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Suicide: Selfish?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
A lot of people say suicide is a selfish act, is it? I don't have an opinion on the matter as such. I don't think it can be called a selfish act. That's about it.
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Sucides leave such destruction behind them. Others are left to pick up the pieces of their lives, and guilt. And the person who's commited suicide has been cowardly enough just to run away instead of dealing with the problem.
Arguements like the above are common.
Because it's seen as an easier route to take - otherwise people wouldn't do it.
Lies. You honestly think that killing yourself is easy? Compared to alternative routes, which I imagine would be counseling and tablets, suicide sounds like the hardest thing in the world. What about all the people who just can't get 'cured' or are so sick of life they don't want to get cured? To imply that they are cowards for taking the 'easy route' out is shameful.
It's always looked like the easy route to me. Councilling isn't easy I speak frome experience.
What about that father who commited suicide last year because of the vast debt he'd run up on credit cards. He left his grieving family to cope with the debt he'd stupidly run up, instead of staying to work it off. If I remember rightly the banks were generous enough to write it off on compasionate reasons, but I doubt this father commited suicide on that basis.
if they end it all, i have sympathy with the people who are left behind to deal with it, but not the person who just ended it
I doubt very much that your family won't be bothered if you commited suicide, however much they seem not to care about you.
That sounds like a grudge against the person for causing such an effect on everything he's left behind, and by not being able to let them know how much they've pissed you off you try and satisfy the urge by saying you have no sympathy for them. The reason I think this is because I don't see how you can have no sympathy for a person who has been driven to such a point. Even if they did bring it upon themselves. Don't know.
Comments like his divert the topic.
What I mean by that is that I think the person who takes their own life does so for their own reasons without stopping to wonder about how much they may be hurting the people they leave behind. That's a different sort of selfish to doing something in the full and certain knowledge that you're hurting people you care about. Does that make sense?
Not thinking about others is exactly what being selfish is. It's not necesserily in question whether they need help or not.
It is and it isnt. The loved ones would say it is, the person doing it wouldnt. Selfishness can be good and it can be bad. If I was so depressed I had to end it, I wouldnt be feeling selfish but someone like my mum might think that in moments of anger. So its either way really.
Certainly. But excusable or not, it's still selfish.
Maybe not from their point of view.
Yes, that's my point.
But practically all problems have solutions! A suicidal person may be depressed, but they should be made to see that there IS a solution to their problem!
Ideally people should be talked out of suicide.
That man who killled himself over credit card debt should have gained greater support from his family, who could have made him realise that he could work himself out of debt. Besides every cloud has a silver lining; he could have realised that he should control his spending in future so not to encounter such a situation years from now.
Obviously not, I would say. If you had a list of possibilitys when you were in a tough situation, suicide would be one of them. Where would you put it on your list? One to try out first or a last resort?
Of course there is another way out. But people who are desperate enough to atttempt suicide can't see it.
It's not like you're the only one.
Whether someone has all their mental faculties available or not does not change the fact that when said person commits suicide, their only thoughts are of themself and not of the people whom they are leaving behind that must not cope with the problem, or reasons for it, and their grief.
This is, by definition, a selfish act. I have a great deal of empathy with those who are dealing with such accute depression though, and am more inclinded to help them than to condemn then.