Would you consider suicide selfish?

up for anything wrote: »

No. Medicate and put them out the door to be supported in the community but unless the person buys into the support offered by the various services they may as well send them straight to the morgue. He also has a benzo addiction. He'd been clean for three months until one of his best friends killed himself at the end of January but he felt he needed them again to cope with the funeral and heart break of it. I think then he thought he couldn't go through detoxing again and dealing with his anxiety.. he doesn't reckon much on counselling etc. The psych gave him other meds for that which are just as bloody bad as the **** he was buying off the street.

He needs some place where they can keep him safe and will help him deal with his addiction and his anxiety like a rehab but he says he won't go back. How do I keep him alive until something clicks in his head and he sees that he can overcome all of this and have a good life? Right now... he is hopeless in the truest sense of the word.

I too am pretty much hopeless. Yesterday morning someone asked me what was the best that I could hope for him. My answer was that he'd be found dead sooner rather than later to minimise the torture and torment his head is filled with. He always say, "Mummy, you don't know what's in my head." And I don't. He's only 21.

Deleted User wrote: »

That’s a very tough and sad read and thanks for posting it. Suicide is not black and white. I’m torn as to how I feel about it .
When I see the fall out this leaves behind I feel angry and I say “how could they?” especially a parent . But when you talk about the years of trauma , abuse and betrayal your wife suffered I can only imagine the hell inside her head especially as she experienced all this from such a young age.

I understand the feeling of rock bottom emptiness , despair, depression. I lost a child and very soon after that my marriage, my home, and everything that was familiar. I got depressed. It would have been the easiest option to end it all. But I had 2 other kids so for me it was just not an option. But my despair wasn’t the same as the despair of a truly suicidal person? Or maybe I have more resilience, more strength, maybe it’s my upbringing that suicide was just NOT an option. The loneliness was the worst part, hiding how I felt in order to seem strong.

I remember walking on the beach once thinking my Hell was actually in having to stay alive for my kids. No escape, no option , I was living my Hell in this life (but at least I was living).
I never showed my kids this side of me, they think I’m strong, independent and a role model (I’m anything but ) ..........but they also saved me , by needing me.

These days they’re both grown up and living abroad and I’m out the other side. I know I did a good job but it took a huge amount of strength to get there, nearly broke me at times.
It saddens me how many people look on suicide now as an “option” or a way out. Life isn’t easy, nobody said it was going to be perfect. It can be pure hell at times and maybe it’s that degree of hell , or how we are built to deal with that hell, that determines our fate.

On another note my cousin , married with a gorgeous wife and 3 daughters, purposely drove to the West or Ireland and jumped to his death from cliffs, after 3 brief months of depression, no big tragedy in his life, very involved in sports and community , a huge amount of friends, great lifestyle etc etc. The biggest factor in all of this is that we are all different in how we deal with life. I thank my upbringing for my strength .

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Putting this specifically at the door of religion in any way is just cherry picking.

BeerWolf wrote: »

Religious people would rather have those people live an existence of misery with their faux morality.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

It’s hardly surprising that people would be conflicted by what is generally regarded as the antithesis to everything they’ve been inculcated with their whole lives - that life is a gift not to be taken for granted, and that everyone should make the most of the opportunity they have been given.

FWIW btw I’ve known many people who suffer and have suffered from mental illness and they regard suicide as selfish, or “the easy way out” as it were. I know where you get the impression that people experiencing mental illness suffer greatly and are in the throes of despair when they choose to take their own life.

That’s a rather simplistic impression of suicide which ignores the many multi-faceted perspectives, such as the idea of being suicidal with no underlying or co-morbid ill mental health issues or mental disorder (although suicidal ideation is itself categorised as a mental disorder), or sudden suicide as a result of fear of damage to their reputation, or simply for that some people life has gotten too much and they’d rather not continue to live in this world, or for other people the prospect of being rewarded in the next life for their endeavours in this one.

Suicide is easily one of the most complex, contradictory and incomplete areas of human psychology, psychiatry, anthropology and science that is the least understood, because in spite of our best efforts - we still can not communicate with the dead.

Graces7 wrote: »

This post.. such total negativity
You are saying that there is no help? No healing? That is a depressed idea and not true. we live day by day and hour by hour.
there is no never
If folk cannot see that then we see it for them and hold them until they can
If we walk away or aver there is nothing to help?

Few have mentioned in the thread the fallout on family and others of suicide. A lady I knew had a son who hanged himself. Changed his mind too late and his hands were torn to pieces.
So was she.
There was a delay in her getting counselling and she could not bear it so hit the bottle and destroyed herself

IF a person was alone in a desert with no one else around?
But none of us are.
Our acts have a serious repercussion on the lives of those around us, so we are not free to act in damaging ways.
we are also responsible for others. to be there for them . to get help when we see danger
I learned that a hard way! I was in a UK internet group and supporting a lady who was in a living domestic hell,.
One evening she sounded.... odd, and I knew she needed help and was alone. I was too far away and called someone near her to go round
That saved her life.
Often these things reach a crisis and a small intervention will support enough to get through.

the depression and despair and negativity in this thread. Yes I have been there anyone who knows me knows that.
Many times so near to that finality. very very near .. a terrible temptation.

But life is precious and so are other people. each of us lives with others and the knock on effects of suicide are horrendous,
The person who finds you will never recover. Nor will the family. Guilt will haunt them forever .... they will have to endure the inquest, investigation, maybe a post mortem, funeral... years of grief and haunted by it all .

So yes suicide is selfish in the true meaning of the word. Maybe say inconsiderate?

and yes, folk do not listen or offer simple help or comfort

We are responsible each for the other.

and as we see from that list folk have quoted, there IS help out there. I used to call the samaritans frequently at one terrible time, and they gave me a befriender who visited and supported .

there is always help, even just for the darkest hour,

OK I am off! The sun is shining ... enough darkness but yes, selfish in the deepest meaning. If I did not know that then I would not be alive today and i am deeply thankful I am

we have a saying, when things get unbearable " This too shall pass"

over and out

[Deleted User] wrote: »

your religious people

alta stare wrote:

The act of suicide is not selfish. For me its the act of not leaving a note to explain why you have done it which is selfish. Close ones can end up spending the rest of their own lives asking why and that is a torture in itself.