Asymmetrical Information

I doubt very much that any of these people, regardless of what their notes say, are killing themselves primarily to get back at anyone. If someone (1) is miserable enough to want to end his life (2) blames another for his misery and (3) thinks it would hurt that person to believe that that person contributed in any way to the suicide, he might leave a nasty note as a way of inflicting some sort of vengeance from beyond the grave -- but I think it's a stretch to say that vengeance really motivates the suicide.

Spite often motivates suicides, consider the estranged spouses who kill themselves and the children.

I had a girlfriend many years ago who had been traumatized by an ex who had mentioned everyone but her in his suicide note.

"... while the balance of his mind was disturbed": there's wisdom in some of those old legal phrases.

if they're as awful as you say you think they are, they won't care that you're dead; they might even be relieved.

I'd be pretty horrified to think that I caused the suicide of even someone I really hated, and that would be tough to shake. It seems like a highly effective form of vengance.

Considering the level of reason in ordinary writings on the internet, I think you are expecting too much from suicide notes.

"I'd be pretty horrified to think that I caused the suicide of even someone I really hated, and that would be tough to shake. It seems like a highly effective form of vengance."

I would also be really, really relieved they weren't willing to go to the effort to make it look as if I had murdered them.

"Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die."

except in this case it is not "like" it IS... at least in the cases where the person's life is worth less than their revenge on someone else. For all the cases where a note is written, seems like you would find a disproportional mount of revenge notes, after all they want their target to associate with them... for people who are alone and in despair or those in great pain, some may not write a note. Those I have known personally didn't. They wanted to slip away quietly I think. Explanation has it's value, in some cases but not others.

Interesting how this act can be the ultimate self possession or the ultimate selfishness.

Suicide is often about rage. And most often about rage that cannot be expressed at the object of that rage. You've heard that depression is "anger turned inward" I'm sure. Taken to a further extreme, when the rage is so intense, and the prohibition against letting it out is so intense, the tension can lead to suicide. It's not really about revenge - it's about a very disturbed form of communication.

Similarly - children who cut themselves, in addition to doing so in order to 'feel something', do so as a way of punishing their parents whom they know will suffer when the child hurst themself.

The romantic notion of suicide as being about desperate loneliness and fear is a very rare phenomenon.

Or - there's an article in the Times or somewhere today about it - there's the kind of suicide that is rampant in Japan where it's all about saving face and sparing your family shame because you screwed up your job.

People commit suicide for an amalgam of reasons, but the spiteful notes are not indications that the target took their own life because of the spite and anger, nor are the notes even always honest otherwise for the reasons. The best friend I ever had, and likely will ever have, killed herself four and a half years ago, and the letter she left to me gave every almost every reason for why she did it except for the one I know to be true.

I think many of the notes are quite beautiful. In some parellel world where decisions of life and death have no consequence; there is prose in a single sentence summation without prolonged explanation. On the other hand, in our "real" world we are simplistic right up to the end, the essence of which is "it's all your fault".

I think many of the notes are quite beautiful. In some parellel world where decisions of life and death have no consequence; there is prose in a single sentence summation without prolonged explanation. On the other hand, in our "real" world we are simplistic right up to the end, the essence of which is "it's all your fault".

I think many of the notes are quite beautiful. In some parellel world where decisions of life and death have no consequence; there is prose in a single sentence summation without prolonged explanation. On the other hand, in our "real" world we are simplistic right up to the end, the essence of which is "it's all your fault".

The book from which your pseudonym comes had a great statement of the same point. Maybe one of the hardcore Randroids either knows it by heart or has the book handy...?

People who are in true depression don't have the energy to commit suicide.

Real suicides are more often motivated by exactly what you are talking about - spite, revenge, desire to "show them" or "make them feel guilty over how they treated me".

The excerpt from Atlas Shrugged is here. Here's the part you're looking for:

"Now I say there might be forgiveness for a man who kills himself quietly. Who can pass judgment on another man's suffering and on the limit of what he can bear? But the man who kills himself, making a show of his death in order to hurt somebody, the man who gives his life for malice--there's no forgiveness for him, no excuse, he's rotten clear through, and what he deserves is that people spit at his memory, instead of feeling sorry for him and hurt, as he wanted them to be....Well, that was Eric Starnes."

I don't want to go over them again to do a tabulation, but there was quite a variety of tone, including pure spite, dignified concern for those left behind, plain explanation, and craziness.

The precipitating event of most suicides may be related to others, but there is always an undercurrent. I doubt many people kill themselves after only a few minutes of thinking about it. As some letters said, it's a decision that comes as a last resort.

Ultimately it's self-loathing that drives suicides. If you hate yourself, then there is no future for you, with or without troublesome friends, family, and bosses.

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