I relate to the content of this article.

I am 73 now and have had chronic depression for most of my life. I've actually attempted suicide on 3 occasions but have had suicidal ideation more times than I can remember.

What I've come to believe, as a result of my experience, is that those who are at the point of actually intending to kill themseves, *don't* talk about it.

I've often told others that, if someone is talking or writing about feeling suicidal then they're not about to commit suicide.

I knew nothing of the notion of suicide ideation but this article certainly fits with my own experience and that it is so makes sense to me. Why? It makes sense to me because suicide is irrational but suicide ideation is perefectly rational, particularly in our society.

Our society is one that treats suicide as a major tragedy whilst, at the same time, largely without comment, accepting that 15,000 children die every day in the Majority World simply for want of adequate nutrition & hygiene. and that 7000 women die each week in childbirth from absence of basic hygiene and adequate medical attention or facilities.

When one considers our acceptance of the death of such numbers of innocent people; human beings just like ourselves save having been born into a more unfortunate, (to say the least) place on the planet and our acceptance of the millions of death caused by the conditioning of religion and the desire of arms manufacturers and demagogue leaders to enrich themselves, it seems somewhat incongruous to become so rabidly concerned about an individual suicide.

Such perverse grand-standing has, in my view, more to do with the personal concerns or attitudes of the advocate than for the potential suicide victim. It also reflects the commonly held contradiction that everyone owns their own life and, (as long as not directly harming others), should be allowed to live it freely as they wish but not if their wish is to end it.

Voluntary euthanasia should be available not only to the very sick, in pain or terminally ill but to snyone who wishes it.

The reality, in my opinion, is that anyone who doesn't at times feel suicide ideation if they think about and inform themselves of the insanity, inequity, hypocrisy and *real* insanity in this World, must have little if any feeling. Indeed, for my money - little as it is - my only surprise is that, given the horrors of humanity and its failure to learn from its past, it is a mystery that suicides are not exponentially greater in number than is actually the case.