# NTs - Suicide vs Homicide



## affezwilling (Feb 1, 2011)

It seems suicides have been in the news a lot lately. A lot of the reports are about gay teens or war veterans. There's a thread out on it here - http://personalitycafe.com/nts-temperament-forum-intellects/18026-how-would-you-kill-yourself.html. As a war veteran myself it got me thinking. I don't think I would, or could, ever commit suicide. The closest I think I would ever get would be if I was backed into a corner and was going to die anyway. I would end up going out kamikaze style and take out as many other people as I could. If things ever got so bad that I passed my breaking point and couldn't cope any more (and that would have to be really, really bad) I would go homicidal instead of suicidal.

A lot of soldiers suffer from PTSD. It seems more and more people are diagnosed with PTSD every day. A lot of people suffer from despair and depression from being unable to see how things could ever get any better, others just cannot cope with the horrible things they've done. My Ne sees far to many possibilities to and I know I can always find the light at the end of the tunnel. I was never in a fire fight, but I was close to getting in a few. My Ti rationalizes my ability to do truly evil things if necessary. I would never kill someone unless it was absolutely necessary for myself or others to survive, but it wouldn't plague me if I had to.

So to make a short story long, I want to know if others think that being an NT gives them a natural buffer which makes them less likely to get things like depression or PTSD? I can take emotional, mental and physical abuse, that would break the average person, and bounce back without a problem. How strong is your breaking point? If you were to reach your breaking point and snap what would you do, start offing everyone responsible or just give in and take yourself out?


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## Bast (Mar 23, 2011)

I don't think it depends on type at all. Many things like depression (clinical, chronic depression) are caused by biology and would not be type related. I don't know enough about PTSD to say anything about that, though.


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## Pillow (Apr 17, 2011)

I don't think depression is related to type, it seems to be more to do with genetics and life circumstances to me. I was mildly depressed for a while due to my life circumstances and everything seeming to go wrong at once, and I also have SAD which didn't help. I tend to be good at not thinking about problems, but when they keep coming day after day it really takes its toll on you.


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## PAdude (Mar 18, 2011)

I agree that I would only ever commit suicide if I was in a situation where I knew I was going to die anyway. Also, I don't think that anything would make me homocidal unless I had an incredibly specific reason for killing a specific person/people.


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## Mr.Xl Vii (Jan 19, 2011)

Speak for yourself, if anything I think that being an NT has made me more prone to depression. I'm too self-aware for day-to-day life. I can't remember a time when I wasn't a least a little bit depressed because of the state of my life or society. Like Sartre said "Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal". I'm basically just wandering down a path looking for something I can be passionate about. 

I feel like if I were a different type I would be less prone to be depressed because I would have a way of finding happiness. If I were an SJ I could find happiness in following the rules society had laid out for me, and I'd probably still be a straight A student and a Christian. If I were SP I'd probably work harder at having fun. If I were NF, I would be more emotionally open, and I could find happiness in love, but I'm not. I'm an NT and the only thing that makes me happy is thinking about shit, and the more I think about shit, the less happy I ultimately become. Hopefully I can funnel my thought into my animation degree at art school, but we'll see if I really enjoy it as much as I think I will

I've thought about suicide a bunch, the only thing stopping me is my curiosity. I want to see what happens as the years go on, and I want to hear the new music, see the new movies, read the new books, and look at the new art.


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## affezwilling (Feb 1, 2011)

Pillow said:


> I don't think depression is related to type, it seems to be more to do with genetics and life circumstances to me. I was mildly depressed for a while due to my life circumstances and everything seeming to go wrong at once, and I also have SAD which didn't help. I tend to be good at not thinking about problems, but when they keep coming day after day it really takes its toll on you.


So when you get depressed have you ever felt suicidal? Do you feel more pressured, stressed out and irritable or do you get more apathetic and emotionally numb? Is it more a feeling of "I give up, I just can't go on like this" or is it more "F*** it, I don't care, they hell with you all"? Ever felt the need to just give in or to lash out?

I went through a period in my life when Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb made all the sense in the world. I became at peace with death, but at the same time content with life. I never felt suicidal or depressed though. I find when the world seems to start closing in on me and everything starts going wrong I will completely shut down emotionally which oddly enough makes me feel all "warm and fuzzy".


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## Pillow (Apr 17, 2011)

affezwilling said:


> So when you get depressed have you ever felt suicidal? Do you feel more pressured, stressed out and irritable or do you get more apathetic and emotionally numb? Is it more a feeling of "I give up, I just can't go on like this" or is it more "F*** it, I don't care, they hell with you all"? Ever felt the need to just give in or to lash out?
> 
> I went through a period in my life when Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb made all the sense in the world. I became at peace with death, but at the same time content with life. I never felt suicidal or depressed though. I find when the world seems to start closing in on me and everything starts going wrong I will completely shut down emotionally which oddly enough makes me feel all "warm and fuzzy".


I've never felt suicidal, I think to feel suicidal things would have to go spectacularly wrong, and there would have to be no chance of fixing them. I was mostly depressed because I couldn't fix any of the things that were going wrong, plus I was completely broke and didn't even have enough money to leave the house. I was apathetic, emotionally numb (or sometimes over-emotional as in a tiny thing would make me cry, but I think that was because in my head I was adding the tiny thing to all the other massive things that had gone wrong), and also stressed out. When my life started to pick up again I found it fairly easy to bounce back, though this was relatively recently and I still don't feel 100% myself, just not really depressed any more.

In winter (when my SAD comes out) I lose concentration, can't study properly (in uni I did on average 10-15% better in my summer exams than my winter ones), feel like I can't be bothered, like I want to just hibernate until the sun comes out again.

I do tend to shut down emotionally when I am depressed, I feel like "what's the point?" but not suicidal. It's more like "what's the point in getting out of bed until this is all over?"

I hope this makes sense, I find it hard to describe my emotions/emotional changes...


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## affezwilling (Feb 1, 2011)

It seems to me that intuition would kind of dissuade or override suicidal tendencies. Once you die there's no coming back and we'll all die soon enough so why rush it?



Mr.Xl Vii said:


> I've thought about suicide a bunch, the only thing stopping me is my curiosity. I want to see what happens as the years go on, and I want to hear the new music, see the new movies, read the new books, and look at the new art.



I haven't actually though about suicide because I want to see what's next. I'm at peace with death, but I'm in no rush to get there. My Ne constantly reminds me of all the things that are possible before I meet my grave.


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## Pillow (Apr 17, 2011)

affezwilling said:


> It seems to me that intuition would kind of dissuade or override suicidal tendencies. Once you die there's no coming back and we'll all die soon enough so why rush it?


Actually, this is something I forgot to add to my post before. I feel like if I commit suicide, yeah it will 'help' me as in I won't feel bad any more, but I think all the people I would hurt by doing it and all the things I would miss out on means it isn't worth it. I would probably only consider suicide if (a) all my family and close friends were dead/not interested in me any more, and/or (b) there was absolutely nothing to live for, not even a glimmer of hope.


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## affezwilling (Feb 1, 2011)

Pillow said:


> Actually, this is something I forgot to add to my post before. I feel like if I commit suicide, yeah it will 'help' me as in I won't feel bad any more, but I think all the people I would hurt by doing it and all the things I would miss out on means it isn't worth it. I would probably only consider suicide if (a) all my family and close friends were dead/not interested in me any more, and/or (b) there was absolutely nothing to live for, not even a glimmer of hope.


See, considering suicide just would never be worth it to me because I'm guaranteed to die eventually and the sooner I do it the more I'll miss out on. If I ever did get to the point that everyone I cared for was dead and there was no hope left I would go into a bitter, cold and calculating rage. I would become focused on destroying whoever was responsible for taking everything from me as well as anyone / anything that got in my way. I wouldn't be suicidal, but I wouldn't care if I lived or died. I would just be purely vengeful and destructive. I think the only thing that would get me to that point is if absolutely everything was taken from me and there was nothing left.


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## Pillow (Apr 17, 2011)

affezwilling said:


> See, considering suicide just would never be worth it to me because I'm guaranteed to die eventually and the sooner I do it the more I'll miss out on. If I ever did get to the point that everyone I cared for was dead and there was no hope left I would go into a bitter, cold and calculating rage. I would become focused on destroying whoever was responsible for taking everything from me as well as anyone / anything that got in my way. I wouldn't be suicidal, but I wouldn't care if I lived or died. I would just be purely vengeful and destructive. I think the only thing that would get me to that point is if absolutely everything was taken from me and there was nothing left.


I think you make a good point that you wouldn't be actively suicidal, but you would probably be passively suicidal in that you wouldn't care about living any more (except maybe to get revenge). I'm not sure if I would be actively suicidal in the cases I posted, but I would probably start doing things that I wouldn't normally do as I wouldn't care about the risks, and so would probably end up killing myself passively at least.


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## Mr.Xl Vii (Jan 19, 2011)

affezwilling said:


> See, considering suicide just would never be worth it to me because I'm guaranteed to die eventually and the sooner I do it the more I'll miss out on. If I ever did get to the point that everyone I cared for was dead and there was no hope left I would go into a bitter, cold and calculating rage. I would become focused on destroying whoever was responsible for taking everything from me as well as anyone / anything that got in my way. I wouldn't be suicidal, but I wouldn't care if I lived or died. I would just be purely vengeful and destructive. I think the only thing that would get me to that point is if absolutely everything was taken from me and there was nothing left.


It really depends on the person. Some people are more self deprecating than others. I could never kill someone else, I would rationalize every reason it would actually fuck me over. If anything my Ne would give me better ways to fuck with them, that doesn't involve a life sentence. However, I could see myself falling into depression one day and committing suicide. I'm kind of emo like that.


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## thunder999 (Oct 15, 2010)

I do know I can probably take more than most and never get depressed etc., but I don't think it has anything to do with type.
If my situation somehow became bad enough I know I would never commit suicide as I don't see how giving up and ceasing to have my life would improve it, although I could see myself deciding to kill those I felt were the cause.


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