<story><title>People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living</title><url>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-05-20/psychologist-enrique-echeburua-people-who-die-by-suicide-want-to-stop-suffering-not-to-stop-living.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>niea_11</author><text>Another relevant quote by David foster wallace :&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item><item><author>gwd</author><text>&amp;quot;...what is it we need but more life? What does the infant need but more life? What does the bosom of his mother give him but life in abundance? What does the old man need, whose limbs are weak and whose pulse is low, but more of the life which seems ebbing from him? Weary with feebleness, he calls upon death, but in reality it is life he wants. It is but the encroaching death in him that desires death. He longs for rest, but death cannot rest; death would be as much an end to rest as to weariness: even weakness cannot rest; it takes strength as well as weariness to rest. How different is the weariness of the strong man after labour unduly prolonged, from the weariness of the sick man who in the morning cries out, &amp;#x27;Would God it were evening!&amp;#x27; and in the evening, &amp;#x27;Would God it were morning!&amp;#x27; Low-sunk life imagines itself weary of life, but it is death, not life, it is weary of. Never a cry went out after the opposite of life from any soul that knew what life is. Why does the poor, worn, out-worn suicide seek death? Is it not in reality to escape from death?--from the death of homelessness and hunger and cold; the death of failure, disappointment, and distraction; the death of the exhaustion of passion; the death of madness--of a household he cannot rule; the death of crime and fear of discovery? He seeks the darkness because it seems a refuge from the death which possesses him. He is a creature possessed by death; what he calls his life is but a dream full of horrible phantasms.&amp;quot;  -- George Macdonald, &amp;quot;Unspoken Sermons: Life&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>atchoo</author><text>Should people quote DFW as an authority given his suicide?&lt;p&gt;Using metaphors of physical reality for psychological states can make it falsely appear more immutable that it is. It is possible to escape the burning buildings of the mind and knowing that you have agency over your ideas can be an essential part of the reframing&amp;#x2F;rethinking&amp;#x2F;challenging that can free you from suffering.&lt;p&gt;Letting people believe they are in a situation like floor 100 of the WTC and their flesh is literally burning with no escape could be outright harmful and irresponsible for those experiencing suicidal ideation.</text></comment>
<story><title>People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living</title><url>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-05-20/psychologist-enrique-echeburua-people-who-die-by-suicide-want-to-stop-suffering-not-to-stop-living.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>niea_11</author><text>Another relevant quote by David foster wallace :&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item><item><author>gwd</author><text>&amp;quot;...what is it we need but more life? What does the infant need but more life? What does the bosom of his mother give him but life in abundance? What does the old man need, whose limbs are weak and whose pulse is low, but more of the life which seems ebbing from him? Weary with feebleness, he calls upon death, but in reality it is life he wants. It is but the encroaching death in him that desires death. He longs for rest, but death cannot rest; death would be as much an end to rest as to weariness: even weakness cannot rest; it takes strength as well as weariness to rest. How different is the weariness of the strong man after labour unduly prolonged, from the weariness of the sick man who in the morning cries out, &amp;#x27;Would God it were evening!&amp;#x27; and in the evening, &amp;#x27;Would God it were morning!&amp;#x27; Low-sunk life imagines itself weary of life, but it is death, not life, it is weary of. Never a cry went out after the opposite of life from any soul that knew what life is. Why does the poor, worn, out-worn suicide seek death? Is it not in reality to escape from death?--from the death of homelessness and hunger and cold; the death of failure, disappointment, and distraction; the death of the exhaustion of passion; the death of madness--of a household he cannot rule; the death of crime and fear of discovery? He seeks the darkness because it seems a refuge from the death which possesses him. He is a creature possessed by death; what he calls his life is but a dream full of horrible phantasms.&amp;quot;  -- George Macdonald, &amp;quot;Unspoken Sermons: Life&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>layer8</author><text>&amp;gt; The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’&lt;p&gt;Yes, they do. Out of personal experience, when things are very bad and you have lost all hope of thing being able to get better &lt;i&gt;ever&lt;/i&gt;, that is a strong incentive for suicide. Having any hope vs. none makes a crucial difference in whether life is bearable.</text></comment>