Rarely Have I Felt So Low - thinkingaboutsuicide.com

[VaSportsMom]

If I had happened up on that page when I was suicidal at 16 it probably would have pushed me over the edge. I was intent on ending it all because after a 2 yr relationship my bf wanted more and I couldn't stand to be touched. I had been molested by my step grandfather, a Baptist minister for many years prior to his death - where the hell was God then? Don't tell me he's my hope for the future when he did nothing while one of his victimized a young child and made me the screwed up mess I was.

[Boltingmadonna]

Thank you, Burris, for doing such a great job of dissecting this crap. I'm not suicidal, but I have gone through many periods of horrible depression in my life. Including the time when I was legitimately depressed because I was living in a cult, and it was squeezing the life out of me in so many ways. Their response to that was to pray over me for "deliverance" from evil spirits. It was a vile experience and left me much more confused and panicky than I was before. Nothing says "reason to live" like being told you're only depressed because you have allowed yourself to become possessed by the Devil.

I never seriously considered suicide because, if you're a Catholic, suicide is a mortal sin, meaning you'll go straight to Hell. There's no chance of redemption, since you won't be able to repent because you'll be dead. It's kind of like the father who says "Stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about." Whatever hell you're going through in life, you'd better just suck it up, because if you try to escape this life, you'll end up suffering eternally. There is no exit.

Just one of the many things about that website that made me feel all stabby and depressed was the thought that a woman could be a "professor of homemaking" and actually get paid for it. Wow, did that ever make me feel like a loser. Can I be a professor of sitting on the couch in my PJs posting on a snark site on Sunday morning? I think I deserve to get paid. (Not that I'm saying homemaking is worthless. But I've been doing it for years, for free. And without a professor to teach me! I must be doin' it wrong.)

[Cran]

I never seriously considered suicide because, if you're a Catholic, suicide is a mortal sin, meaning you'll go straight to Hell. There's no chance of redemption, since you won't be able to repent because you'll be dead. It's kind of like the father who says "Stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about." Whatever hell you're going through in life, you'd better just suck it up, because if you try to escape this life, you'll end up suffering eternally. There is no exit.

Although I do not want anybody to commit suicide, I want to state that this view of suicide is not entirely in line with the current teaching of the RKK. It applies when a healthy individual consciously chooses suicide, as in rational suicides. If the individual is sick, as in severe depression, he or she is not considered responsible for actions like suicide, and are therefore not necessarily considered to be damned.

[Boltingmadonna]

That's true, cran--or sort of true. Many Church authorities now say that if you are not fully in your right mind, you can't be held completely responsible for what you do. However, many more traditionalist priests say that suicide is always gravely wrong and displeasing to God, even to the point where he would have to send you to Hell. So, rather than saying it's NOT a mortal sin, it's more like they say that, although it's always very very wrong, there is some hope that you will be let off and not punished eternally for it--although you would definitely spend time in Purgatory being punished to some extent.

I just think the whole focus on "sin" is a big mistake. When you're talking about psychological and physical suffering, the focus should be on how to relieve it, while honoring the dignity of the person. Rather than trying to figure out what they may have done wrong and blame them for it. Even if the Church says, "Well, okay, you possibly may not be totally and completely damned forever," they're still trying to control you with guilt. You are guilty for 1) failing to be grateful to God for your shitty circumstances, and 2) daring to imagine that you have control over your own life. In any case, everyone who grew up pre-Vatican II got the teaching that suicides are damned to Hell, and the traddies are still teaching it without rebuke, so I'm not letting the Church off the hook for this one. It's still cruel to tell people who are suffering that it's their own fault because they are bad. It's also cruel to tell them that if they just trusted God enough or were devout enough, that he would graciously take away their depression, pain, or whatever. That's just another way of telling depressed people they're not good enough for God to help them.

[Cran]

Strictly speaking, it doesn't matter what "traditional priests" say if there's an authoritative teaching of the Church about it - that is, if people now about it, and many don't.

[Boltingmadonna]

Well, okay, if you really want to get into this, here's the section from the Catechism about suicide.

Suicide

2280 Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.

2281 Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.

2282 If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.

Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.

2283 We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.

I've bolded the parts that I believe support what I said. God is the boss and suicide is a crime against his property. Psychological disturbances can diminish your responsibility--but maybe not, so you still have to fear hell just in case God doesn't think your circumstances were mitigating enough--and you should not despair of salvation for dead loved ones who killed themselves. Meaning there might conceivably be some hope--but again, there's doubt, so you do have worry and utter many prayers. And no matter what, if you kill yourself, you did a bad bad thing and God will have to punish you, though he might let you repent and still be saved. I don't think this is a very compassionate statement, even if it's couched in nicer phrasing than it used to be.

If you want to look at the more hardcore version they used to teach overtly, try the old school Catholic Encyclopedia, here:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14326b.htm

An interesting quote from that article:

This suicide rate obviously includes suicides attributable to mental illness, but we cannot accept the opinion of a large number of physicians, moralists, and jurists who, led into error by a false philosophy, lay it down as a general rule that suicide is always due to insanity, so great is the horror which this act inspires in every man of sane mind. The Church rejects this theory and, while admitting exceptions, considers that those unfortunates who, impelled by despair or anger, attempt their life often act through malice or culpable cowardice. In fact, despair and anger are not as a general thing movements of the soul which it is impossible to resist, especially if one does not neglect the helps offered by religion, confidence in God, belief in the immortality of the soul and in a future life of rewards and punishments.