Suicide a result of disease or just weak will?

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Not about me, I'm doing relatively fine but I received news about someone I know taking their own life. This person struggled with alcoholism and depression and had made attempts in the past. As far as I can tell what triggered this event was seeing his ex-wife and her new friend posting their status on Faecebook. All parties involved were in the same circles at our church. I mentioned this person's passing to someone and they were of the opinion that this wouldn't have happened if the person hadn't had a weak mind, whereas I feel strongly that addiction and depression can drive one to a place of complete hopelessness. Interestingly enough, my observation that Faecebook does more to divide people than to connect them was also invalidated - the person who feels opposite me forgets the nephew she's written out of her life and sisters she refuses contact with yet will share with anyone baby photos of a child she has no biological connection with and after they reach about 3 years of age will get tired of and on to the next one...

Suicide is normally a response when someone has breached their threshold of suffering.
Things impact us all differently.

Your friend was obvious suffering a lot worse than anyone knew.
As a society we don't encourage guys and boys to express their emotions and openly talk about how they feel.
Instead we encourage them to man up and deal with.
It is considered shameful for men and boys to seek help in life on depression and other life issues.
You become viewed as weak and incompetent (and other things too).

Your friend didn't have the structure and support to get through his difficult time.
He probably felt hopeless and alone in life, which amplified his downward spiral.
He probably was unaware of all the services offered to help people get better or he was to ashamed to use them.

Those people who have the structure and support in life, do better at most things, especially when hits them hard.

It is extremely hard to bounce back on your own, when life hits your hard.
It was extremely hard for each time as well, the last time I came very close to ending it.
Though I didn't know what was wrong with me at the time.
I honestly wouldn't have made through without my friend's help and to lesser extent a few other people.
I know I cannot go back to being alone ever again.

Your friend was not weak willed.
He was suffering from a broken heart, depression, loneliness and other dark emotions which caused him to drink.
Drinking then amplified his feelings (Alcohol is a mood enhancer).
He was probably feeling ashamed and helpless.
He probably was unable to ask and seek help on his own.

He needed people to intervene and help him get back on his feet.

Though it is very hard to tell when most people are that far down in life, especially when they've become suicidal.

He was done in by situation, bad divorce, mental health issues triggered by the bad divorce, and other factors that you didn't know existed.

No one is at fault for what happened, not even Facebook.

Facebook is not innately bad or good, it is just another medium for people to express themselves.
People who are normally good people, will do good stuff on Facebook.
Those who are not good, will do not good things on Facebook.
It is all dependent on the person using Facebook.

Its just weak will, if it was a disease or something biological we would've heard of it happening in other parts of the world to people with different ideologies while I only hear it happening in only some parts of the world to people of similar ideologies.

I am wondering whether this individual had an impulse control disorder. Unfortunately, many suicides, especially young males, are simply a result of an impulsive act. Such a tragedy.

Sounds like the presence of an underlying issue, which under the "right" circumstances could trigger suicidal behaviour.

Although Facebook is like an address book, it is perceived as a friends list. It is very personal, and people don't take that into account i.e. they're blind to it unless something like rejection happens.

People feel more affected by rejection on Facebook, and on the internet in general, because when rejection happens IRL it is done far more subtlely. By being deleted or ignored on Facebook, the rejection appears straight-up and insensitive. Even when the person is just avoiding you, you can see clearly what they're doing. Whereas IRL, there isn't such a stark visual indication that the person is avoiding you i.e. You see their personal details, photos, their relationships and what they're doing with their life - and then it all suddenly disappears online.

As for status updates, like I said, Facebook is very personal and if it didn't exist, he likely wouldn't have seen such an update on that couples' love, or whatever.

Those words were also there for him to re-read, along with seeing her and her partner's photos, as many times as he wished to view. It would hurt most people.

For the record, I hate Facebook too. I think it is a very invasive medium of communication.

Suicide is an evolutionary response as if one is not contributing to the tribe, thus, your genes are unneeded and will be eliminated from the gene pool.

But thats similar to if there was a disease spreading and humans don't want to find a cure for it because its 'evolutionary' or if wild animals started attacking them and they didn't defend because its 'evolutionary' or 'natural'.

Suicide isn't limited to a specific area as far as I know....and no its not just weak will, its being beyond ones threshold of dealing with stress, or in too much pain...but of course people who have not been suicidal have no idea and find it easier to blame it on some failing of character than any legitimate issues someone might have.

We cannot breed out millions of years of evolution. It is just a natural response to being useless to the tribe even animals experience suicidal thoughts. You base understanding of suicide is wrong as it is not a disease but a biological function that worked.


I don't really count attention seeking suicide as real suicide as it is obviously a cry for help where as violent suicide is actual suicide as there is difference between shoot gun to the head and cutting your wrists.

Giving in to stress or too much pain is a weak will, I know people who went through hell but they never commited suicide, but then I hear of people with only smaller problems commiting suicide.
Also I've been through too much stress and pain myself but I never thought of suiced or something like that.



Animals don't have a freewill like humans so if they die by suicide its because of nature or accident like some female animals don't eat until they starve to death because they couldn't find their offspring and they don't know what to do I think they just feel lost because they can't think of it so they just stay like that not knowing what to do until they die, they don't have a brain like a human which can let them think of looking for it like a human would look for something lost or they can't 'get over it'. I think animals can't control whatever happens to them because they don't have intelligence like humans do but humans can because of their intelligence. You can't keep comparing humans to animals they're too different; look at human life and look at an animal's, look at the difference between their histories, their societies, humans are so much different. I see more differences between humans and animals than common things. If someone kills themself because of 'instincts' then its no different than someone killing a rival because of 'instincts' like animals do.

I don't know if it results in death I'd say its a real suicide regardless of the underlying reason...also its very possible to be suicidal and ignorant on how to kill ones self and attempt something that one might see on the outside as some superficial attention seeking....for instance there are those who would probably tell me that about my attempt at 15, but I actually did think all the pills I took would do the job I didn't actually know before hand it wouldn't work or that I'd end up admitting I took them when it started effecting me and the teacher wanted to know what was going on. If I had the knowledge I have now not sure I'd still be around as i may have found a more guaranteed way.

Suicide in general much of the time implies perhaps an individual needed some help in some way, not some selfish want for 'attention' not really sure how that works either having been suicidal, being dead does not bring one attention they'd be effected by anyways....my thoughts tend more towards thinking people would be better off, and sure maybe some feelings of lonlieness play a role but I recognize being dead just ends the pain that causes...doesn't actually get you more attention. If you survive an attempt sure you may get more attention from mental health services...to get help with feeling suicidal, but most everyone else just hopes things go back to 'normal' asap even the more understanding people...the more judgemental ones might make it all about them and forget typically one is not going to attempt suicide or think about suicide unless they really feel they have too much on their plate or really cannot take how they are feeling/or pain they are in any longer.

So method/how successful it is does not always say much about intent...I don't think.

Neither. It's the result of someone wanting to end psychic pain, feeling there is no other way out.

Imagine the scenario: nothing tastes good, nothing feels good, nothing brings pleasure not even sex or masturbation. You can't sleep. You have insomnia but when you do get to sleep you have nightmares. You wake up every hour tossing and turning. You have anxiety every minute of every day. You can't relax. You can't work. You can't do anything. And of course you feel guilty for all this.

Maybe you get prescribed an antidepressant. It doesn't work (or even worse, intensifies the suicidal thoughts). Every minute of the day your chest feels like it has a knife through it. You cry constantly. You turn for help but you turn to the wrong people, people who don't listen. They just judge you and tell you to get a life. They tell you you are a crybaby. Their arrogance/ignorance/malevolence is so profound that they cannot empathize or refuse to empathize, not even at the most basic human level.

Maybe you turn to alcohol. It helps for maybe an hour or two. The next day you feel guilty and more anxious and more depressed. You turn to the alcohol again to numb the withdrawal and you do this over and over again for years. Maybe you keep a firearm in the house. Maybe you toy with the idea of killing yourself every once in a while when you've had too much drink, putting the gun to your head. Of course, you don't do it, but in a moment of extreme pain, you might just impulsively pull the trigger.

A facebook status update did not kill this person. It's extremely ignorant to say such a thing. Much more was going on.

Every morning I wake and know I should die. I have sworn not to because of pain to the family. This has been going on for 59 years. I linger in the path of on-coming traffic. I was in a cab that drifted over to the lane of a truck and said nothing.

This is courage. To have gone on this long is courage. If I fail someday, that will not be weakness.

Think of David Foster Wallace (author). First suicide attempt: age 14. Successful suicide: age 46. Every morning for all those years, he fought and went on. Until the last.

Do not judge.

Hi Claradoon.

Thank you for sharing. Choosing to put your family's feelings/emotional welfare above your own is admirable, though I can't imagine the toll it has taken on you. I don't have any words of encouragement...just wanted to acknowledge you and say thanks for giving us your perspective.

Sure we can debate all day long, calling that person weak and the other one strong,
but reality is that we differ more than we think, we feel different amounts of sadness
and we want and dream of different things,
happiness is something no one can choose for someone else.

I live in the middle east, somewhere were most of you would think of as a "disaster" and a hell.
everyone around the world knows that women can be killed for having a boyfriend here
that a woman is forced at many cases to stay in home and marry a man who her family choose
and he has all the rights to rape her or beat the hell out of her.
a woman here can't chose for her self, she has to do what her husband tells her to do.

but still, many of my female friends thinks that living here is ok,
that a girl who commits suicide because this place stole away her desire to live is " weak "
sure you guys would have a different opinion, because everyone (outside the middle east) knows that a woman is a human.
but here, women themselves don't believe that they are entitled to have a happy life.
they don't believe that they can "think" or "choose" or "have the freedom to refuse being physically punished"


the thing those girls and people who call someone who committed suicide weak in common is:
believing that everyone is like them, and everyone feels the same feelings at the same level.
that everyone can be content and happy having thing "most people" think are enough.
that everyone deal with being alive in the same way.

and that, my friend, is a huge misunderstanding of the humankind.


a person who commits suicide isn't really that weak.
he simply reached that scary point of suffering at a faster time than whats normal
or that he did suffer more, because of things only he been through and mental illness he had.