Do people who commit suicide imagine that they are about to enter an improved version of life?

It’s about the deep desire to end their suffering.

For those who have succeeded, cannot tell us.
For those comtemplating, will not tell.
“Suicide may be summed up as a nanosecond of madness that corrects itself as soon as it occurs?”

I don’t much think so, not generally anyway. Most belief systems involving an afterlife don’t present suicide as a shortcut to an upgrade (martyrdom or heroism excluded). So someone who’s truly banking on getting a better life after death is less likely to risk screwing up their chances by checking out early.

People’s lives look different from the inside than from the outside. It can be puzzling to see someone who appears to have so much going for them choose to end it all, because they’re living the life so many others are aspiring to. But of course, what we imagine will bring fulfillment very often doesn’t, and we can’t see that until we’ve exhausted our wish list.

Our very human tendency to be motivated by a desire for a better future is a blessing and a curse. It drives us to restlessly look for better ways of living, but when, for whatever reason, one loses reason to think that the future might be better, then that motivation is gone. That can be very disheartening. You are forced to come to terms with the fact that your current mixed bag of pleasure and suffering may be as good as it gets. Some can’t reconcile themselves to this.

I imagine only the really religious ones. I assume the rest know there’s nothing, which I asume would be the point of suicide: you feel your life is so horrible you rather just not exist.

You used the phrases “healthy and free” and “Kurt Cobain” in the same sentence. Mental illness can be just as debilitating as physical illness, the feeling of having no alternative other than the release of suicide as a result. So it’s better in that respect, I suppose.

As someone who has been close, I can say that in my case it was just because I wanted the hurt (emotional) to stop.

I think, for some, it’s about escaping their present situation, a situation they believe to be so bad, they don’t care if ‘wherever they’re going is worse or better’.

I don’t think so. As others have written, I think suicides and attempted suicides just want to stop feeling whatever they’re overwhelmed with and at that point in their lives, silence and nothingness seems to offer comfort and rest.

I think it’s been proven that in a lot of cases it’s simply a cry for help/attention.
Obviously where a suicide has been “successful” any alternative to their own personal hell seems to be a preferred option.

Most suicides are very depressed when they commit suicide. It is all about ending their pain rather than seeking a better life. They are not acting in their right minds.

No… People who commit suicide are hopeless and see no other reasonable solution to this life. Obviously, the other one isn’t being considered.

I don’t think that a lot of people who commit suicide hope or wish for anything better. They just want everything to end. But then, that would really depend on each individual. Many things to consider, like religion or faith, for one. Lack thereof. Fear. Pain they can’t live with, physical or emotional. I’ve heard of people with sick diseases killing themselves. Or company owners going bankrupt, or people who have been raped.

But I don’t think that people killing themselves imagine a better version of life, at least not enough to encompass it as such. Religious extremists who do this might also see it as duty, rather than a desire, but this, to me, is a bit different, if not a lot, from the type of suicide I’m basing my answer on. In type, I mean hopelessness and such.

Every suicide is different but most just want an end to their existence. It isn’t the world that is wrong but themselves and there is no hope.