Advice

On supporting your decision to die

You said you’re an advocate of the right to die, and I’m now in a situation where it’s my only way out. This isn’t a suicide plea, so if you’re willing to hear me out, I’d appreciate it.

I’m young and living away from my parents. Long story short (it’s actually a short story) I was in an accident at work which destroyed my cock and left leg below the knee. I’ll be fitted for a prosthetic soon and I live in Ontario so OHIP is hooking me up nicely.

They can’t fix my cock though.

And yeah, I’m that simple. I’m twenty-two. I have no cock and soon I’ll be on a fake foot. I don’t feel obligated to look for any deeper meaning because I don’t want to, and not wanting to live makes me cancerous so long as I do. I don’t want to find a reason either. I’m actually, anger aside, also content with everything I experienced so far because I’m truly fucking privileged.

I know it will devastate some family, but I want to do my very best to explain why it happened. They don’t know about the accident yet–they can easily find out–but that isn’t what I want to explain.

Maybe you’ll just tell me to rewrite what I have, but is there any way to leave behind a note that can articulate the simplicity of life? That I’m leaving this behind because an intact body is minimum for me, and that my anger is residual, but has nothing to do with my choice to check out.

I’m a whole human being. People keep wanting to ‘enlighten’ me but I did all that shit when I got raped at seven. I’m way more hardcore than reinventing myself beyond the physical body, because I know that’s all there is for me. I feel like I have to come off as a prick to keep people from coming at me with ‘metaphysical life’ like I haven’t already rejected it.

I just want them to know this is a decision, not a reaction, and that I’ve become happier since making it. Not as ‘some manifestation of life, not death’ but exclusively because I know this won’t go on when I decide it won’t.

I’ve decided it won’t. Is trying to explain it going to make things worse?

 

I am absolutely an advocate of a person’s right to make their own end of life decisions. People have the right to die with dignity.

In your case, I can even understand how you’ve come to make your decision. Naturally, you’ve become happier now that you’ve made it. That’s a thing that happens. It’s how I know you’ve already made up your mind, and it’s why I won’t bother wasting either of our time trying to convince you otherwise.

I get that this isn’t a cry for help. It’s a genuine question about how to make things easier for the people you plan on leaving behind. It’s about how to communicate with your family about your decision to die. I respect that, and I appreciate that you thought to ask me for help in explaining yourself.

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to support your decision, but I’m only going to support it conditionally, and you’re not going to like it. In fact, you’ll immediately dismiss it out of hand.

I’m telling you this first so that you’ll catch yourself when you do, because there will also be a part of you that knows I’m right, and I’m hoping to reach that part of you before you fuck up that last thing over which you’ll ever have any control.

I’m going to support and respect your decision to end your life on the condition that you support and respect your family’s right to come to terms with that decision before you act on it.

Your life — and its end — isn’t just about you. It’s also about your family. It’s about your loved ones and everyone you leave behind. As much as you have the right to make your own end of life decision, they have the right to be a part of it.

Yes, it’s true that the ultimate decision is yours to act upon, but it’s not a decision that you have the right to make by yourself. You don’t get to just type up a note and check the fuck out. That’s common suicide. It’s cowardly, selfish, and without a shred of dignity. I cannot and will not support you in that decision.

However, if you do the right thing — the hard thing — and bring this decision to your family so that they can come to terms with it first, then not only are you showing them the proper respect, but it will prove that your decision is worthy of consideration.

Now, I know you’re already thinking of a million reasons why you can’t tell your family beforehand, but all of that is bullshit rationalization. It’s cowardice and fear. Like I said, there’s a part of you that already knows involving your family is the right thing to do. It’s the only thing that could ever truly legitimize your decision.

Obviously, your manhood is important to you. Well, this is your last chance to be a man. Don’t go out a fucking coward. Have the strength of will and the depth of character to step the fuck up and do right by your family.

You only get to do this once, and there’s only one right way to do it.

You know I’m right. Don’t fuck this up.

Standard

71 thoughts on “On supporting your decision to die

  1. JustThisGirl says:

    Wow, Coke. You just articulated my one misgiving about the right to die at the moment of your own choosing: how to do right by your survivors. I fully support it as a legal right, but I have always wondered how people would deal with their responsibilities to others if it were fully legal.
    I was lucky enough to observe an uncle who originally didn’t want to tell his daughter (his only child) how sick he was and how much he wanted to let it all go. He had to be hospitalized and *nearly* die before he was able to have that open and honest conversation with her. But it made all the difference to her in the end.

  2. VeryON says:

    “…I’ve become happier since making it.”

    Everyone becomes happier once they’ve made a decision. Uncertainty is the ultimate stress, not circumstance.

    I can’t say I know your pain, but I have known excruciating pain.
    And I’ve known uncertainty, emptiness, and hopelessness.

    I’m going to tell you something you might not believe or understand. I haven’t had true intimacy in fourteen years. I’ve had some sex, some of it pretty damn good. But I would give you my own, decent sized manhood directly to you if I could be truly close to someone.

    So if you’re going to go, you might as well take my dick with you…it’s not doing me any good.

    • Gaybeard says:

      Respect.

      Sorry you haven’t been able to connect with anyone intimately like that. I can’t even imagine.

      • VeryON says:

        I kind of giggled and cried (yes real tears) when I thought, “last chance to be a man doesn’t require a dick.”

        Then I thought, “this guy has an opportunity to beat all the odds and really own it.”

        “Yep, I survived suicidal thoughts and feeling I had been cast into a void without purpose. I endured the uncertainty of my identity and hardcore reconstructed my entire world.”

        “I … am … THE dickless wonder.”

        Thank the fates you aren’t in the United States.

    • “Everyone becomes happier once they’ve made a decision. Uncertainty is the ultimate stress, not circumstance.”

      This is so simple but so utterly profound. Saving this quote. Thanks.

    • Anna says:

      I think you’re comment was egotistical but I’m genuinely curious as to why you haven’t felt intimate connection for 14 years.

      • VeryON says:

        I made myself completely vulnerable in light of someones personal jeopardy and pain. I made every effort to make my empathy known even though this is not necessarily an appropriate or comfortable place to do so. I crossed that boundary because I hope to help someone or at least make them feel less alone. From my perspective, they reached out with something deep and important, and I responded with something in kind. And even though they didn’t reach out to me, my hope is that they might appreciate any hand that is extended. With any luck, even my dark sense of humor will get through.

        I don’t believe answering your question serves any of those motivations. And even if it did, I don’t guarantee I would be moved enough to do so.

        You have a lot of gall.

        I won’t take any offence where none was meant; but as long as we’re sharing thoughts about egotism. I think your comment is a transparent attempt to manipulate me. Start with an insult so I have to defend myself, then follow up with a conjunction and qualification that makes it seem like maybe there’s something of worth to be gained.

        Try this on for size. “I think Anna is a cunt, but my curiosity is sincerely piqued by her focus on me instead of the OP. I’d love to know why she is so clinically concerned with me.”

        Your lack of empathy is stunning and you have a history of turning everything into a robotic dissertation. It’s as though your identity is tied to some academic dream structure with no heart. As long as you can write a paper about it, you must be right.

        My instinct was to reach out and it wasn’t governed by my executive function. Sorry if my big fat amygdala is alien to you.

        I can’t believe I stopped watching house of cards to respond your fucking question.

        • Anna says:

          Sir,
          After the way I’ve seen you put people down, and attack them for no reason (includes insults, personal attacks, diagnoses of mental disease), you dont deserve an ounce of my respect. I’m surprised you expected to be treated decently just because you laid your gritty soul bare.
          I wasn’t actually trying to be hurtful, I was trying to de neutral. I asked the question hoping to find out something about you that would make me feel even a little bit of sympathy.
          I don’t.
          On récolte ce qu’on sème, mon ami.
          With no regards whatsoever,
          Anna.

        • The Coquette says:

          To Anna and VeryOn,

          I know you both, and it’s not a violation of your trust to say that the two of you have a considerable amount in common. If it were within my power, I would lock you in a room together until you stopped fighting and became BFFs, which I assure you, would not take long.

          Neither of you has to apologize, because I know neither of you think you’ve done anything wrong, but do yourselves a favor and call a fucking truce. Trust me when I say that both of you have good intentions, and you would both be happier if you were on each other’s side.

    • tall basket says:

      hey veryon,

      thank you. I know life is different from circumstance, and I’ve gotten pretty good at distinguishing the two and reacting accordingly. Lately circumstances have sucked hard and a lot of that has to do with uncertainty.

      Didn’t have a way to put it to words before now.

  3. Moss says:

    Yes me too. I have slept with a ridiculous amount of people, in all types of ways/situations. In the end it becomes boring and empty, and now the only thing I want is intimacy. Which has nothing to do with penetrative sex.

  4. NP says:

    I support this person’s right to die, and he doesn’t have to justify his reasoning to me or anyone his death won’t hurt personally. That being said, since he did write it where I could see it, the reason given makes me hope he’d consider offering himself as a human test subject for a cloned or 3d printed implant first.

    It’s totally a House bullshit idea, no reasonable physician would recommend it, so it may not have come up – but those kinds of ideas are also where actual scientific advancement comes from, and the weirdo leveling that social media sometimes causes means that he maybe could get there through an alternate path. That science is moving amazingly fast, they are SO CLOSE; there was just a thing with implanting 3d-printed ears on mice two weeks ago.

    It would involve using his time in frustrating and possibly fruitless ways, and it’s HIS time, so I’m not going to say he has any responsibility to do this; but since he’s intending to discard that time anyway, maybe he wouldn’t mind using some of it this way before he goes. Even having made the decision to die, his timeframe doesn’t matter; it’s not like death is going anywhere. On a to do list with death on it, death always has to be the last item, but you can stick as many things as you want on the list before that. Then too, if they succeeded in 3d printing him a new penis and it works, his reason for dying actually could go away. Even if it did not do it for him, it could help other people.

    I’d support the guy if he’s already discarded this line of thought, or if he hadn’t, but decides against it, but based on what was written, I wouldn’t assume it’s come up in this way.

    • Q.T.Getomov says:

      Kind of inappropriate but anyway..
      I suppose it’s not an altogether bad idea, if you’re going to go anyway, you might as well give the researchers an otherwise healthy, live test subject.

  5. grouch says:

    Trans man here:

    I don’t have a cock at all. Welcome to life for some of us. By all means explain to your family that not having a penis outweighs all of life’s other pleasures.

    • Gaybeard says:

      Yeah but you’ve never had one and lost it. It’s different. Also you still (I’m assuming?) have a working vagina and clit so you can still have an orgasm (I hope) even if it’s not necessarily satisfying to you or in alignment with your gender identity.

      The value of pleasures in relation to each other is personal not universal so he doesn’t have to justify anything.

      That said, I’m not for suicide, in case my comments above make it seem like I’m justifying his reasons.

      • Gaybeard says:

        I may have come off as unnecessarily harsh in that last post. I’m not in any way trying to say that you aren’t experiencing pain or a sense of loss, but that your situation is very different from the OP’s.

        I have no idea what it’s like to have my body and gender identity mismatched but I do know what it’s like to feel the sense of loss of not having something you feel like should be there. I have a bleeding disorder so I can only imagine what it’s like to heal normally. I have no real basis of comparison with people who can heal naturally. My response to you came from recognizing the resentment that can develop when you hear others expressing pain at losing something they had and lost, while you feel like they were lucky to have ever had it than never to have had at it at all. That’s not a healthy feeling, and this is an especially inappropriate place to vent that resentment when someone’s life is potentially at stake.

        I genuinely apologize if I my response hurt you.

        • grouch says:

          I don’t have that much resentment, and a comments section where smart people talk shit is worth occasional hurt, if I even had any, and that is true, I have a clitoris and it works. Not being able to orgasm would severely affect my quality of life (as would not having a hand, alas, virginity).

          What I meant more was that while it genuinely sucks not being able to do or experience something, being dead is doing nothing at all, and the calculus is whether not suffering, but not experiencing any kind of joy, is better than trying to see what you can still extract out of life.

          Not having working sexual organs is objectively terrible, but I wouldn’t want to say that it is a fate worse than death, and outweighs any other possible good thing that can still be experienced.

    • Q.T.Getomov says:

      I was thinking of commenting that there are plenty of other ways of getting off than PiV or PiA but since he appears to be identifying as a man and yet, by no fault of his own, he is now without a penis. A huge part of being a Man has been lost to him.
      There are plenty of trans who have died either by their own hand, at the hands of others or due to complications who, in the words of my friend Sarah who died from post surgical complications, could “die happy as a woman rather than live miserably as a man”.
      They died because in some way it was better to be dead than live life as something you’re not.

      • WhoAmI says:

        Being a man and having a penis have nothing to do with each other. Some people with penises are no men, and vice versa.
        However, yes, losing your penis can give way to dysphoria in men. And as such it sounds like a legitimate reason to terminate your life (not just kill yourself, make it clean and proper).
        Then again, surgery is always innovating, and it’s not like there is no demand for a penis-giving surgery out there. If OP can afford the time and the money for the operation, it’s worth considering.

  6. Dots says:

    Penis transplants are a thing. It’s been done successfully in 2014, and more are planned with “optimistic” results.

  7. Gimbal says:

    CQ is right.

    My grandmother decided to die, and I was able to talk to her about it before she did. That conversation helped me to accept her decision and say goodbye. It made all the difference. Please tell your family.

    Otoh… I have just started a relationship with a man who’s dick doesn’t work. I’ve have my fair share of dick in my time, but what I crave is intimacy. I don’t care about his dick and believe it or not the sex is still satisfying for me. If this is a case of you not being able to orgasm, then fair call. But if it’s about thinking that no one will want you… well, all I can say is I’m proof that some chicks don’t care.

  8. Mango says:

    Asexual people would probably be very grateful to know you. If it’s a concern about finding someone else, there’s that. If it’s simply not being able to feel complete without your penis, I can understand. I’m sorry for your loss.

  9. KG says:

    Perhaps this will come across as antagonistic or unempathetic, but I find it hard to respect the OP’s decision. A physically intact body is not the be all and end all of having a good life, and honestly, a penis isn’t all that necessary to 95% of a person’s daily activities. There is more to life and self identity than just having a dick. I am not male though, so perhaps I just haven’t swallowed the patriarchal kool-aid of dicks being the greatest thing ever.

    I almost hope that when the OP tells his mum about his plans, she calls him a fucking idiot.

    • Person says:

      gotta say i pretty much agree. and the people saying your comment is too harsh shouldn’t be supporting someone who calls suicide selfish and weak or whatever it was. this seems like an understandable abd typical reaction to the trauma this person has been through and should not be encouraged. at the very least coke should have verified that this guy seeked some mental health treatment before making this decision?! otherwise this is no better than listening to someone who is practically still a kid saying they’re suicidal and saying “ok off you pop” rather than helping or referring them to help. and the worst thing is this reaching out is usually a call for help and by just telling someone that yes they should go ahead and die, they can be pushed over the edge. this might be different if this guy were a lot older but he’s 22 for god’s sake. if he really can’t imagine life going on for the disclosed reasons- if there is nobody and nothing else he thinks is worth living for, he IS depressed. and i respect the right to die as much as the next person but this guy deserves to at least be offered some help before he does the irreversible. don’t know what’s up with coke recently between the victim-blaming shit regarding david bowie and this.

  10. Anna says:

    I agree with the “talking to you family” bit. And also ask them for help. I’m talking as a 20 yo, who has planned with my mother her euthanasia in advance. We’re talking about 10-20 years in the future (at least! I hope, depends on a slightly unpredictable degenerative disease). But we already have a nice plan: a catheter, some vet meds, a bottle of red wine with the family, a couple days wake at home, then cremation (and she wants her ashes to go to the bin and no tombstone but I warned her I’m going to steal some for an urn). We’ve never been scared to talk about death, advanced directives, preferred method of corpse disposal, that kind of thing in the family, but my mother and I talk relatively often of her death, bc she knows she wants to go that way rather than end her life with no mobility left and constant pain. Also I’m the only medical professional in the family, and I’m suffering from juvenile symptoms which might or might not predict the same disease for me in the future.

    I don’t think I need to support anyone’s right to die when they are fully able to kill themselves, but if euthanasia was legal and supervised by a committee of medical professionals (I’m one of those in training), and I was asked my opinion, with current information, I would advise against euthanasia for the OP.
    I would then do extensive research on physical rehabilitation for patients with penis amputation. After that I’d give a better opinion.

    I have mostly worked in orthopedics and gynecology, which includes spending a lot of time with 1) leg amputees 2) vulva+vagina+clitoris amputees (yeah, we have to do that surprisingly often with some rare types of cancer). Though I have never met so with both at the same time.

    These patients are mostly older than 22, and I’m not going to pretend quality of life is the same before and after an amputation, but it does get better as recovery goes on. Beyond the personal aspects of the OPs situation (which breaks my heart), I’d feel really bad about giving up such a promising patient (promising bc they’re young and young=shitload of potential, and they’ve done so well already).

    The cock part of the cock isn’t there anymore, but the brain part of the cock (which is actually a physical place, and which is pretty huge), is still there and can probably be retrained in some way to procure pleasure. I’m not sure but I think it’s worth a shot. (Also buttholes ? Really sexual places for men, right?) If that doesn’t work, then it’s just another iteration in an already long medical process.

    • Anna says:

      Side note (but really central note) directly to the OP : I’m extremely concerned your family doesn’t even know about your accident. What the fuck dude ?!
      I hope you have at least one motherly person directly involved in your life. I mean I feel like mothering you to death (really inappropriate and totally unintentional not funny not-really-a-pun), and I’m younger than you.

    • CynicalGrey says:

      Anna, you took my insensitive feelings and put enough logic around them so I didn’t feel so much like a jerk. I have difficulty supporting choices when so much possibility is available, and it very much has to do with how I am processing making it through depression and grief while still being here to type this. Normally, I begrudgingly agree with you because you can be such a butt to a derp (as can I), and I like how I snark my ego for it not being able to knee-jerk react to you info drop.

      For such a final decision, I would recommend letting some time sink in to allow others to process and support you in your choice. I don’t think you’re being rash, OP; I’m mostly concerned that you’re not allowing others to support you. Maybe you don’t have that network to help. And if not, how can we help you?

      • Anna says:

        I have no idea what “you can be such a butt to a derp (as can I), and I like how I snark my ego for it not being able to knee-jerk react to you info drop” means, but thank, I guess ?
        As for your reaction, I can understand the “I’m depressed, I want/have wanted to kill myself, but I’m fighting, why aren’t you?” reaction. I’m really depressed too and the amount of physical harm I’d put myself through to cling on to life is great. And of course confronted with the OP there is a shadow of doubt, you wonder if the fight is really worth it.
        However, this is the OP’s story. However much we’d like to sympathise, we can’t. We can only offer empathy, a helping hand. The bewilderment and loss of a traumatic amputation is a form of bereavement that I don’t think one can understand if one hasn’t been though it. I certainly can’t begin to imagine that pain.
        We all cling to positive optimistic stories, we want to share our own stories in inspiring ways. We want to believe that if others can rewrite their stories, so can we. And that’s fine, until it’s not appropriate anymore unto the point of insensitivity.
        We have to accept the fact that this story is the OP’s. To respect that, we have to accept an expanse of grief we can’t understand.
        Reciprocally we should accept our stories as our own, to write as we wish. The OP’s choice does not make yours any stronger or weaker.

  11. Lin says:

    OP says this is a decision, not a reaction, but you should know that it can absolutely be both.

    In my past, deciding to resort to suicide always improved my mood because I had a get-out-of-jail-free card. It was my ultimate solution to any problem. “If things don’t change I can always just kill myself.” Having that kind of contingency plan put me at such ease. It didn’t matter if I failed because I could just opt out at any time.

    If your dick is worth killing yourself over, then that’s your call, man, but Coke is right. You’re family deserves to be informed.

    Give it a year. Seriously, what’s the difference if you kill yourself now or a year from now? You’re twenty-two. You would’ve been an entirely new person in a year’s time anyway.

    • Lin says:

      Meant to include this in my comment last night, but there is a precedent for this sort of euthenasia. The case of Daniel James, a 23-year-old rugby player who became paralyzed after a sports accident. He traveled to the Swiss euthenasia clinic Dignitas and they accepted his application. That upset a lot of people, obviously, because he was very young and his condition was not terminal and many quadriplegics live with similar conditions every day.

      But the point is, of course, he was not living anyone else’s life, only his own, and if his life had become intolerable because of his injuries then perhaps it is right for others to help him end it.

      (His family was aware of and supported his decision).

  12. Kc says:

    op, what you’re going through is far beyond my experience. And I am an advocate of the right to die. But I believe Coke is right here. Because I’ve experienced the unexpected suicide of those I loved, and it’s traumatic in a different way than your experience, and I can only speak from that pov. Please let your loved ones in. You may be surprised at how your life changes when you understand their perspective. Don’t leave them like that, please please please. Your life is more than your own, and that’s not meant to be a guilt trip. It’s just the reality of life on this rock.

  13. Randy not Randy says:

    You wrote Coke so I doubt you give a shit about commenter #30. But I echo most everyone else’s sentiments. Sorry for your pain. It’s your life. Your decision to make. Different situation but similar theme 1983 Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama was a play called ‘night Mother by Marsha Norman. Might help you sort some things out.

  14. Jess says:

    I agree with CQ on talking with the family.

    And, I hope OP researches penis transplant. It has been done successfully including resulting in the ability to father children. If OP is eligible for monetary recovery as a result of the accident and can get a new penis… Maybe life will be good? Or, worth another shot.

  15. Lizard People says:

    Definitely fill them in. Can you imagine how awful it would be for your mother to be haunted for the rest of her life by thoughts of you being alone and hurt and suicidal? Not that that’s your reality but mothers will worry over worst case scenarios. It would destroy her. By helping her understand and giving her the opportunity to have some closure, you’d possibly be saving HER life.

  16. Elle says:

    Coke is totally right about this. In most cases of assisted suicides family and loved ones are involved and can make peace with the decision. It is so much harder on the survivors that on those who leave us.

    Now I can not help addressing your reason. I do not know when the accident happened, but the way you talk about your prosthetic leg being soon fitted makes me believe it is very recent. I am concerned that you haven’t had the chance to grieve your losses. Just like any person who looses a limb or a sense you need time to process what has happened to you. It is an incredible shock and might not be the right time to make such final decisions.
    I would strongly encourage you to talk to professionals that can help you. I would also encourage you to try and live for a year before revisiting this idea.

    Lastly, do know that there are many people who lead healthy and fulfilling lives (romantic lives as well) with genitals that are not the way they are described in medical books. Genitals that have been mutilated, genitals that are not working properly, genitals that cause pain instead of pleasure. Find those people and just see how they live, it might be of great help to know you are not alone.

  17. Margaret says:

    This post is fucking heart wrenching and raw and beautiful. Your advice is spot on here. Is this also a way to separate the men from the boys in your fan base?

      • Margaret says:

        supporting someone’s decision to die. that’s pretty controversial, at least from where I’m standing. I support the right to end one’s life, but many people see it as selfish and weak.

  18. Angie says:

    My one piece of advice to the LW is to truly give this some time to balance out emotions instead of committing prematurely to killing yourself. (Or maybe, you already have). Talk with doctors about potential operations – Transsexuals can obtain this surgery. (Hell, talk with female-to-male trannies).

    There is also some study that say paraplegics have their most depressing feelings in the first year, but after that, they go back to about the same level of happiness they were before they were in the accidents. Have you given this a year?

    I believe in right to die, but my one fear regarding this (and it extends to you) is that we are in an infinite life loop where we aren’t dying, simply reincarnating and tackling the same (or similar, or a more difficult version of) the same life challenges. If you have everything else going for you, you might be able to defeat this in one lifetime.

    Granted, this is just a random spiritual theory that may be as crackers as the rest, but it’s a good way of deciding what value and accomplishment you can do in any devastating situation. And I know it doesn’t seem this way, but you can genuinely overcome this (even if you could care less about that).

    • JC says:

      I agree with you 100% and was going to post something similar. I hope the person gives himself even one year to let his feelings settle in.

  19. The Coquette says:

    For those of you with a bunch of armchair opinions who have zero experience with either suicide or suicidal behavior, I would ask that you please think twice before spouting off in this particular comment section.

    I don’t care if you disagree with me or my advice. Talk shit about me all day long, but I draw the line at comments that have the potential to do other people harm. It doesn’t matter whether it’s inadvertent or deliberate. If you post a comment that I consider dangerous, I will fucking delete it.

    This is the first time I have ever had to delete comments, which I suppose is a new policy for me, so let it be known, when I post about serious issues to people who are dealing with serious problems, I reserve every right to censor the fuck out of idiots who either don’t understand or don’t care about the gravity of the situation.

    If you have a problem with this, feel free to take it up with me via email.

    That is all.

  20. dk says:

    I think Coquette’s advice here will just make things more difficult and painful for the person who wants to kill himself. People are absolutely awful about suicide and most of the otherwise reasonable people I know would much rather have someone be in excruciating pain than to let them go without any guilt. They will take this out on the writer, trying to make him feel guilty for his decision. Yes, he needs to get his affairs in order. Yes, he needs to clearly communicate his love to those he has love for. However, if he decides to share his decision to end his life with his family, he can say goodbye to having the peace he deserves around this decision.

    • The alone says:

      I had that thought too. The idea that the poster might end up institutionalized really scares me. Those places are barbaric. So the approach with family would be a delicate one that never insists on suicide as the answer.

    • Jennifer says:

      I suspect this would result in the OP’s family immediately saying, “NO, DON’T KILL YOURSELF, YOU CAN’T BECAUSE WE LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUU.” Which may be the point of Coquette suggesting that, really. Most families are not going to be cool and froody with it.

      As for me, I think it’s one thing to want to kill yourself when there’s a horrible slowly fatal disease going on (where I personally would be all, sign me up, Dignitas, because I saw my dad go through that), but this is a situation that people would have a harder time accepting that as an okay solution.

      I’m not gonna be all “wait for penis transplants” and I’ve never had one to miss so what do I know, but this is one of those areas where you could wait a while to see how the adjustment period goes before you decide to leave for good. You’re not losing your ability to kill yourself like if you were to become slowly paralyzed, so you’re not on a “do it now or forever lose your shot” timeline.

  21. Arnie says:

    I didn’t really understand this bit by the OP: “I’m way more hardcore than reinventing myself beyond the physical body, because I know that’s all there is for me. I feel like I have to come off as a prick to keep people from coming at me with ‘metaphysical life’ like I haven’t already rejected it.”

    How did you interpret that Coquette?

    • GOAT says:

      I could be wrong, but I think it refers to him living a highly examined life. He’s drawn a line for himself, not out of stubbornness or self-pity, but acknowledgement and acceptance of his own limitations (although in truth, accepting yourself is liberating, not limiting).

      I support a person’s right to die and do so with dignity, but I’m going to admit here that I have little knowledge about suicide and suicidal patients. That being said, I’m impressed with this person, especially because his language lacks any hyperbole- it’s not that he would never be happy again, it’s just that he knows what’s enough for him and what isn’t.

      It’s a tough situation. I wish him and his family the best.

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