I hear my friends say that suicide is such a selfish thing to do.
I see all these stupid quotes saying things like “suicide doesn’t end the pain, it just transfers it to others”.
And I’m tired of that. Why is it seen like that? Why will the person who commits suicide will be labeled as the one who was selfish and hurt others rather than the one who was suffering and lost his hope?
I am tired of hearing that the thing I want to do is selfish. I want to ask for help but don’t want to be labeled as selfish, so I just keep my mouth shut and smile. Why don’t people realize that these things don’t help at all, that it will just the suicidal person feel guilty for their thoughts?
Why is suicide seen as selfish? I don’t want to hurt my loved ones, I don’t want to be selfish. I just happened to want to end my life too.
I don’t want to be selfish…
13 comments
It makes people feel better at our expense. “Well, they’re selfish for having emotions. I can’t possibly be selfish for thinking all about myself and not giving a flying f*** about my friend/relative/significant other and their pain. It’s all them!” They can live with their self-absorbed selves that way.
Having grappled with this very subject for years, I offer the following:
A selfish person, or a number of them, may have contributed to your distress. I wonder if the “suicide is selfish” crowd ever considered that?
If one of us catches the bus, others will suffer some consequences. True, but if “they” expect us to keep suffering so that they will not, is that not selfish?
If one of us catches the bus, but could have instead repaired our broken lives and avoided the bus, perhaps we were being selfish. Perhaps we could be judged selfish in this, but who can really know for certain if one of our broken lives can be repaired in any given single case?
Thus, those who judge us to be selfish cannot know whether we are, or are not, selfish if we check out. I submit to you (sounds fancy doesn’t it?) that the “suicide is selfish” crowd is emotionally recoiling with an emotionally charged term at our act, or proposed act, that they themselves either cannot fathom or that perhaps they are in denial of having the same need of escape as us. Our expressed pain may trigger theirs, for example.
Having grappled with this very subject for years, I personally conclude that right now is not the time for me to catch that bus, but that is just me. Years ago I was at the precipice of departure, but then I adjusted my expectations, loved ones adjusted their expectations, and I got resolution on many old issues with the help of a therapist using EMDR therapy and only natural treatments.
In conclusion, “selfish” is a useless term for us.
I think that suicide is too complex of a matter to describe it as a selfish or altruistic. Many thoughts are about disappearing no matter the cost to just end all the pain, suffering and emptiness, this pointless void eating at you from the inside. Other thoughts just make you want to join the dead because you already feel dead emotionally and mentally and only wait for the physical body to perish. Other are all about killing yourself for the good of your family, friends or humanity in general. From that only you can see that it’s never selfish, never ‘evil’ as some call it but also never ‘good’ in a common sense. Good in an emotional one, seeing as it ends your pain.
You know, some of these quotes are actually true. The one you mentioned for example. Suicide always takes pain of the suicidee but at the same time gives pain to those that loved or cared for them – and believe me, it’s a lot a pain to bear. Still, it’s definitely not a good idea to guilt-trip suicidal people in this way.
In the end, I would say that suicide itself is neautral. It’s all about a choice. Your life, your choice and no one can or should take it from you. Doing anything to help is understood but insulting – definitely not.
I think it should be all about choice. None of us were given the choice to be born. We should be allowed to end it without society viewing us as selfish rejects. In my opinion its selfish of the survivors and family, if there is any involved, to want the suicidee to live through their everyday hell. But they don’t see things like we do. They are the selfish ones. We are just looking to end the pain of being here.
Quoting Thomas Browne (1605-1682): “With what strife and pains we come into the world we know not, but ’tis commonly easy matter to get out of it.”
*commonly no easy*
Suicide is not selfish. There also is nothing selfish about caring about yourself. In the end all those other people who try to make decisions for you aren’t the ones who lived through your life and felt your emotions. I’m not encouraging you to committ suicide but take some time off for yourself from friends and work and find out what makes you happy. You’re your own person so be as selfish as you want. Fuck others.
agree with you…
also glad & relieved to see you’r still here 🙂
i was worried <3
If suicide is selfish, so is living.
Yup, living is WAY more selfish. Offing oneself is one less person using up precious natural resources, food, or contributing to overpopulation and the destruction of the planet.
“Killing oneself is anyway a misnomer. We don’t kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness people are apt to say, with a note of approval, “he fought so hard”. And they are inclined to say about suicide that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is in fact quite wrong.”
Excellent excellent quote. Whos is it?
Sally Brampton. I plan on posting it to social media after I drink my poison. I like it too. So true. People don’t understand us.