How do you hang yourself from a doorknob?

You don't break your neck, you asphyxiate and die. Robin Williams killed himself this way too. A scarf or belt will do but you have to position your body correctly.

You get murdered by someone who makes it look like a suicide.

You use a very tall door, OP.

I have wondered the same. Many of these lately. MDs here, wouldn't your fight or flight instinct kick in? How do they keep from untying it???

fyi, most people who kill themselves by hanging have some contact with the ground. There's whole websites that tell you exactly how to do it.

The fight or flight response probably kicks in more often than we know. But it doesn't take that long to pass out and that's the main objective, your body weight will do the rest. The fight or flight response kicks in for people who take pills and tie bags over their head or drown themselves too.

I don't get it either. Horrible.

[quote]The fight or flight response kicks in for people who take pills and tie bags over their head or drown themselves too.

But not for those who blow their brains out. Messy, though.

Well, it feels like fainting for a minute and you pass out. Then either your autoerotic helper wakes you up or you stay passed out alone. If the knot presses on the carotid artery, it’s pretty painless because you can make people pass out by pressing on that spot anyway. It’s a big, fat artery that pumps blood to your brain. Some respiratory depressants pills help.

Fight or flight works when you’re in trouble, not when you’re determined to die. I hope this is just curiosity making you ask this, yes?

Baseboard moulding have gotten taller. Correspondingly so have doors.

I found a friend who had killed himself execution style. Even 20 years later, I can’t imagine how badly he wanted to die. He gave himself not even a little way out.

There’s a reason we lock up suicidal patients. And even tie up their hands and have a big cop next to them when they’re acutely suicidal.

Execution style?

As many who are saved, that many drown. Suicide is not painless but it will always exist. For many depressed people just the option of suicide gives them the pressure release they need to continue, because one doesn't always have the ability to fight it back. Most therapists do not lock up their suicidal patients, that isn't really much of an answer for many.

It reminds me of that Anne Sexton poem: Wanting To Die

But suicides have a special language.

Like carpenters they want to know which tools.

They never ask why build.

You said a lot R13.

I'm sure we covered this in detail when L'Wren Scott did it.

It's not difficult at all.

R12 Yes. he was the Chief Resident and stole the meds from the ER. I’ve described it here somewhere.

Here's a good method (skip to 1:30).

She tied the scarf to one door knob then threw the scarf over the door. She was probably standing on a chair which she then kicked over.

You use a scarf. Pay attention!

It's called short drop and you don't need a chair.

I read her husband was at home when she killed herself. Why not wait till you’re alone. The poor woman.

Hutchence was found "in a kneeling position facing the door”

[quote] Yes. he was the Chief Resident and stole the meds from the ER. I’ve described it here somewhere.

Yeah, you need to look up the meaning of “execution style.”

R20 is the only one who answered OP's exact question.

Because most people just kneel or sit down, R24 when they short drop.

You don't. You get strangled by your husband first, then hastily scribble out a cryptic note and tie the corpse to a knob in panic.

If you're going to hang yourself from a doorknob, you have but two possibilities for a suicide note: "Do Not Disturb" or "Maid Please Make Up Room."

From what I understand, OP, you lose consciousness fairly quickly. I am not sure how long the entire process takes. Maybe 5 or 7 minutes until death?

As a person who's struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts since around age 12, my mind has always turned to hanging as "the way." Fortunately, the thought of doing it wrong and ending up brain damaged have been enough to stop me from ever trying.

I recently read The Final Leap, a book about jumpers from the Golden Gate Bridge. Most people who jump die on impact. But a certain percentage -- maybe 5 or 10 percent -- survive the impact but are instantly paralyzed. So they drown. Given the fact almost all survivors who jump say they regret it the moment they leave the ledge, I can't image how awful it must be for those who drown while paralyzed. I don't know if Kate had a moment of clarity before passing out. Maybe she did; maybe she regretted it; but tragically, it was too late.

The first challenge is being able to reach up and actually touch the doorknob.

*imagine

Who needs a doorknob when you have a paintbrush and rope?

I still can't figure out how someone dies tied to a doorknob, unless they sit on the floor and maybe use something long to slam the door and their neck breaks. Just about every way to deliberately die leaves a great chance that the person will end up alive and brain damaged and at worst their brain still functions but they can't communicate. He or she would be at the mercy of family members or even worse a nursing home for the rest of their lives. If they're young that could be for 50 plus years. Horrible!

There are places in this world that do legal medical suicide. I think saving up for that would be the way to go and for some by the time they save enough for the trip and whatever the procedure costs they'd probably be in their 90s anyway.

Asphyxiation, r34. Physics. Gravity. Body weight.

R31, that was beautifully random.

I bet WikiHow has detailed instructions.

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this in here somewhere before, but someone I knew used to work in a nursing home. One of the patients was an 18 year old guy who attempted this. He failed to kill himself and was left a quadriplegic. Can't move from the neck down, not even to finish the job. Can't feed himself, masturbate, or toilet himself. If he thought things were bad before... now, at 18 he had decades and decades of this existence ahead of him to mull it over.

There's a video online of a lovely Swedish (?) boy who did it with a cord from a doorknob and livestreamed the result. The video is both horrifying and gruesomely fascinating. As he is half lying on the floor, it looks (as one might expect) incredibly awkward and excrutiatingly painful. The way his head turns from red to purple, and then after the heart stops beating, slowly drains back to white, is cannot-be-unseen stuff. The video ends with the police breaking in -- too late to save him.

That's terrible and likely untrue R38. Perhaps from a drop hanging with spinal cord damage but not from an asphyxiation hanging. A person can kill themselves by wrapping a roll of toilet paper tightly around their neck if they can wait for the oxygen deprivation to kick in. You can hang yourself lying down for that matter. But the door handle method is pretty much foolproof because you pass out quite quickly and your body weight does the rest. Don't try this but the information is easily available. Everywhere from Wiki to YouTube.

You get a rope, scarf, anything you can tie around your neck, and around the door handle. You kneel down, tie your knots, face away from the door, and lean away hard. Your efforts tighten the knots, oxygen levels in your brain decline, at which point your body begins to become heavy, and it's own weight starts doing the work that your oxygen starved muscles can no longer do. You fall asleep from oxygen deprivation, then eventually, you die.

Oy vey

R40 he drop hung himself. I should have clarified that.

Is this the same way Lyle Stevik killed himself, kneeling?

Maybe this has been mentioned (I didn't read all the responses). But most people who hang themselves while still touching the ground take some sort of drug that will knock them out completely. Once they pass completely out they're strangled by the noose until they die. They never even know they're suffocating.

R39

Link?