Oh, Nancy, this is shaping up to be a controversial thread.
First of all, suicide is not something you joke about. There is no death more tragic than a slow one caused by one's own hand. Suicide isn't something people just "do" on a whim; it often comes after years of depression, self-deprecation and adversity. And suicidal people ARE depressed people. How the fuck else do you suppose a person can do something so incredibly against their strongest innate instincts?
Another important thing that needs to get across: suicide is something ANYONE is capable of. It's not just for cowards, it's the product of a number of conditions that can be present in ANYONE'S life.
Whether suicide is "selfish" or not is irrelevant. People who kill themselves believe a number of things about themselves and the world:
1. Life is nothing but pain.
2. Nobody cares about them. Nobody really loves them.
3. Things are never going to improve, no matter what they do.
They think these things because their cognitive processes are skewed, because the amount of negative or traumatic events they have experienced are so multitudinous they have learned to view the world in a way that isn't necessarily true. Whatever suffering a person's suicide may cause to their loved ones, it NEVER outweighs the suffering they have experienced or caused to themselves. Suicide as a "selfish" action is a concept enforced by Judeo-Christian dogma, because those who follow it believe the human body and soul is not "theirs", but that it belongs to God, and so they don't technically have ownership over themselves.
Suicide is a desperate attempt to escape a painful existence that doesn't feel like it's worth living. For a person to even consider suicide, they have to experience a tremendous amount of emotional pain over an extremely long period of time. Suicide doesn't happen to well-adjusted people, it happens to wounded people and those with poor coping skills (for fuck's sake, count yourself lucky that you learned them while growing up, because some weren't so lucky; and you do have to learn them- they aren't innate).
Another thing: you don't get a pass to mock suicidal people if you were once so yourself. If anything, that gives you less of an excuse to do so, and it shows that you're still not over your problems; if you feel the need to mock suicidals, or even the right, that is a very old defense mechanism called Projection, which is a product of repression, and it denotes that the person making light of suicide isn't a "former" suicidal; the conditions in their life that caused them to have drastic cognitions like the contemplation of suicide are still present.
The only thing I will concede to the above is that those who have never experienced depression at a suicidal level have less of a right to take it lightly than those who have, but only because they have no idea what the fuck they're talking about.
Lemme let you in on something about yourself you may not know: because you're a human, and because humans are social animals, you have instincts built into your psyche to keep the strongest members in, and the "weaker" ones out. It's the same principle that causes herds to leave their older, sicker, weaker ones to die; if you can't help yourself, the tribe doesn't care to help you. The problem is that the tribe itself more often than not creates the very problems that cause others to become potential "threats." The way this translates into the current topic is that the people who become suicidal are often victims of paternal, social, or economic torment.
You know that phrase "don't let yourself be a victim?" That rancid fart of a maxim is a starry-eyed, overoptimistic view of the world that seeks to inspire others to great achievements by making it seem like everyone is capable of having personalities like Ghandi, who himself "refused to be a victim". Not everyone has the same cognitive processes. Not everyone is fortunate with how their lives turn out (Ghandi himself had money, despite being a minority. He was a lawyer before he became a human rights activist). The sad truth is the only way to live your life is to do the best with what you have. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try; nothing is gained without great sacrifice. What I mean is that not everyone has a high success rate in the total amount of endeavors they seek to accomplish. Not everyone escapes persecution and abuse. NOT EVERYONE HAS THE SAME LIFE. Saying that someone with emotional imbalances deserves to be made fun of is a statement on a level of ignorance that frankly I find staggering.
