suicide / hanging

[chirpychirpy]

Following up on the McQueen suicide, I'm curious to know why people like him hang themselves. Isn't there a less ghastly way of leaving this World? Any suicide experts out there who can explain why hanging is so favoured? No need to call emergency services by the way - I'm fine and not contemplating anything more serious than what to have for dinner tonight.

[sara3]

I think it's pretty much final.. there's more chance of messing up with other options. plus the necessary materials are usually close to hand.

[sp1814]

chirpychirpy

Yep...it's a 'non-negotiable'. Don't want to sound callous or facetious...but once you kick the chair away - that's it. It's not like pills or slashing your wrist where there's a possibility that you could be revived.

[R1Geezer]

The trouble is though that they usually don't hang as in the traditional execution method, they basically choke to death slowly Proper hanging with the drop etc is very quick. As you say the choking method is pretty ghastly, there are many more less painful and quicker options.

[karenmac60]

Men tend to go for more violent definitive suicide methods that women, but women are more likey to attempt it. I think it's that men don't tend to do the 'cry for help' thing, and when they make the decision they want to be sure no one can save them. They're not really thinking about making a mess or who finds the body, just about getting the job done.

[jno]

sometimes it's accidental as with David Carradine, who seemed to be attempting 'autoerotic asphyxiation'. There was some suggestion of this with Michael Hutchence (probably imaginary) and a Tory MP went the same way some years back.

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

- by Dorothy Parker

[Ankou]

i don't really think in most cicumstances that they give the method much thought.

i have known 2 people who hanged themselves, 1 person who gasssed themself in their car and my uncle a retired train driver had 2 women jump under his train in the course of his career.

i think they are virtually insane at that point, and no rationale of the aftermath comes into account. just to end it all. quickly.

[Ankou]

not necessarily mutualmate, my uncle had a colleague who had to reverse his train back over the legs of someone who didn't get it quite right (so to speak) they lost their legs but survived.

[keyplus90]

One man was lying on the rail track and waiting for a train (ankou uncle was driver perhaps) as he wanted to commit suicide. Someone saw him and asked why was he doing that?

"Fed up with the life" he said.

"Why have you got McDonalds lunch box next to you" the other person asked.

"surely I don't want to suffer with hunger if train gets late" He said

[andy-hughes]

Suicide is never the action of a rational mind.

It is possible to reach a stage where life is so intolerable, that death looks like a preferable alternative, and this is the suicidal state.

To get there, an individual looses all sense of self, of support, of help, of a future, there is nothing left at all in the universe but THE PAIN.

One option is left. To hit back. To kill THE PAIN once and for all. And a final act of control is to do it violently. To spend your last seconds knowing that you got back your control when the end came - you hit THE PAIN back, and hit it hard.

From there comes the violent death - the train / jump / hanging / car crash - they are all 'hit back' approaches to death, and feel right and true and final.

It's not rational - but suicide is not rational. This is where you reach. This is the way out. With a feeling of control. Finally.

[andy-hughes]

Without going into masses od detail - I was a Samaritan for three years and developed considerable accademic empathy for suicidal people, but not really understanding - in the way that a man can sympathise with a woman's period pains, but never understand how it really feels.

Twenty years ago, I had a complete nervous breakdown. I was in a psychiatric hospital for three months, off work for a year, and am on medication for life. I developed a far too close understanding of suicide from the 'inside' - hence my response. I hope it helps anyone who reads it, what ever their experience, by proxy, or direct.