Discussion Are Certain Forms of Suicide Selfish?

[Unsure and Useless]

Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to bookmark the TikTok post, so you all will have to make do with me describing it as best I can

So, while I was scrolling through my For You page, I found a TikTok post that had text over the screen that went something along the lines of:

Seeing someone take their own life just made my day so much worse

We, the viewers, don't see the corpse (luckily) or anyone else for that matter, but the fact that, the surroundings heavily imply that the poster was at a train station—which, by extension, means someone CTB via train

There's dull talking in the background, but the main thing we hear is a kid crying, presumably from being traumatized after watching someone die in such a gruesome manner. If I recall correctly, the caption stated that this was in Prague

However, the main thing that warranted this post was the comments. Many were statements that several train drivers experience PTSD and/or quit their jobs because of people CTB by train, but there were also several people claiming that CTB was selfish—though some clarified that doing so in public was selfish, with one person bluntly saying "just do it at home". Of course, there were a few people opposing this popular belief by stating that it's not selfish, but for the most part, they were typically ~4 replies to those comments calling them wrong and reasserting that, no, it is selfish and to not "baby" suicidal people

With all this being said, I was genuinely wondering: are certain forms of CTB selfish?

 

[TheVanishingPoint]

I absolutely don't believe it's selfish, because those who end up taking their own lives aren't calculating people intent on harming others, but people who couldn't take it anymore, poor souls abandoned to themselves, each day carrying the weight of a timeline of survival, barely able to get out of bed and face another day. In that situation, the goal isn't to hurt those left behind, but to stop enduring a pain that consumes from within, to interrupt a flow of hours that bring no relief, to close a cycle that has long since become an invisible prison. In that moment, there's no selfishness, only a desperate need for peace, even if the price is permanent absence.

 

[s00ngone]

"Selfish" is such a relative term. Who's asking, and who's being asked? When, where, in what culture? What are the details?

I'm inclined to believe suicide is inherently "selfish", but that selfishness isn't automatically morally reprehensible. Sort of how one can be "attention-seeking" in a completely valid, understandable way, or how self-loathing is actually a pretty narcissistic state of being when you think about it. That is not to call people who hate themselves narcissists. What I mean is that self-hate necessarily blows the volume of your "badness" out of proportion. Hating something takes spending a disproportionate amount of time thinking about it.

So once you've resigned yourself to dying, I imagine "selfish" is no longer a useful term. Only the living can call you selfish for exercising your autonomy, and only they can determine whether they believe they're right or not. Certainly, there are more and less gruesome or severe forms of CTB, and ones that diffuse the trauma in different ways. A child survivor is probably going to think very differently of their parent than their boss or psychiatrist.

I know my CTB plan is selfish, at least, and I grapple with that constantly. We each have to decide how selfish we're willing to be.

 

[amerie]

It can be, just depends on the circumstances.

 

[SomedayorNexttime]

No. Zero forms of it are. It's not selfish act wise, but some forms are inconvenient and impulsive. If any form is not good for the public, call it inconvenient or something more fitting. If it was selfish, they wouldn't be willing to take their lives and would only care about the satisfaction they get from disregarding others. I do think though that people should not do public forms of CTB, it's better to hurt as few of other people as possible.

 

[avoid]

Yes.

Suicide by crashing a plane with passengers on board is pretty selfish.

Article:

Crash date	Flight	Fatalities	Theories
Sep 26, 1976	Stolen aircraft	5 (pilot, 4 on the ground)	Vladimir Serkov attempted to pilot his Antonov An-2 plane into his ex-wife's parents' apartment in Novosibirsk where she and his two-year-old son were visiting; 4 residents were killed (his wife survived).
Aug 21, 1994	Royal Air Maroc Flight 630	44	Crashed intentionally by pilot.
Oct 31, 1999	EgyptAir Flight 990	217	After the captain left the cockpit, the cockpit voice recorder recorded the relief first officer Gameel Al-Batouti praying, as he disengaged the autopilot and shut down the engines, causing the plane to enter a dive and crash into the Atlantic Ocean. The reasons for his actions were not determined. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the crash was a suicide, while the Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority blamed a fault in the elevator control system caused by deliberate actions by the First Officer.
Nov 29, 2013	LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470	33	The pilot intentionally crashed the aircraft. The co-pilot was locked out of the cockpit, according to the voice recorder.
Mar 24, 2015	Germanwings Flight 9525	150	Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, previously treated for depression and suicidal tendencies, locked the captain out of the cockpit before crashing the plane into a mountain near Prads-Haute-Bléone, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_by_pilot

And what about the motivation, context, and as @s00ngone mentioned, the cultural interpretation? To answer the first, revenge suicide is usually a selfish act (see row 1 in table above). I've seen some members of this forum talk about committing suicide in a way that inflicts the most pain and hurt on others intentionally. I know that such 'what if' thoughts can alleviate some of your mental hurt, but please don't commit suicide to exact revenge on someone.

The opposite of selfish forms of suicide would be altruistic suicide, a selfless act.

Article:

In contemporary Western society, [unplanned self-sacrifice] is seldom referred to as suicide, and most often referred to as an act of heroism. This only exists in times of emergency, and is always lauded, and is perceived as a tragic death.

Self-sacrificial acts of heroism, such as falling on a grenade, is one example. Intentionally remaining on the deck of a sinking ship to leave room in the life rafts, intentionally ending one's life to preserve the resources of a group in the face of deprivation, and the like are suicidal acts of heroism. […] It is only an emergency measure, a voluntary but unwanted end to the person's life. It is never a result of long-term planned action, yet may involve some short-term planning. Examples of this include Vince Coleman, a telegraph operator who saved hundreds of lives by sending out a warning about an imminent explosion.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruistic_suicide