russ_watters said:
..you said the definition of suicide is self-murder, not self-killing.
Russ, I know you revere me now and will think less of me when I tell you this, but I was wrong; suicide does in fact mean self-killing. The Oxford English Dictionary says of the suffix
cide:
1. a. F. -cide, L. -cda cutter, killer, slayer, f. cædre, in comp. -cdre to cut, kill, as in homicda, parricda, mtricda, frtricda, sorricda, tyrannicda, etc., slayer of a man, father, mother, brother, sister, tyrant, etc.; also lapi(di)cda, stone-cutter, etc. Most of the L. words having the sense ‘slayer, murderer’, have come down into Romanic and English, where new combinations have also been formed on the same type, notably regicide and suicide; filicide has also been used; and many occasional forms appear as jocose nonce-words, e.g. apicide, avicide, canicide, ceticide, muricide, perdricide, tauricide, vaticide, verbicide; or, still more ludicrously, birdicide, prenticecide, suitorcide, etc. Also applied to preparations destructive of animal or vegetable life, as algicide, fungicide, germicide, insecticide, pesticide".
Sorry about the mistake. My only defence is that my 'definition' was off the top of my head as an afterthought to a post I had just written. I promise not to be bad in future, and will be your friend for the next week if you like.
I have some problems similar to what you briefly mentioned, so maybe we can even help each other.