As others have more personally expressed, compassion for the selfish is not a hot commodity. He left others who loved him and whom he presumably loved to suffer for a long, long time.
i don't think that some people here realize that when people are depressed, they can't think rationally. Then again, the current conservative platform is that whenever anyone is down, they deserve to be down and they celebrate their failures. I was originally a republican because of its compassionate (and fiscal) side, I no longer see that element anymore.
Clinical depression = disease Suicide attempts = symptom I don't see how much plainer this can be made.
i understand the range of emotions after something like this happens. we all naturally have those. we lost a friend at church to suicide. she suffered from depression...but she left behind a daughter. and she left those of us who loved her behind. the instant reaction is a sense of anger mixed with sadness. how could you leave behind this daughter to fend life on her own, now? how could you put her through something sooo horrible? but as you think more...and stop reacting emotionally to your own feelings about the incident...you realize that this was a woman with a disease. a sad disease that makes someone's perspective so dark that they view death as a better alternative than life. horribly sad.
Compassion for him as well. If someone is so sick that they choose leaving behind the loved ones to grieve, then something is horribly wrong. I certainly don't agree with him committing suicide, but that doesn't mean he isn't worthy of compassion.
Exactly. I'm close friends with someone who has battled this demon for a large part of his adult life. It ultimately cost him his marriage, and more than one job. "a sad disease that makes someone's perspective so dark that they view death as a better alternative than life." That sums it up very well. I've spent hours, on different occasions, talking him out of his depression as best I could. Meds help a great deal, and make it manageable for many, but the meds have side effects that cause those who use them to sometimes stop taking them. At first, they can feel better, and then they are deluded into believing that they weren't really necessary after all... that perhaps they are "cured." Then the blackness creeps into their life again. I can always tell when my friend has stopped taking his meds. He doesn't tell me. He lives in another city now, and I worry about him, but what can you do? You just hope that they stay smart enough to make the right decisions. Yes, it's a disease, and the election had nothing to do with what this poor fellow did to himself, and those who loved him. Keep D&D Civil!!
He deserved Prozac. If you are depressed, get yourself some help. Join a support group, go to therapy, talk to your priest, do SOMETHING to help yourself, or at least ask someone else to help you. With few exceptions, suicide is not the answer.
Without getting into the morality of it, there are people (often elderly) suffering debilitating and excruciatingly painful afflictions for which there are no cure or relief. In such situations, a rational, lucid individual might decide that they no longer wish to endure the pain.
Ahem, from the story: "I'm absolutely sure it's a protest," Mary Anne Mauney, Veal's supervisor at the lab, told The Daily News. "I don't know what made him commit suicide, but where he did it was symbolic." This was not some lonely person sitting in a darkened house unwilling or unable to come out. The man got in his car, drove 16 hours to a site, snuck into an off-limits site and without leaving a suicide note killed himself. The woman who worked with him every day asserts her certainty that this man's death was a protest. There is every indication that this guy made a choice to do this. There was prolonged intentional and probably complex effort to realize his plan.
