 The way out or Suicidal ideation, definitions
Suicidal ideation is a frequent medical term for suicidal thoughts, which may be as complete as a formulated plan, without the suicidal act itself. Although most people who experience suicidal tendencies or ideation do not commit suicide, some go on to make suicide attempts. The condition requires professional intervention to determine its extent, including the presence of a suicide plan and the patient's means to commit suicide. Severe suicidal ideation is a medical emergency requiring immediate treatment. Nearly half of all suicides are preceded by an attempt at suicide that does not end in death. Those with a history of such attempts are 23 times likelier to eventually end their own lives than those without. Those who attempt to harm themselves are, as a group, quite different from those who actually die from suicide; females attempt suicide much more frequently than males do, but males are four times more likely to die from suicide. Therefore, females commit more parasuicides, at least as far as suicidal gestures and attempts are concerned. Regardless of the intention of the parasuicide, it is treated very seriously by the medical community, due to the risk of future suicide attempts by these individuals. The range of suicidal mania ideation varies greatly from fleeting to detailed planning, role playing and unsuccessful attempts, which may be deliberately constructed to fail or be discovered or may be fully intended to succeed but not actually do so. Ideation is the process of forming and relating ideas. It is a concept utilized in the study of heuristic behavior, creativity, innovation, and design thinking and concept development.
Suicide is seen by Buddhism as a useless act that will not provide a solution to suffering. By virtue of its belief in rebirth, Buddhism teaches that that suicide does not offer a everlasting release from life's problems but merely postpones them to be faced at a later time. Furthermore, the taking of any life (including one's own) is prohibited by the first of the Five Precepts. This means that suicide produces evil karma that will simply aggravate the difficulties rather than reduce them. Buddhism teaches that what it calls ‘a precious human rebirth’ is extremely difficult to reach, and that to cut it short is to waste an invaluable opportunity for spiritual development. It also deprives others of the benefits one might bring to them as a Bodhisattva, apart from the grief it brings to friends and relatives.
Wide suicide, Intentional self-killing, definitions would include martyrdom and self-sacrifice; narrower definitions would be motivated by the thought that these cases are frequently noble and heroic, whereas suicide is a common object of moral prohibition. This prohibition was unstable in the early Christian tradition, and infrequent in other cultures, where suicide in various circumstances may be institutionally embedded. The ban was fortified in the middle ages and it became a bone of contention between Enlightenment thinkers, notably Hume, and conservatives such as Kant. Suicide became stylish in the Romantic era, but diagnosed as the result of either psychological illness (Freud) or the pressures of social conditions (Durkheim) by the 20th century. An awakening awareness of the intolerable ways the medical profession manages death, especially in the United States, has led to death-with-dignity movements, assisted by sympathetic physicians and self-help groups. See also act/omissions doctrine, euthanasia.
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