I'm Sorry, Robin Williams, Suicide Is Selfish

[Credo in Deum]

Wait, people piss in other peoples cornflakes? When did this start?

[Marie-Therese]

I get what you're saying, and I definitely respect that point of view.  Suicide is a tough topic because it's not just the loss of an individual, which comes with its own inherent sadness, but it also involves motivation, guilt, and the complicating factors of mental illness.  Where other posters left the reservation with their arguments is that stubborn refusal to acknowledge the difficult and complex morality of suicide

 

 

Robin Williams had serious heart problems. If he'd died from a heart attack, there would no doubt have been an outpouring of appreciation for his life and work. But would it have reached this level if he had died naturally and not in a suicide? I have serious doubts. And that, I think, is a sticky wicket. 

 

 

 

Well on this one, I tend to disagree, actually.  Does the manner of his death lend a different level of tragedy?  Sure, I think the young or unexpectedly lost cause people to consider the depth of the tragedy, and I think these are the moments that truly give most people a reason to reflect upon their own lives and mortality in a positive manner.  But in the case of someone as loved, well-known, and popular as Robin Williams, I think that the public desire to memorialize would be the same.  Perhaps not tinged with such a sense of regret in his loss, but I truly feel it'd be equivalent.  Of course that's just my perspective.

[blazeingstar]

Wait, people piss in other peoples cornflakes? When did this start?

 

Apparently, I chose the "cow" with one utter that gives funny milk

[KnightofChrist]

After Blaze responded to Selah in an indifferent and cold manner I don't know why anyone continues to bother responding to her. She does not deserve it. Honestly after that no one should have taken her seriously, and we should have all spammed this thread with Robin Williams gifs. But whatever.

[blazeingstar]

 

 

Well on this one, I tend to disagree, actually.  Does the manner of his death lend a different level of tragedy?  Sure, I think the young or unexpectedly lost cause people to consider the depth of the tragedy, and I think these are the moments that truly give most people a reason to reflect upon their own lives and mortality in a positive manner.  But in the case of someone as loved, well-known, and popular as Robin Williams, I think that the public desire to memorialize would be the same.  Perhaps not tinged with such a sense of regret in his loss, but I truly feel it'd be equivalent.  Of course that's just my perspective.

 

Umm.  People had a few things about Maya Angelo but not nearly as much.  Shirley Temple died this year.  The nanny from the brandy bunch, Casey Casem.  Last year Paul Walker (Fast and Furious, very young), Margaret Thatcher, Tom Clancy.

 

We don't hear about them very much.

 

The young Glee star committed suicide last year also.  People were much more careful not to glorify him the same way Robin Willims is being now.  The actors, all with their own pain, were very careful in the media.  They were very careful with the show that's still running.  I didn't see any "you're free" sort of nonsense and articles about that young man making a "brave" decision.

[Credo in Deum]

After Blaze responded to Selah in an indifferent and cold manner I don't know why anyone continues to bother responding to her. She does not deserve it. Honestly after that no one should have taken her seriously, and we should have all spammed this thread with Robin Williams gifs. But whatever.

Done!

[blazeingstar]

After Blaze responded to Selah in an indifferent and cold manner I don't know why anyone continues to bother responding to her. She does not deserve it. Honestly after that no one should have taken her seriously, and we should have all spammed this thread with Robin Williams gifs. But whatever.

 

Selah and I had a sidebar.  We're fine.

 

I didn't wish her pain, and there was nothing I can do to change her pain.  I can pray for her, and that's it.

 

I don't hate Robin Williams.  He is one of my favorite actors.  I do think that what he chose was not brave, good or anything else, and that it was selfish.  I pray not only for him, but for his children who are now more likely to choose that path, and for many others, who may now choose that path after seeing the facebook outpouring.

 

I am blunt.  But bluntness dosn't make me any more or less right or wrong.  You see it as "indifferent" and "cold" but really, we'd just gotten done talking about how no one can change another person.

 

Seriously.

[4588686]

 

I am blunt.  But bluntness dosn't make me any more or less right or wrong.  

 

 

 

You misspelled 'whining'. 

[4588686]

 I do sincerely apologize for telling you my opinion on your position rather than just asking dUSt to ban you, though.

 

 

Yeah.  Weird.  Somebody posts a controversial topic on the debate table and people tell them they're wrong.  Oh, the humanity!

[PhuturePriest]

Umm.  People had a few things about Maya Angelo but not nearly as much.  Shirley Temple died this year.  The nanny from the brandy bunch, Casey Casem.  Last year Paul Walker (Fast and Furious, very young), Margaret Thatcher, Tom Clancy.

 

We don't hear about them very much.

 

The young Glee star committed suicide last year also.  People were much more careful not to glorify him the same way Robin Willims is being now.  The actors, all with their own pain, were very careful in the media.  They were very careful with the show that's still running.  I didn't see any "you're free" sort of nonsense and articles about that young man making a "brave" decision.

 

He didn't commit suicide, he overdosed on drugs and alcohol. The investigative conclusion was that he didn't intentionally kill himself. http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/02/showbiz/cory-monteith-death-accidental/

Edited August 14, 2014 by FetusPriest387

[dUSt]

Umm.  People had a few things about Maya Angelo but not nearly as much.  Shirley Temple died this year.  The nanny from the brandy bunch, Casey Casem.  Last year Paul Walker (Fast and Furious, very young), Margaret Thatcher, Tom Clancy.
 
We don't hear about them very much.
 
The young Glee star committed suicide last year also.  People were much more careful not to glorify him the same way Robin Willims is being now.  The actors, all with their own pain, were very careful in the media.  They were very careful with the show that's still running.  I didn't see any "you're free" sort of nonsense and articles about that young man making a "brave" decision.

Seriously yo, you cray cray like fo real g.

[maximillion]

We celebrate today St Maximillion Kolbe, who gave up his life in Auschwitz so that another could live. This was a voluntary going to meet death..................his act, even though he knew without doubt it would lead to his death, is considered a noble act................we presume it was not based on a mental illness, though there are those who would argue that offering oneself in place of someone else, knowing you would die, was an act of sheer lunacy!

 

As has been mentioned, many who take their own life have a belief that those left behind will be better off. This is an erroneous belief, but it is one born out of disordered thinking.

 

Those who have an active mental illness have disturbed and disordered thought patterns. Even my own Aspies sometime makes me misinterpret what is going on around me and I make big blunders as a result. In what way can the result of disordered thought be considered selfish?

A selfish act must be one carried out with insight and understanding of it's possible impact, and insight and understanding, or that lack of, is surely one of the criteria for deciding if someone is mentally competent or not............if a person is so lost in the darkness of depression or has an erroneous set of beliefs about their life and its importance to others which is being mediated by brain chemistry which has gone awry, how can action based on that be truly said to be selfish?

 

What I think I hear behind all the bluster and anger, Blazingstar, is terror.

 

You have been badly affected, and, I would even go so far, reading your posts and their tone here, possibly even traumatised. You are in fact not able to think clearly about this subject. Does that make you selfish? I would say not. Your insistence on 'your opinion' not being one that will change is a measure of the kind of intransigence I see in the wake of someone who has been extremely hurt.

 

I am so sorry you have had these experiences, I am sorry people around you have taken their own lives. I pray that God is merciful to them, and that His healing power reaches out to all of you who have been affected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Anastasia13]

After Blaze responded to Selah in an indifferent and cold manner I don't know why anyone continues to bother responding to her. She does not deserve it. Honestly after that no one should have taken her seriously, and we should have all spammed this thread with Robin Williams gifs. But whatever.

 

[URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/desertsands/media/Interweb%20Forum%20postings/RW1_zpscc9775b5.jpg.html][/URL]

[Anastasia13]

Is anyone else thinking about the theme song to M.A.S.H right now?

[blazeingstar]

Seriously yo, you cray cray like fo real g.

 

That's so helpful.  Thanks.  /sarcasim

 

 

We celebrate today St Maximillion Kolbe, who gave up his life in Auschwitz so that another could live. This was a voluntary going to meet death..................his act, even though he knew without doubt it would lead to his death, is considered a noble act................we presume it was not based on a mental illness, though there are those who would argue that offering oneself in place of someone else, knowing you would die, was an act of sheer lunacy!

 

As has been mentioned, many who take their own life have a belief that those left behind will be better off. This is an erroneous belief, but it is one born out of disordered thinking.

 

Those who have an active mental illness have disturbed and disordered thought patterns. Even my own Aspies sometime makes me misinterpret what is going on around me and I make big blunders as a result. In what way can the result of disordered thought be considered selfish?

A selfish act must be one carried out with insight and understanding of it's possible impact, and insight and understanding, or that lack of, is surely one of the criteria for deciding if someone is mentally competent or not............if a person is so lost in the darkness of depression or has an erroneous set of beliefs about their life and its importance to others which is being mediated by brain chemistry which has gone awry, how can action based on that be truly said to be selfish?

 

What I think I hear behind all the bluster and anger, Blazingstar, is terror.

 

You have been badly affected, and, I would even go so far, reading your posts and their tone here, possibly even traumatised. You are in fact not able to think clearly about this subject. Does that make you selfish? I would say not. Your insistence on 'your opinion' not being one that will change is a measure of the kind of intransigence I see in the wake of someone who has been extremely hurt.

 

I am so sorry you have had these experiences, I am sorry people around you have taken their own lives. I pray that God is merciful to them, and that His healing power reaches out to all of you who have been affected.

 

Yeah, well I make these decisions for myself.  I've always felt this way, well since 7, but that's another story.  I don't think I've been hurt at all.  I've been the one who holds things together and figures things out.  Suicide is contagious, and even the APA agrees with me.  Parents kill themselves all the time, his daughter is going trough hell right now.  Hell that could of been prevented.  Hell that will be repeated by the people who feel vindicated by the numbers of cute, well meaning memes.  Its a choking, poison that can never be extinguished and our hyper-mobile, hyper-social head in the arse society is only making it worse.