This is an incredibly insensitive comment, I'm shocked, almost disgusted. One of the most admirable qualities that humans possess is empathy - the ability to understand and identify with someone else's emotional experiences. We reach out to people in such extreme emotional pain because in some way, we experience some of that pain. I'm using the royal 'we', but it seems you lack that ability to show any empathy whatsoever...

Really? Suicide's not a stupid thing to do? I guess there are cases where it's not -- like if you're terminal, or facing life in prison. That's a rational choice and I can empathize with those people. I've lived with depression and with other people who've suffered from it. Four of my friends attempted suicide in high school, and one succeeded. It made me angry. How dare they be so stupid. And since the two who survived it got better, they agreed. I get that it's usually triggered by a chemical imbalance, but people who are capable of having this discussion, and capable of writing the above, can choose to live and treat their chemistry, or they can choose not to. What they can't do is get pity from rational people just for saying they view suicide as a rational choice, because it's not, and I'm sick of hearing that. Try living with a depressed person and finding yourself responsible for their happiness; that line of reasoning wears thin.

So, right. I have no pity for people who choose to make or wallow in their own problems. Why should I? I reserve my empathy for people who don't have enough to eat, people who got cheated, falsely imprisoned, wrongly executed, were victims of racism, domestic violence, rape, slavery, forced prostitution, and child abuse; or who through no fault of their own had the bad luck to be born in Burma or North Korea. Not people who had the amazing good luck to be born in a first-world country where it rains antidepressants, distractions and opportunities, and who find so much time to spend navel-gazing that they finally hate themselves and want to die.

Previous comment of yours: I feel nothing for people who kill themselves.

Followed by: Four of my friends attempted suicide in high school, and one succeeded. It made me angry. How dare they be so stupid.

I'm sorry you got burned. Sounds like you are still hurting. It's an unfortunate nuisance when someone who is hurting disrupts a forum over it. I've done that a billion times (and counting, no doubt), so I'm not pointing fingers. Just trying to point something out to you, in hopes it might help you move on: Anger and denying that you feel anything are basically defense mechanisms. Maybe you haven't really fully mourned your loss. The woman who founded MADD said at some point that she didn't really mourn the loss of her child for many years. She threw herself into founding MADD and all that basically to avoid dealing with her own feelings. I've spent plenty of my life terrified of being alone with my own feelings. It's really not an uncommon reaction to something terrible happening.

Anyway, it's meant in a supportive way, FWIW.

Take care.

Everyone does stupid things sometimes.

I have lost two friends to suicide. One was an Iraq War veteran who didn't get the help she needed on returning to the states and committed suicide about a year later. The other was a man who had for a long time, I think, suffered from more than one neurological issue.

In the end, I think that people have a right to decide for themselves how they live and how they die. I don't think suicide is always a stupid thing to do. May key question is whether someone is competent to make that decision. Depression or PTSD are not good reasons IMO. However, what of someone struggling with a lifetime of schizophrenia?

And there are plenty of circumstances where I would commit suicide. For example, if I am ever faced with an alzheimer's diagnosis, I would prefer to end my life with clear thought and memory than to let them slowly fade away.

For every two homicides committed in the United States, there are three suicides. The death rate from suicide is higher than the death rate for chronic liver disease, Alzheimer’s, homicide, arteriosclerosis or hypertension.

Depression is the cause of over two-thirds of suicides in the U.S. each year.

Depression is a terminal illness: it kills 15% of its sufferers.

Depression is no more 'wallowing in their own problems' than cancer or Alzheimer’s. Depression is an illness caused by an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain. It has physical as well as mental symptoms. It is very common in young white men (of all classes) and it kills 20,000 in the U.S. every year. I wouldn't be surprised if Depression was the biggest killer of Y-Combinator readers.

Depression gets a bad rap because it shares the word people use when they are feeling a bit fed up. Depression feels nothing like that. It feels like death.

Try living with a cancer sufferer. Try living with an Alzheimer’s sufferer. Most young men with a mild flu are a nightmare to live with. Tough shit: that's illness: it's grim. People with terminal illnesses are grim company.

Why is it OK to say these things about Depression sufferers? Would you say them about someone with terminal cancer? If you did you would, quite rightly, be called out as a dick.

>It made me angry. How dare they be so stupid

And what right is it of yours to be angry? What right is it of yours to judge their decision? Those who react this way are the most disgustingly selfish people.

It's my right as a person with an opinion. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it was a valuable choice or a reasonable decision for them to make. I don't lie to my friends, and I don't paper things over.

Quite a judgmental statement, to tell someone who's been through it four times what his reaction should be. Maybe it's something I've thought through and been through a few times, and decided that blunt force rather than kid-gloves is the only way to get through to people who want to take their own life.

Been through it too, here's my story:

My father killed himself when I was in high school after numerous failed attempts and a period of institutionalisation. A couple of years later a close friend killed himself, then an acquaintance a bit after that. I've suffered clinical depression most of my adult life, never seriously contemplated suicide but have thought deeply on it for many years.

Now that I've established my credibility by daring anyone to challenge my sad tale, let me tell you that to me your post reads like an excuse to be a righteous loud mouth on the topic of suicide without having to get involved with any of the ugly and complicated realities.

Suicide has touched your life. Doesn't make you an expert.

I'm not an expert. I didn't claim to be. I'm saying, there's always another way. Another option. And my modus operandi in dealing with it is informed by knowing what happens if you're too soft and tiptoe around someone's feelings who's considering it.

I don't know anyone who's survived an attempt, or who's been depressed enough to talk about it, who hasn't had better days afterwards. One of my friends is still -- well, sick, I think is the word for it. I've seen how too much sympathy just feeds suicidal thoughts and self-absorption. Talk about anything other than their problem. Get them out of the house. I've seen how being occupied with something brings her back to reality, and makes her 99% better. I'm not unthinkingly being a righteous loud-mouth; I realize my approach to the subject may rub the wrong way on people who think that talking can solve everything.

I don't know if you've been in a situation where you've been thrown into being the default "therapist" for someone you love, who refused to seek help and was telling you that they were considering killing themselves. I have. You'd probably think based on my statements that I'd be such a rotten bastard, it's hard to imagine anyone confiding in me, but it seems to work the opposite way. Maybe people want to hear something blunt. At any rate, there's nothing I've said here that I haven't said to a suicidal friend, in basically the same tone.

I know it does no good, at that moment, to become angry with a clinically depressed person who's out of their mind and talking crazy/suicidal. You want to throw water over them or slap them and snap them out of it, but you can't. At least, in my experience, anger at that moment doesn't work. What you can do is keep them alive, stay with them, distract them, and talk them back to reality. And as soon as they're back, hold up a mirror and show them how scary, stupid and irrational they were being. Make them admit they were being crazy. Make them swear they'll never do it again, even if you don't believe them. And of course, tell them why it scared you, and why it was a place they need to learn to stay away from in their own mind. Warn them when you see them changing that way again. Remind them of the last time. Sanity a muscle. Anyone can learn how to exercise it.

The secret to being sane is just don't go there. Take the option off the table, and start dealing with the world around you, and fixing the way you look at it, until you make it a tolerable place to be. Lower your expectations until you're happy just to wake up in the morning. Horrible? Yeah, but there's no rational alternative.

This isn't me "disrupting", it's not an excuse. It's an alternative way of dealing with the subject. I realize it probably sounds barbaric and medieval, but it's just practical. This is just the only way I've found to deal with clinically depressed people on a long-running basis, and the wall I've built to try and keep people I love -- and myself -- sane, alive, and improving.

The dumbest people are the most judging ones. They only see themselves, can't put themselves in other positions, can't accept other positions, and have to call everything dumb which they can't relate to.

Nice. Your comment makes it clear you don't understand any evolutionary theory, but you still feel ok judging people based on your ignorance.

Assuming this is an attempt at reverse psychology, I doubt it is likely to work with the type of people who frequent HN.

I am also shocked by the complete lack of empathy. And you QEDed nothing in no way.

You put all pains on the same level when, by definition, each person's pain is relative. It's relative to each individual's past experiences, sensitivity, life circumstances and so many more facts. That's my definition of empathy: being able to understand that, no matter what the appearances or what I think I know, a lot goes into one's shaping of an idea/opinion on any topic. Life and death more than any other.

Also, remember that it's not all about you. Your anger toward somebody else's actions does not grant you any right to judge.

You get the facts wrong.

Depression is intense pain. People usually kill themselves intentionally when this pain becomes unbearable.