why is there a stigma to suicide?

Question

It seems especially unfair to those still living!!

I guess I really need to know if the problems the living have reconciling a family members suicide should add to the burden of guilt that the one planning suicide already feels?

Answer 1

I cannot believe this Q has so few replies.
Yes it is unfair to the living, but Khalil Gibrain states " Not a single leaf turns yellow and falls without the knowledge of the whole tree."
When someone suicides people want to know why but dont want to own any responsibility for it even though the signs were there for others to see.
The greatest tragedy is not when someone dies but what dies inside them while they still live

Answer 2

Suicide is rightly stigmatised in the moral sense (along with any other form of killing) because only God has the right to take life except in the very gravest of circumstances, e.g. self-defence. The Fifth Commandment does not have an exception for oneself!
However, even if one were to leave out the divine element, it remains a fact that no man is an island; everyone has friends, families, colleagues. However lonely and worthless we may feel at a particular time (and I know, I've been there - I know what it is to feel very tempted to do it when in a state of despair prompted by very adverse financial and emotional circumstances), there will always be someone who is affected by our death. Mankind is meant to be a gregarious and social creature. We live in societies and communities where all the meambers are interlinked and interdependent to a greater or lesser degree. A suicide rejects these fundamental human concepts.

Answer 3

The consequences to an act of suicide are often tragic and far reaching, for both the person who commits the act and the people close to him who loved him and who survive him. It is difficult to think about the future of those you love when you are in the middle of a lot of anguish yourself. But it is true that their lives will most often be broken beyond repair. For more information:

http://www.suicidepreventtriangle.org/

http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.suicide.html

http://www.gurney.co.uk/suicidebereavement/index-page2.html

http://www.focuscounseling.com/afterSuicide.htm

http://www.bereavedbysuicide.org/

The problem can be finding someone to talk to when the very worst happens in life. There are many deep and caring people out there.

When my brother killed himself I found that a support group was a lifelines during incredibly hard times. (Saying that makes it sound like I am actually able to talk about it, but there are really no words.) I think all the time about the things he cared about. He was so funny, sweet, sensitive. If he had seen what his actions did to our parents, I think he would never have done what he did.

Answer 4

Despite all the bluster and apparent self confidence. most peoples lives and sanity holds on by just a thread. THis thread can be a love, ignorance, or even an annoying unanswered question. Whatever your 'thread' is, remember it is just as strong and valid anybody elses, and though you may feel alone, your decision cannot be isolated to just you. Every action you take has consequences, even suicide, despite your feelings of powerlessness.