The best step forward towards a better suicide system is a comprehensive list of reasons why people choose to die

This list isn’t about treatment or validating certain reasons as OK for assisted suicide to be provided. The list is the beginning of a system focused on preventing people from ever becoming suicidal.

The list is the target of the necessary changes in society and culture which will prevent suicide in an ethical way. It is people, life, society and culture which ultimately cause the pervasive misery rather than any brain malfunction. A better system has to address these much greater challenges but it will do the right thing.

You never felt terrible enough to stop making us want to die

This is the awful consequence of the medicalised suicide system.

It’s people who make other people so miserable for so long without hope of reprieve. It’s people who cause suicide. (Apart from suicide in the terminally ill.)

One of the key failures of the modern suicide system is the abject failure at preventing suicidal feelings from happening and protecting the individual’s will to live. This failure means more people want to die but also means that suicidal individuals will keep on suffering.

If the people who did the harm which causes suicidal feelings felt bad about it then surely they’d stop. If the society and culture which causes so much harm was called cruel and harsh then people would feel bad about what they’d done so they’d have to stop.

But they do not feel bad for making other people suicidal nor do they care about worsening the suffering of suicidal individuals. So they won’t stop destroying lives as easily as they destroy the will to live.

The will to live is so precious but no one cares enough to protect it because none of the monsters which rule the suicide system instruct the masses about basic emotional needs nor describe the evil of the cruelty which causes suicidal feelings.

Surely if people felt bad then things would change. Surely?

The acceptance of an injustice worsens the injustice. This is relevant to the causation of suicidal feelings

One of the critical mistakes of the modern suicide system is that it fails to address the pervasive cruelty in modern society and culture which causes so many people to suffer more than they can endure.

Society is all the more harsh and cruel because the injustices of the modern suicide system were accepted by the general public and politicians. They trusted doctors to get it right but doctors failed because they accepted the human and societal causes of suicide and simply sought to treat suicidal individuals when suicidal feelings arose.

The modern suicide system is as cruel as the culture and society which so frequently causes suicidal feelings. This injustice will not change though because it’s accepted. Things won’t change unless the evil is recognised for what it is.

If I die my suffering ends. I want to die because I want my suffering to end.

This is the quintessential thinking behind most suicides. The pain I can not tolerate will end when I die. The pain I am powerless to end will end if I die. I would trade the rest of my life to stop my suffering now because what I’m suffering is too severe to live through.

The people who are against suicide either don’t recognise how severe the suffering is which drives suicidal feelings or just don’t care.

This difference neatly describes the difference between the suicide prevention movement and what I call suicide protection. Suicide protection means the prevention of suicidal thoughts from happening. It means the protection of the individual’s will to live.

It is an aspiration rather than a reality. It is part of a dream of a better future. It is a humane objective whereas suicide prevention is inhumane.

Suicide prevention covers a wide spectrum of methods and practices from offering treatment to imprisoning suicidal individuals in psychiatric hospitals. The anti suicide movement dominates today while suicide protection doesn’t exist.

I think it’s fascinating to recognise the difference between these two ways of thinking. The suicide prevention movement has been dominant for several centuries but the people who espouse this inhumane blanket ban on all suicides have never worked on suicide protection as a means to achieve their goals.

It is logical to see the prevention of extreme personal suffering – especially misery – would reduce the suicide rate. Yet this has never been attempted by the authors of the modern suicide system so modern life is all the harsher.

I perceive the suicide prevention movement as an ugly beast which is devoid of any empathy or the compassion which comes from empathy. It is blind to the suffering which suicidal individuals face. It couldn’t see the causes entrenched in a harsh society and culture so it never attempted to strive for the humane objective. Thus the harshness remained unchecked and unchallenged so things got harsher and more people found themselves desperate enough to end their suffering to choose suicide.

Suicide protection is a critical and essential. It is the only humane objective of suicide prevention because it focuses on lessening suffering whereas the modern suicide system doesn’t care about lessening suffering or causing suffering to be worsened.

Suicide prevention is based on the length of life being the most important thing. It doesn’t think about quality of life or protecting an individual’s will to live. I’m sure that every suicidal individual wishes that they’d be protected better. Every suicidal individual doesn’t want to be suicidal and while this isn’t always possible it’s still vital to try to achieve what suicidal individuals want.

The suicide prevention movement doesn’t care about what suicidal individuals need or want. Neither does it care about their suffering. It is an inhumane tyranny which does more harm than good. It must surely end.

But…the inhumane tyranny succeeds. It is merciless in achieving its objective. It is heartless and cruel. It is so ugly that it can’t imagine suicide protection and it prevents the legalisation of assisted suicide too because it doesn’t care about personal suffering nor the rationality of the suicide response to extreme personal suffering.

The humane approach embodied by the attempt at suicide protection is also embodied by the sense of mercy which assisted suicide realises.

A life can so easily be ruined but so can suicide, an act which is a natural response to the pervasive harshness in modern life. The suicide prevention movement doesn’t care what it ruins nor the suffering it worsens by preventing suicidal individuals from successfully killing themselves. It has worsened the causes of suicide by never ever attempting suicide protection.

Suicide is all about extreme suffering. The suicide prevention movement doesn’t care. One day their crime will be recognised.

I hope I’m dead by then. I wish I was dead now but the tyranny would rather I suffer.

The modern suicide system is built on a faulty foundation because it doesn’t understand or care about how severe the suffering is

It’s primary objective is to stop suicidal individuals from killing themselves and it would worsen their suffering to achieve its objective.

The common practice of imprisoning suicidal individuals in psychiatric hospitals is a key example of the inhumane approach which permeates throughout the modern suicide system. The ‘care’ of psychiatrists uses what’s used to punish criminals. Liberty isn’t taken because of crime though. It’s taken to force suicidal individuals to stay alive and accept treatment beca.use the purported sense of care is merciless in trying to achieve its primary objective.

It’s no wonder that so many suicidal individuals eschew engagement with the suicide system. The practices used by the suicide system are inhumane. Psychiatric wards are horrible environments which add to the distress and loss of liberty is punishment. These are totally the opposite of what suicidal individuals want and need.

The use of imprisonment is just one of the merciless and inhumane practices used by the modern suicide system to enforce a blanket ban on all suicides. It believes all suicide is irrational and unnatural which is a dogma formed from the suicide system’s basis in biomedical psychiatry.

It is a false belief. Suicide is a rational response. It is the last resort of any competent conscious being who wants to avoid and escape from a suffering which is too much for them to endure. It’s why so many disabled people want to die because their lives are often very awful and there’s no solution for them to become happy. It’s always profound suffering which drives a conscious being to want to end their existence so they’re protected from the pain they can’t endure. I don’t know the statistics on prisoner suicide but I assume many of them also want to die because their imprisonment causes them more suffering than they can live through.

Of course some severe forms of suffering can diminish and end given time. Equally though some forms of suffering are intractable or get worse. The treatments offered by mental health professionals can also help some people but not others. Unfortunately many suicidal individuals stay away from accessing treatment because of the risk of confinement but also because there’s no point in engaging with a suicide system which won’t offer them what they want which is a good death.

It is inhumane to imprison suicidal individuals and worsen their suffering. The suicide system doesn’t stop their though in its relentless persecution of suicidal individuals and their free choice to die. It also puts a lot of effort into making good suicide methods difficult to access. It doesn’t care about how severe the suffering is at all because all it cares about is keeping suicidal individuals from killing themselves no matter how merciless, inhumane and tyrannical the methods used are.

Obviously it is totally against assisted suicide too. Again, this is merciless, inhumane and tyrannical. The continued criminalisation of assisted suicide is as inhumane as confinement because it refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the suicide and it cares nothing about personal liberty.

The idea that those people who would help someone to die are criminals is blatantly absurd. Obviously a regulated assisted suicide system is an essential element of a humane suicide system. Regulation provides important protections while still offering the mercy which a good death provides. Suicide shouldn’t be an impulsive decision but this can be compensated for with a regulated assisted suicide system.

I’m afraid I’m not as purely libertarian as others in the assisted suicide movement. I don’t believe in the pure right to choose one’s death. I think people should all have an education in suicide so when they find themselves choosing to die they’ll be empowered to make a better decision. I also believe a waiting period is necessary to prevent people who are experiencing suicidal feelings for the first time from making a regrettable decision but this should be a short period.

Most of all I believe in a new suicide system which recognises the severity of the personal suffering of suicidal individuals. This is quite different from the modern suicide system which does not recognise the severity of the suffering nor the importance of preventing and ending the suffering. I don’t believe in imprisoning suicidal individuals nor forcing them to accept treatment though my vision of a better suicide system would mean that all suicidal individuals would engage with the suicide system because it would meet their needs and they’d never fear that the system would overrule their decision to die.

I favour an approach which respects the individual to make the right decision for themselves given certain protections. I believe the provision of assisted suicide is a merciful act. I think there must be this mercy available because suicide ends severe personal suffering.

It is a harsh world and too many people find out just how inhumane humanity can be. The modern suicide system is part of this inhumane response to severe personal suffering. The inconvenient truth is that death can be better than living. But this truth is why people choose to die and it’s a natural response because when the suffering is too awful and you’re powerless to stop it then suicide is the rational decision.

To force someone to stay alive is merciless and inhumane. The priority of a humane and merciful suicide system is the prevention and the end of extreme personal suffering, and if suicide is the chosen end of extreme personal suffering then assisted suicide is the merciful and humane option.

A better suicide system trusts individuals and empowers them to make good decisions. It doesn’t force them to endure what they can’t endure because it is a humane system built upon humane foundations. It would never allow living life to become a punishment because it would move heaven and earth to reduce or end the individual’s suffering.

What does the intentional torture done to prisoners of war have in common with the severe suffering which causes suicidal feelings?

Both cause a mental state of profound desperation in their victims.

People who are intentionally tortured can’t kill themselves but they’d want to. Their torturers want them to suffer till they’d do anything to stop the torture. I was born in the north of Sri Lanka where there used to be a long running civil war. The rebels were issued with cyanide to use if they were about to be captured. Suicide prevented the suffering which would make the prisoner give up information about their comrades. I wish I had some cyanide.

Civilian individuals who want to die know the same desperation. Their suffering isn’t intentional torture but it causes the same desperation to end things. A suicidal individual is trading their life for the end of their suffering now. Their pain isn’t as bad as what torturers do to prisoners of war but it is by definition too much for the suicidal individual to endure. It is extreme pain at a personal level which makes individuals willing to do anything to end it quickly. Prisoners of war have to give up information to end their suffering and suicidal individuals need to die to end theirs. Both of these are caused by the overwhelming desperation to end their suffering because they don’t have the power to end it any other way.

There are human rights laws against torture. They’re only applied to intentional torture whereas they don’t create any protections from the unintentional but very real torture which creates suicidal feelings. There are no laws or other forms of protection from and limitation of the extremes of suffering in modern life which cause suicidal feelings.

The suicidal have been left out from the protection against torture because they’re dealt with by doctors and doctors are trusted to do the right thing. Military torturers are obviously evil so there is a modicum of oversight to protect their victims by being humane but there’s none for the civilians who end up wanting to die.

It’s sad that doctors are trusted so much because the one thing they needed to do for me is protected me from ever becoming suicidal. I’m sure a lot of suicidal individuals can identify with this unattempted objective. The fact is that doctors can make things worse for suicidal individuals but without any oversight they can carry on destroying the lives they should be protecting. Forced treatment has been recognised as a form of torture but doctors have been doing it for centuries and continue to do so.

My key point is the importance of suicide protection, which means preventing people from wanting to die whenever possible. This is a necessary protection and it exists in the current human rights framework but it’s not applied to the unintentional torture which drives too many people to suffer more harm than they can endure.

Doctors care most about the prevalence of successful suicides. They care very little about preventing suicidal feelings from being created and they’re not shy of making things worse for the suicidal individuals they’re meant to be helping. I think they’ve failed to live up to the high standards that the public hold for their profession.

Suicide protection doesn’t exist but there’s lots of efforts made to force suicidal individuals to live. This worsens the torture and they don’t care about the real tragedy which is that I or anyone else ever wanted to die in the first place.

The past can’t be changed but the future can. It just takes a radical vision of a new suicide system which doesn’t involve doctors. Doctors have failed. They misunderstood the tragedy of suicide. The tragedy is when someone decides that they can suffer no more misery. The tragedy is that anyone suffers so much that they’d have to choose suicide to save them.

Where are the hell breakers?

I hope the concept of hell breakers for suicide is obvious. Angels of the abyss is another phrase I feel conveys the same thing. I like these phrases because they succinctly communicate what would otherwise take a lot more words to explain. Sometimes like now I feel a few more words are necessary.

There are lots of agencies which work on suicide. Doctors, lawyers, health policy makers, politicians, therapists, social workers, mental health charity staff and the police. Most of these are represented by professional organisations like the Royal College of Psychiatry.

None of them are on my side. They work to put barriers between suicidal people and a good death. This is done because they don’t respect the hell of suicidal pain.

Some agencies also work to treat suicidal ideation with drugs or words. Either can alleviate the hell but they can also prolong and worsen it. This is true from my personal experience.

When they fail they default to prolonging the pain by trying to stop the individual from successfully killing themselves using a good method. They have no empathy with the pain of living while wanting to die and do not respect the individual’s right to choose a good death. They’d prolong the pain by prolonging life when the individual no longer wants to live. Again, they do not respect the hell of suicidal pain. They are more hell makers than hell breakers.

What’s perhaps worse is the absence of any effort to prevent suicidal pain from occurring. The entire mental health and social care industry is dedicated to one thing: normalising people. The only suicide prevention involves blocking good suicide methods from being accessed by anyone, even those who have been failed. The trend of focusing on individuals while never considering the bigger picture has made modern life more harsh because a bad (heartless and lacking in empathy) culture has never been the target of suicide prevention. There’s no training to wield the right of choice in death either…or life for that matter.

This is all hell making, not breaking.

There is no modern agency involved with the system which is primarily designed to be hell breakers. None understand these words:

It could be worse. I could still be alive.

They don’t understand what a fate worse than death really means to those who come to know it. They don’t have this life experience and they lack the basic empathy and intelligence to think to do anything other than what creates hell.

The suicide system doesn’t react fast or attempt to resolve suicidal pain quickly. An agency designed around hell breaking would be driven to create this sort of rapid response. It is one which understands the hellish nature of suicide pain which is central to hell breaking.

Hell breaking also involves assisted suicide because it stops hell. The religious version of hell is implicitly based upon creating suicide pain and preventing escape from it. This is the nature of the religious punishment and any hell which doesn’t create suicidal pain isn’t hell. The first step in this punishment is to make living so awful that the individual is induced to feel suicidal despair. The next step is to force the individual to stay alive while they desperately want to escape by any means including the cessation of their consciousness. Hell breakers offer a good death if they can’t solve the pain because death is a mercy for those trapped in hell. Their priority is the end of the hellish existence which creates suicide whereas hell makers choose to force their victims to stay alive.

The other difference is in the hell breaking focus of suicide prevention. Hell breaking prevents suicidal ideation, not suicide itself. It’s in this area where the current system shows its lack of empathy and vision. Hell makers think suicide prevention means stopping people from killing themselves and it has made more hells by focusing on blocking access to good suicide methods. Hell makers also fight against the legalisation of assisted suicide.

This differentiation between two polar opposite approaches might seem like an oversimplification. For example I’ve steered clear of addressing carer issues and not bothered with thoughts about personal responsibility to society. I’ve only focused on suicidal individuals. However the idea of hell breaking illustrates what would be achieved by a very different approach to suicide, one firmly seated in its recognition of the profound severity of suicide pain.

The simplification leaves out some nuances but I believe it covers the main areas where change is needed. You might not believe in the existence of the religious afterlife of punishment but surely you can recognise hell on Earth.

So I ask a question to which I already know the answer…what are would you choose? Hell making or hell breaking?