What would be the thing that pushes you over the edge?

Yesterday, for a while, there was a question on Fluther regarding suicide. I opened it and saw that the person didn’t want to talk, didn’t want advice, didn’t want sympathy, just advice to make it easier or less painful. I clicked out of the website. I was not sure what else to do.

The day before an acquaintance had committed suicide. We were not close but knew each other through soccer coaching. He was the president of the kids league here in town where I occasionally coached and had been for six years. My daughter coached one of his kids for a season. Family man, four kids aged 11 to 16, good job, involved in both his church and community, no overt drug or alcohol problems, outgoing, never seemed to meet a stranger, no prior warning signs that anybody noticed. And then he ended it. I will probably never know why.

But these two things, coming so close together got me to thinking about what it would take for someone to choose to end his or her life. I cannot say that doing so has not fleetingly crossed my mind in the past but never seriously and mostly as an mental exercise to something that has happened to someone else and what my reaction to similar circumstances might be.

For me, I would consider it if incapacitated enough for me to be unable to care for myself or to continue life as I now enjoy it.

What would be the limit for you? At what point might such an action become a viable option? Or would anything ever drive you to such an act?