Suicide note response #15, edited for spelling:

Date: 2003-09-25, 12:09PM

Suicide is the ultimate act of cowardice. My father killed himself when I was six because he believed that he had fucked up so bad in life that there was no alternative. What he didn’t think about was the son and wife he left behind. He really screwed me up by doing this. I saw my friends with their fathers having a great time. He missed me growing up. Would he be impressed with all that I have accomplished? There is no way to know because he killed himself because he was too chicken shit to own up to his mistakes. There is always an alternative, always a way out. If you fucked up then get over it and move on. If you hate society in the Bay Area then move. There is no excuse to end your own life when so many people who want to live are killed every day.

It makes me so angry when I hear people talk about throwing their life away. So go ahead and take the easy road. Forget about all of those around you, you selfish bastard. You will never know what you have missed.

I sense much anger in this one. Same deal, this writer didn’t take responsibility for himself to heal from his father’s suicide and "move on", and selfishly only thinks of himself and what he missed. He blames his father for screwing him up, even though I’m sure he could have accomplished that on his own.

He envies his friends having great times with their fathers, but what if his father didn’t commit suicide and became a drunken, abusive bastard, bitter because of all his mistakes, and too chicken shit to off himself, he takes the easy road and lives, and starts taking it out on his son and wife? The "what could have been" condemnation of suicides is ultimately self-defeating.

So would the father be impressed with all the writer accomplished? Maybe, maybe not. But he, himself, has obviously accomplished something without his father. Who knows "what could have been" if his father lived, but he should not lose sight of the "what has been", and if he thinks his father would have been proud, take pride in it.

It makes me so angry when selfish bastards go comparing someone who wants to kill himself with people who are killed every day. Is it a sense of outrage how unfair the world is? Hey, the world isn’t fair, people get killed and people kill themselves. Someone not killing him or herself isn’t going to prevent someone else from being killed.

I love the angry logic in this type of response that sort of goes: "You’re such a worthless jerk for wanting to kill yourself. Go ahead and kill yourself."