Comments on: When Is Suicide Ever "Honorable," Morrissey?

By: Is Media Coverage Of Suicide “Grossly Irresponsible”? | Celebrity Psychings

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:02:57 +0000

[...] mental illness”-esque thoughts – not at all unlike some of the comments left under my Morrissy post and the one about whether or not we had a right to react so angrily when Kate Moss made a pro-ana [...]

By: daz

daz — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:08:52 +0000

Gutterbird,
Please tell us what you look for in support and how you would support a friend who is going through what you are going through. What would give your life meaning?

By: gutterbird

gutterbird — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:09:14 +0000

daz:”It is possible a depressed person may in some way think suicide is doing the “honorable thing” because some think that their loved ones will be better off without them- how terribly, terribly wrong they are.”

Are they wrong? My experiences of depression have been met with nothing but annoyance and the whole “snap out of it” schtick. And yes, that was with “loved ones.” So either I put on the false face of normality to be accepted or I “come out of the closet” with my depression and am treated with annoyance and indifference. Either way, it’s no way to live and it’s pretty hard NOT to think others wouldn’t be better off without you when they can only treat you decently when you fake normality/happiness and want nothing to do with you when you’re down.

I would also suggest that the “suicide is selfish” line that some people like to spout out is itself selfish. There is no consideration in such admonishments of the pain of the person who attempts / commits suicide. Such lines are also self-serving in the larger context of society – society has put resources (for example, education) into these people who – if successful in their attempt – will now not be able to offer their “return on investment.” In other words – people don’t care if you’re living in pain and misery as long as you’re also contributing to society (preferably financially – by having a job/earning money/paying taxes). People will care only if their investment is threatened. (And then it’s not so much caring about you as caring about their investment in you.)

By: Stanley

Stanley — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:35:55 +0000

Hello,

I didn’t see the person in question, and didn’t hear about his comment till now. Suicide is not honorable. There is nothing good about it. Because of severe childhood abuse by many different people. My parents, family, school staff and even psychiatric hospital staff. The hospital staff were the worst leaving me with PTSD from the abuse. The nightmares and flashbacks are pure tourture. I don’t know how else to describe it. I have been down the road of suicide so many times I can’t even keep count, and have attempted at least 6 times through various methods. I guess someone is watching over me. I have asked for help countless times. Because I actually have too much insurance, I can’t get help. (I have medi-care and medi-cal and because county mental health only takes the medi-cal, they won’t help me). When I am picked up by police for even thinking of suicide, and after being taken to the ER to waste 8 hours of being threatened to be tied to my bed, have my clothes cut off and have a cathater put in with no lube with the “sorry we just ran out” excuse to cause more pain to “teach me a lesson” to stop coming. All because some nurse thinks I am just there for attention. Then to have to go to mental health because the cop put me on a 5150 involentary hold for the mental health worker to overturn it 20 minutes after I get there and send me home because he feels that I am trying to get admitted to get access to therapy that they refused me because of the insurance. Like I am trying to pull something. I am so sick of the broken system. 4 years now with no therapy. Just hotlines to call for 15 minutes of talking to anyone who will listen till the 5 cop cars pull up with guns drawn because I am feeling suicidal. Why shouldn’t I simply end the torment? People in my situation, I can understand the want to die and end the pain. End the tourturous nightmares and flashbacks. Sometimes, ending ones life to stop the pain and tourture is acceptable in my book. Sorry if that offends people. Maybe one day the person watching over me will look the other way and let me come back home to heaven. Because this is for sure not the life I picutred of wanted. Thanks for listening.

-Stanley

By: daz

daz — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:25:01 +0000

People die “from” suicide not “by” suicide- its like a cancer of the mind. Yet there are different suicides. It is possible a depressed person may in some way think suicide is doing the “honorable thing” because some think that their loved ones will be better off without them- how terribly, terribly wrong they are. They just leave shear, enduring misery behind and they cannot choose who that may be. Others may not have actually intended to die but their self-harm went terribly wrong. Others in a psychotic/ delusional state may have received a “command hallucination”. There are other types as well but its not about weakness or strength. I believe for most it is about being so fearful about what is, or what is to be, that the brain comes to a point where it believes other choices are not possible- in other words there is no choice. Abraham Lincoln expressed it well “I am now the most miserable man living….To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better it appears to me.”
This very astute man also noted “A tendency to meloncholy…. let it be observed, is a misfortune, not a fault.”
I do believe points of intervention are possible and there are many attempters who will attest to the fact that they are extremely grateful to have been “saved” either by others or their own last minute ephanies.
When I think of the many whom I know of who have suicided I think of how their fear of the percieved or actual fearful caused them to loose their fear of death and I think of the words of yet another great man “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

By: dividebyzero

dividebyzero — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:21:15 +0000

“Suicide is a permanent answer to a temporary problem.” – I hate this saying, because the truth that we don’t want to acknowledge is that sometimes problems are not temporary at all. There are terminal problems, and there are temporary problems. I don’t think that Morrissey communicated clearly here, I agree that suicide is a right that a person should have to control their destiny. A person can decide to have a comfortable death over a slow and painful long drawn out suffering. I think the idea that suffering through things is some sort of legacy residual religious rhetoric that still persists in our society. The life of a person is no more precious than the life of any other life form on the earth. We afford humane euthanasia to our pets, but we don’t afford the same treatment for humans.

Yes, we should have intervention and therapy to help a person decide whether they want to continue to live or not, but ultimately it should be their choice.

By: Jen

Jen — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:33:47 +0000

I believe that by using the word “honourable” in this context,Morrissey meant it to have the meaning of”conserving one’s dignity”.
In my 60 plus years I have had countless bouts of depression.My main sentiment has been anger at the time I’ve been robbed of.The only thing I’ve learned from it is that it will return.
There comes a time when you get tired of being batted around &played with, like a bird with a cat.
During my last bout, I said to myself that at my age it was naive & undignified to think things would ever change.
At times like these, one thinks about stopping it all.
I’m still here. I don’t think I’ll take the final step.
Depression robs one of one’s dignity.
I believe one should be able to voice one’s feelings & opinions about suicide as a solution without having the “Positive Brigade” express shrill,shallow horror at the mere thought of suicide. My suffering & my life are my own.
Morrissey was right to honestly express his opinion.

By: ricki

ricki — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:48:26 +0000

I am in agreement with @ dave neenan and @Erica above; I don’t think that people in our culture today have any concept of what ‘honor’ nor ‘honorable’ means. Suicide is a personal decision; that’s what Morrissey is saying. As someone who has gone through this and recovered, I can say coming to the choice of ending your life requires a huge amount of bravery. Nobody really knows what “rational” is or isn’t; if we were truly rational, we’d recognize this! Insofar as ‘honorable’ is concerned, interfering with somebody’s control over their own body is self-serving; you’re more concerned with your own feelings than those of the person you’re trying to help. The only reason, which by the way isn’t an actually valid reason, is the law that says you’d be culpable for letting someone commit suicide. The suicide, on the other hand, is battling with extreme inner pain, and the only way any help is extended is in dulling the pain with antidepressants and shutting you out of the general population. That’s palliative; it doesn’t really help anybody. Consider the other social effects depressives encounter: alienation, segregation, badging as being either self-indulgent or petulant, and a hell of a lot of indifference. Indifference is the worst, and that only briefly vanishes when other people suddenly deem suicidality an emergency. They don’t really care, and couldn’t care less if you’re around or you’re not. They don’t realize that it is not an emergency; it’s a long-drawn and painful process that takes weeks or months to develop. Morrissey has a very good grasp of what ‘honorable’ means.

By: paul

paul — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:47:31 +0000

i am sick and tired of hearing this crap from so called celebrities, of course suicides not honourable for healthy individuals,if you have a twisted psyche or are just an idiot, as boring self obsessed Morrissey is, then shut up and stop encouraging crap like this.

By: Scarlett

Scarlett — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:01:00 +0000

Really?
You can analyze and pick apart in your own mind all day long these comments, but until you know where they came from inside and what exactly was meant by them you cannot discern their true intent. People make off handed comments all the time, in both appropriate and inappropriate situations. Why? Because they are human with their own thoughts, their own feelings and their own desires. I think it’s more important to focus on teaching people to live for themselves and get in touch with themselves than to chastise, criticize or otherwise pick apart the musings of ‘celebrities’. By doing this – we are only showing others the importance of ‘celebrity’ opinion rather than showing the general population the importance of ‘being true to themselves’. Others hold celebrity opinion in such high regard oft times, because they are shown to. Because that is what people focus on. Sad. . .