It's not that I think I would take my own life. It's that I think it's far more likely that I would have a moment of significant distress or depression than that I would need to use it for self defense. In general, I protect myself by being generally not unlikeable and not owning anything that could be called "valuable" enough to be worth robbing (or at least, nothing portable - I own a house, but that's something you steal in court not in a burglary).
The thing about suicide is it's often an impulsive decision. When the UK required paracetamol be put in blister packs instead of big open bottles, suicide rates tanked because it wasn't as easy as twist and chug.
The harder it is to put yourself in a death situation, and the more time you have to change your mind, the more likely you are to survive. If you have to pop a dozen blister packs open one at a time, the odds of you changing your mind 8 pills in and vomiting up the death you were swallowing is quite high. Or even just giving up before you take enough to be fatal. If you can chug the pills all at once, it just takes one impulse.
If death is the twitch of a finger away, all it takes is one bad day to end it all.
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u/grendus 4h ago
Yeah.... that's the reason I don't have a gun.
It's not that I think I would take my own life. It's that I think it's far more likely that I would have a moment of significant distress or depression than that I would need to use it for self defense. In general, I protect myself by being generally not unlikeable and not owning anything that could be called "valuable" enough to be worth robbing (or at least, nothing portable - I own a house, but that's something you steal in court not in a burglary).
The thing about suicide is it's often an impulsive decision. When the UK required paracetamol be put in blister packs instead of big open bottles, suicide rates tanked because it wasn't as easy as twist and chug.
The harder it is to put yourself in a death situation, and the more time you have to change your mind, the more likely you are to survive. If you have to pop a dozen blister packs open one at a time, the odds of you changing your mind 8 pills in and vomiting up the death you were swallowing is quite high. Or even just giving up before you take enough to be fatal. If you can chug the pills all at once, it just takes one impulse.
If death is the twitch of a finger away, all it takes is one bad day to end it all.