Hmm

[textualdeviance]

Just a philosophical ponderance...

Why is it that most people accept the idea of suicide to end uncontrollable physical pain, but not to end uncontrollable emotional pain?

No, that doesn't mean I'm suicidal, btw. Far from it. In a good mood today. It was just a question that came up from reading something somewhere.

I guess I've never thought of death, in and of itself, as being a bad thing. The circumstances surrounding a death are very often awful. A too-soon end, or a death from violence or something horribly painful or frightening. But death itself isn't necessarily bad, I think. I've often looked at people who have really awful lives, for various reasons, and can perfectly understand the concept of euthanasia, or suicide-as-euthanasia in some cases.

Hmmm.

Comments

[weetanya.livejournal.com]

hm, interesting.

in both cases, i'm only okay if the person going through the pain organizes their affairs first.

i had to deal with the nasty end of a suicide a few years back. bitch roommate left her mother - and me - a lot of debt, unpaid bills, and a nasty surprise when i got home from the boyfriend's on a sunday. not okay.

and i think it would give the person dying time to think about whether or not they *should* commit suicide.

[sharpest_rose.livejournal.com]

Hmm...

Personally, as someone who has attempted suicide and then gone on to be genuinely happy and at peace, I think it's because there's not actually such a thing as terminal depression - there's help to be sought via counselling, drugs, etc. Euthanasia for those in physical pain is just speeding up an inevitable event, not causing that event to happen where otherwise it would not.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking, though, not of people who have curable or treatable depression, but people whose lives really are a horrible mess which can't be fixed-- when it's not just skewed perception that their life sucks, but that their life really does suck.

[wankle.livejournal.com]

I think that chronic, uncontrollable physical pain is totally different then emotional pain. No one advocates euthanasia in cases where the pain (however severe) will be overcome at some point, It is seem as a last-resort step for ending a life that will be ended exclusively in a drawn-out pain-filled state otherwise

Emotional problems are rarely ever that chronic and long-term. A severely depressed person in their 30s or 40s is seen as likely to be able to make it past their problems, at least in some way, and "move on" with their life, and become a more functional person. Regardless of how hopeless and painful things seem at the moment, the likelihood of them not getting better for the rest of your life is slim to none. A person's emotional state is much more likely to change than their physical, especially given a long period of time.

That's my thought on the matter, at least.

[bluegreen17]

Emotional problems are rarely ever that chronic and long-term.

sadly,i have to disagree with you there.i've known this by personal experience of most of my life (i'm 45) which has not been helped much by counseling or drugs. and i know other people who have experienced that as well. but i don't disagree with your basic opinion...i like to think there's still hope for me and others!