoice in the compassion and love that the Catholic Church offers to those who have or do suffer with such temptations, as well as the families of those who lose their fight with it.

One of my favorite prayers that certainly can apply to this temptation is the St. Michael prayer.

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle;
be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray.
And do thou, O prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God thrust into hell Satan
and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

 

[siouxbhoney]

I used to work as a receptionist in a mental health clinic, and ALL of the counselors told me that they felt that people who committed suicide really felt like there was no other choice open to them. They told me that clients had told them that they didn’t neccesarily want to die, they just didn’t see any other options. The counselors felt like it was their job to show all the other options open to people besides killing themselves. It was described to me as intense tunnel vision.

 

[sncmusic22]

hi!!
does some one know of a online group for support, in case you have attempted suicide. I need to find catholic support for my own problem with this situation, and would love advises and or prayers! thanks

mail: sncmusic22@gmail.com

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Suicidal thoughts and/or depression come from an altered state of consciousness where all seems hopeless - there appears to be no way out of the situation that has become too painful to bear. These are false perceptions and signs of illness present and are treatable but do ask medical/professional help of some kind as clearly such people are ill, unwell. The very nature of depression and depressive thinking is to alter one’s concepts and perceptions of reality into a distorted state.

As for Hell and damnation, mortal sin, in the case of suicide or suicide attempts - we need to remember that three clear conditions are needed at the one and the same time for a matter to be mortally sinful. Certainly in the case of those deeply depressed and even suicidal the third condition (perhpas even the second) comes into play which will mitigates dramatically the seriousness of the sin, if indeed there is any sin at all.

Catholic Catechism

1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart133 do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin. 1860 Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man.

The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders.

Sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest.

[2282](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/2282.htm’) If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.

Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.

[2283](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/2283.htm’)

We*** should not despair***

of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.

 

[ForwardProgress]

I’m really surprised that the Church did a 180 on how Suicides are handled…they used to not allow a Christian burial, and pretty much said those that committed suicide would be in Hell. How sad that must have been for parents of kids that did this. It really hurts my own feelings that the Church I know and love used to preach this as fact.

What else will the Church 180 on…?

 

[BarbaraTherese]

I’m really surprised that the Church did a 180 on how Suicides are handled…they used to not allow a Christian burial, and pretty much said those that committed suicide would be in Hell. How sad that must have been for parents of kids that did this. It really hurts my own feelings that the Church I know and love used to preach this as fact.

What else will the Church 180 on…?

Catholicism in part is the search for truth. I can rejoice in what The Church does do a 180 on as this means that She is not afraid to say She has been wrong and amend things in the interests of truth. In our modern day the concept of God’s Mercy has been broadened to approach what to us is more like “limitless and all powerful” - this and our insight into psychology and hence the nature of mortal sin and conditions for have all altered the Church’s teaching on suicide. We now have deeper insight into God’s desire that all should be saved without exemption.
Be that as it may, I too sorrow over those that are hurt and perhaps very deeply, even unrepairably, by times when The Church has been very much in the wrong.

Barb

 

[Beautiful]

My abnormal psychology class taught that kamikaze pilots and religious martyrs equally qualify as suicides. I found this to be very ….irritating.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is published by the American Psychiatric Association. Do we use classifications and standards from the APA or does the Catholic Church have standards of its own? I have read miscellaneous conjectures from various spiritual books over the years. This amounts to little for me. I’m not familiar with any but there must be some really good reference books on the topic.

I have no personal point of reference for the OP. I would be interested though to hear what others have to share. I think one would not have to go too far to read about hopelessness. Reading daily accounts of assisted suicide and accounts of those trying to legalize it would be a good starting point.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Reading daily accounts of assisted suicide and accounts of those trying to legalize it would be a good starting point.

One really good argument against legalization of assisted suicide that is devoid of emotionalism and religious-type arguments…and an argument that is quite logically sound…is that if assisted suicide were legal the elderly may be tempted to take up the option only because they fear being a burden on others in times of illness. Hence the law would not protect the weak, rather it could bring harm to them and compromise the elderly (especially) into actions that they do not really want to do.

Barb

 

[Henning]

these were totally irrational thoughts that were coming unbidden and couldn’t be inturrupted.

anyone else have experiences to share?

Thoughts in form of poem of a person contemplating suicide

Suicide
© By Renee L. Bacon

Life is never good for me and this is what I wish you’d see.
Just let me end it all for I’ll be happy in the end, I’ll finally be free.

Free from all the pain and torment and the never ending battle.
No more dealing with the arguments and tears, I’d finally be through with it all.

You just don’t seem to understand that by keeping me here your making it worse.
If I were dead and gone by now I’d be happy, I wouldn’t have this life, I wouldn’t have the curse.

I’m already considering doing this even without your consent.
I know for sure that once its all over with my heart will finally be content.

So here I am just sitting there, on my bed with a knife to my wrist.
Please everyone don’t be upset, please don’t be pissed.

You just need to know I love you all but couldn’t handle it anymore.
Ok here I go, I’m doing this for sure.

You just need to let me go to heaven now, hopefully God will understand and accept this.
Just tell my baby I love him and I’m sorry I couldn’t give him one last kiss.

Tell everyone I love them and that I’m sorry I had to go so soon and leave them all behind.
But I just needed to end it all and start a new life so happiness I could find.

These are the last words I’ll ever be writing down.
I know they are harsh but don’t worry, rest your head, be at ease, don’t make a sound.

Know that I love you and always have but I need to think of me right now and so I said goodbye.
Be happy without me and know that I’m somewhere good, somewhere up high.

I just hope your not crying, I want you to know everything will be ok.
I’ll be watching over you and listening to what you have to say.

Just have patience, wait till the day, and I’ll see you up here in heaven and we can be together.
Except this time things will be better and you’ll see me happy, always and forever.

So stop your weeping and know this was the best thing for me
It was my time to go, your time to set me free.

 

[Beautiful]

The following is more than a conjecture from one of the books on my shelf.

The main difference between losing God and losing a substitution for God is that you can always get back God again. He has given you a Sacrament, the Sacrament of Penance, for just this purpose. Judas need never have hanged himself. Peter betrayed Christ as well. But if you have put your own little gods on pedestals there is no guarantee that you can erect them if once they fall. You must pay the penalty for your mental gymnastics. Your mind has been built upon the pattern of the mind of Christ. It is satisfied only with ultimate values. You have converted these by psychological trickery in ersatz values, and you must cherish these as you should have cherished your Final End. You are now moving in a closed system which excludes a spiritual dimension. From it are rigorously excluded grace, miracles, supernatural charity and union with God. In your closed system you are minus the integrating power of Sacraments. Hence you must look for solidity not within but without. In your pantheon the dull little gods must be tight on their pedestals.

The stock-market must rise; the atoms split; the picture be painted; the wage-rise be obtained; the divorce go through; the degree be won. For now we worship at the shrine of money; adore the case of science; pray in the studio; offer incense to the boss; immolate ourselves for the other woman/man; walk in the temple of learning. We are loving these things with the power of love which God gave us and which can be satisfied only by Him. We have invested things with a magic they never had. We have defined the end of man as a big income bracket or the perfect man/woman. We blame these when we should blame ourselves. For things promise us nothing. The mind invested them with qualities they never even laid claim to. They are outside us and cannot either be really possessed or, more to the point, posses us. The spirit desires possession within. Only God can do that. Thus do the Baals begin to totter on their pedestals. They are in competition with God who made us for Himself. They are too sharply defined for our limitless desiring.

And now – if the lover shakes us free, if the thesis is rejected, if the market falls, if we lose our millennium, or fail in the party, or the academy sends the picture back – who is to put the broken god back on its pedestal? No one. We are dead and there is no resurrection. If we are still in doubt a careful reading of the weekly suicides in one of the lower Sunday papers can convince us.

It calls for less effort to be lost than to be saved. That is one of the effects of original sin. But it still remains that the Last End can only be lost by determination, self-deception and persistence. There must be a complete material conversion of our spiritual energy and a steady blotting out of the voice of the salvific will of God. If we finally lose the final End we lose it because we obstinately wan to, like a starving child obstinately sucking sweets to the end. In the end it must be Paradise or Atlantis or objectively, God or Mammon.

~Alan Keenan O.F.M. ~

 

[Beautiful]

Barb

Compassion & Choices advocates assisted suicide. Here is a link to a number of stories written by people soliciting legally assisted suicides. compassionandchoices.org/aboutus/stories.php

 

[dove51]

Suicide’s a touchy topic for me. My dad committed suicide shortly after my eleventh birthday. We’re not sure why. We think he was depressed or bipolar, and some personal problems made things rough in his last few years. It really changed me into a very different person. In some ways I think it helped me mature and see the value of life, but it has pretty much ruined my relationships with other people. I find it difficult to trust men. Anyway, I don’t think I could make another person go through what I did. It would just be very selfish on my part. But I have a very happy, easy life right now and it’s hard to imagine feeling so hopeless as to kill myself.

 

[puzzleannie]

I’m really surprised that the Church did a 180 on how Suicides are handled…they used to not allow a Christian burial, and pretty much said those that committed suicide would be in Hell. How sad that must have been for parents of kids that did this. It really hurts my own feelings that the Church I know and love used to preach this as fact.

What else will the Church 180 on…?

the Church in those days operated on the best “scientific” knowledge available on the matter of suicide. Since our knowledge of the causes and circumstances surrounding suicide is much better, so is the Church’s response. An analogy would be when life begins. Science taught in the middle ages that life began at quickening, so Church teaching reflected that. As our medical knowledge of embryology has improved, Church teaching has changed to reflect the fact that life begins at or closely following conception, and so we err on the side that gives greatest protection to life.

 

[erinelf88]

I read through this thread, and I’m impressed- the responses to this, scientific and spiritual, are impressive, and they make me proud to be a part of this forum, at least in a small way.

I’m a part of Catholic Student Outreach at my university, and this came up in one of our discussions. One girl tried to argue that suicides DO know exactly what they’re doing and what their options are. She shut up rather quickly when I told her some of the more intimate details of my through process the number of times I attempted suicide in junior high and high school.

When someone has depression, there is a chemical imbalance in their brain that keeps them from functioning properly. It causes things like fatigue, nausea, and physical pain, aside from the obvious emotional component. It is NOT something that can simply be willed away.

I am a logical person. I stand by reason, and reason is the basis for my faith- I came to the conclusion after much research that Catholicism is the most reasonable faith. But I tell you, when I am in the worst of my depression, NO logic will get me to change my mind. No amount of reasoning will get me to stop hurting myself. It really is extreme tunnel vision, in that you cannot see any other way out- physically, your brain is malfunctioning such that you can’t will yourself out of it.

I’m thankful, incredibly thankful, that I have a group of friends and family who know me well enough to notice when something is beginning to go wrong, when my serotonin levels start dropping. They are able to confront me and get me help- but not everyone has been blessed like I have. I hope everyone who reads this will reach out and get help for themselves or someone else- if you think someone you know is contemplating suicide, don’t wait to act on it. Even telling someone else, closer to the person you’re concerned about, can help.

 

[BayernAnhaenger]

Thoughts in form of poem of a person contemplating suicide

Suicide
© By Renee L. Bacon

Life is never good for me and this is what I wish you’d see.
Just let me end it all for I’ll be happy in the end, I’ll finally be free.

Free from all the pain and torment and the never ending battle.
No more dealing with the arguments and tears, I’d finally be through with it all.

You just don’t seem to understand that by keeping me here your making it worse.
If I were dead and gone by now I’d be happy, I wouldn’t have this life, I wouldn’t have the curse.

I’m already considering doing this even without your consent.
I know for sure that once its all over with my heart will finally be content.

So here I am just sitting there, on my bed with a knife to my wrist.
Please everyone don’t be upset, please don’t be pissed.

You just need to know I love you all but couldn’t handle it anymore.
Ok here I go, I’m doing this for sure.

You just need to let me go to heaven now, hopefully God will understand and accept this.
Just tell my baby I love him and I’m sorry I couldn’t give him one last kiss.

Tell everyone I love them and that I’m sorry I had to go so soon and leave them all behind.
But I just needed to end it all and start a new life so happiness I could find.

These are the last words I’ll ever be writing down.
I know they are harsh but don’t worry, rest your head, be at ease, don’t make a sound.

Know that I love you and always have but I need to think of me right now and so I said goodbye.
Be happy without me and know that I’m somewhere good, somewhere up high.

I just hope your not crying, I want you to know everything will be ok.
I’ll be watching over you and listening to what you have to say.

Just have patience, wait till the day, and I’ll see you up here in heaven and we can be together.
Except this time things will be better and you’ll see me happy, always and forever.

So stop your weeping and know this was the best thing for me
It was my time to go, your time to set me free.

Not to you in particular, but in general, I find suicide to be the most selfish act a person can commit.

My dad works with a lady whose sister committed suicide. She had a husband and child (or just a child, I forget which).
The child found the body of the mother after she killed herself.

Now the child is being raised by my dad’s coworker. Her feelings toward her sister are none of the loving sort. They are very negative, because she had a child and husband to care for/live with.

People, in discussions, seem to always forget about those whom they will affect. Sure, it may be easy to say “Everything will be ok” or “be at ease” because it’s obviously far harder than that. That person gets the easy way out (which, truly, it is the easiest way out). They don’t have to deal with any of the repercussions. They are out of the game.

off soapbox

 

[BayernAnhaenger]

the Church in those days operated on the best “scientific” knowledge available on the matter of suicide. Since our knowledge of the causes and circumstances surrounding suicide is much better, so is the Church’s response. An analogy would be when life begins. Science taught in the middle ages that life began at quickening, so Church teaching reflected that. As our medical knowledge of embryology has improved, Church teaching has changed to reflect the fact that life begins at or closely following conception, and so we err on the side that gives greatest protection to life.

“Church teaching” said life began at “quickening”. I am under the impression, as are many bishops, that the Church has always taught that life began at conception.

I’d like you to prove the Church has taught otherwise. To do make this claim challenges the Church’s inability to err in teaching, and would thus make an infallible teaching fallible (which cannot be the case). It is true that some THEOLOGIANS have claimed life began at quickening, but the Church?

 

[sskelly]

Compassion & Choices advocates assisted suicide. Here is a link to a number of stories written by people soliciting legally assisted suicides. compassionandchoices.org/aboutus/stories.php

This just freaked me out.
I attempted suicide a long time ago. I just wanted to get away, get out of living where I felt that I never, ever fit in anywhere or be able to handle life. Long story, bad stuff in childhood, etc. After overdose I woke up, and looking back, I think I was on the fringes of hell for many, many years. This does NOT HELP people. It will NOT take away their grief or pain - it does NOT END by suicide, it only ends with Jesus. :twocents:

 

[puzzleannie]

“Church teaching” said life began at “quickening”. I am under the impression, as are many bishops, that the Church has always taught that life began at conception.

I’d like you to prove the Church has taught otherwise. To do make this claim challenges the Church’s inability to err in teaching, and would thus make an infallible teaching fallible (which cannot be the case). It is true that some THEOLOGIANS have claimed life began at quickening, but the Church?

The Church has always taught that life begins when it begins, but the scientific knowledge even of when conception occured was incomplete in the middle ages, to this day the Church does not define what science cannot, the specific moment when life begins and the soul is infused, but has always erred on the side of caution, and defined it as the earliest possible moment.

As I said, Aquinas and others of his day assumed that was quickening when the earliest signs of new life were apparent, because that was the limit of scientific knowledge. He and others who held that belief however, and this is the part that gets dropped, always urged error on the side of caution, and the assumption that life was present from conception, even if the moment could not be p(name removed by moderator)ointed.

 

[Hoosier]

I can see how Christianity’s emphasis on how eternal life is so much better than earthly life, could lead someone to think he’d be better off dead. I know you’re not supposed to think that way, but I can follow the logic.

I have to be gone for a little while, but I find this an interesting discussion and I’ll be back.