Is ctb a selfish act?

[Fizz]

I can see why anyone not in this situation might feel that way. But I had been begging for help for 3 years. I engaged doctors, therapists, psychs, changed jobs, moved cities. I've been on 5 different types of meds, and none of it has worked. At what point is it still selfish for me when I have done everything I possibly can to get better, and yet I'm still deteriorating?

I wanted to die last February, and I was intercepted. I was promised things would get better, that people would help me get stable. But in that year I have seen no one due to covid, my wedding was cancelled, my best friend and bridesmaid ctb, a toxic person I tried to make amends with turned some of my friends against me. Even though people said they would advocate for me and help me, I was left holding the rope. I had to follow up with Crisis Services 3 times a week to put things into motion, simple things like creating a crisis plan with me or getting a copy of my documentation after 9 months didn't materialise. My work has been so negatively affected I'm afraid I will lose my job, and I cry every single day from the pain of it all.

If I had died last February, at least people could remember me for who I was, a happy person with an undercurrent of sadness. But the weight of this year has crushed my spirit and asking for help has led to either stock responses or people avoiding you cause they don't know what to say, or the worst, "Get Help," even when they know the steps I took to help myself. I'm not the me I was before, I am changed and different and I don't like what my mind is falling into but I'm being backed into a corner day by day and the help isn't coming. I don't want to live like this when all my life is going to be crushing emotional pain. They broke their promise that I would be fine and they would sort it for me. Instead left me alone to do it myself when I said in February I was done trying and I wanted to go. I gave them an extra year. I fought so fucking hard for that extra year. Asking for more from me when I have done so much is now what I consider to be selfish. I just want to let go.

 

[Sprite_Geist]

No. Calling suicide selfish implies that it is wrong because you have an obligation to keep yourself alive - which we do not. The world, society and the people in it "owe us nothing" - or so we are told - and if this is true then we do not owe anything to others either. If nobody has an obligation to care about a suicidal person (or anyone) then that same suicidal individual should not have an obligation to care about anyone else - it should work both ways.

Another argument is that suicide is selfish because it hurts others. At the same time, though, everything that you do could potentially hurt another person emotionally. If you get rejected by your crush it can be very painful, but does that make your crush selfish? Some people get very upset by abortion - like the pro-life movement - does that make a woman selfish for having an abortion, because it affects others emotionally? At what point do we draw the line and say that you are/are not responsible for another persons feelings?

 

[it's_all_a_game]

I think it's selfish, but it doesn't matter because the right to die should be considered a basic human right.

 

[sourpink]

of course it is perceived to be selfish.
to me there is a distinction between selfishness and self prioritization. (edit: I'm now questioning whether I do actually find a true difference between the two concepts. perhaps they're much more closely related than I'd originally thought.)
(edit 2: yes, I see a small difference- self prioritization differs, imo, in that it is a selfish act that is seen as going against mainstream concepts of which selfish acts are and aren't acceptable.)
as someone else mentioned, no one owes any of us anything. none of us are owed anything beyond basic decency and basic rights, in the structured societal sense if that makes sense. and if no one owes me anything, no one owes me my peace of mind but rather feels obligated to preserve my existence for whatever excuse they can muster, I certainly do not owe it to anyone outside myself to do anything at all.
but, say this to most people irl, see what happens. spoiler, it doesn't tend to go over well. people are self serving egotistical bastards but they'll do anything to feel they're masking that truth. they'll adopt an act, an air of concern for you, but through this transparent curtain most of us can see they're only putting effort into acting for their own benefit - they might not want to be legally implicated or feel at all responsible 'like they could have done something to stop it'.
any action a person takes is almost guaranteed to be selfish as the word is defined. it would be foolish to think otherwise.
so, is suicide 'selfish'? I suppose, but so is every other action people perform. and if everything we choose to carry out is selfish, ctb is no worse. people see it as worse because it's generally an inconvenience and interrupts their daily existence and yes, can be truly emotionally distressing for some people left behind.
but if ctb is indeed selfish as all human choices tend to be, one might look a little deeper and see that perhaps ctb in its ideal finality is the last act of self prioritization one can perform.
hell, everyone is selfish. it is absurd to hear what amounts to "well if you kill yourself I'LL BE SO DEVASTATED." as if that guilt trippy bullshit isn't just as inherently selfish. but, people as a collective demonize acts of self prioritization often, and not just ctb, though that's the topic here. people will sometimes have a similarly 'how dare you' kind of response to another asserting their needs and putting them first in many scenarios. if you go against the grain of whatever is acceptable to the mainstream that's often seen as selfish, which again is of course absurd, because people go through life being selfish the entire time. they just seem to enjoy collectively cherry picking the things to demonize, and then gang up upon us if we dare let slip that we might be feeling open to the mere possibility of acting on the thought of such a detestable thing. how loathsome we are, us "freaks".

 

[Kurinoy]

No, it's your body, it's your life, it's your choice. I think it is selfish just when there's someone who depends on you (like a child).

 

[ineedrope]

I think if you're someone like me who will destroy my family if I did it, yes I feel selfish

 

[Mr.4x]

Selfish or not I'm going to do what's best for me regardless of what anyone says

 

[FuneralCry]

No, I do not believe that ctb is selfish, we all have the right to exit this world at a time of our own choosing, and we have no obligations to stay alive as we did not ask to exist. It is a personal decision when to leave this world. In a life where there is so much meaningless suffering, no one should be forced to live. If other people want to live then good for them, but it is cruel to expect others to suffer for decades against their wishes.

 

[Pain In The Ass]

How many of you'll think committing to ctb is a selfish act towards the others who know and care about you?

I think one must always put themselves first and if we are so unhappy that we want to ctb it should be our choice that is about us first before others.

'seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others. 2 : arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in disregard of others - a selfish act.'

How does losing your one and only life, whilst others remain alive, fit in with that dictionary definition of selfishness? Where is the gain in advantage, pleasure or concern with one's own welfare exactly?

 

[Judy Garland]

No it is not. Asking someone to live in pain for you to be happy is a selfish act. IE, family members and friends who say "I would be sad if you left, please don't do go". They are the selfish ones.

 

[ambivalent.]

In my case, I think it's terribly selfish. But people can only endure what they can endure. Sometimes it doesn't feel possible to keep going, even if I want to for those who love me so much and have cared for me so well.

 

[Journeytoletgo]

No it isn't selfish. What is selfish is expecting someone to stay alive while you're in pain. they are the selfish ones

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

In some cases, living is even more selfish, especially for me.

 

[quediuqueque]

Maybe it is selfish, so what

How many of you'll think committing to ctb is a selfish act towards the others who know and care about you?

I think one must always put themselves first and if we are so unhappy that we want to ctb it should be our choice that is about us first before others.

 

[watchingthewheels]

I see the common contradictory answer "It's not selfish because I/we have the right to choose..."

Of course, it's "selfish", it's part of the word "suicide". You're killing your self. YOUR self.

Sui: in British English

adjective
of itself

Sui definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary

Sui definition: of itself | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples

www.collinsdictionary.com

"Not that there's anything wrong with that" (selfishness), necessarily...

"We have never made an effort to understand what is greatness in man and how to recognize it," said another Wynand editorial. "We have come to hold, in a kind of mawkish stupor, that greatness is to be gauged by self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice, we drool, is the ultimate virtue. Let's stop and think for a moment. Is sacrifice a virtue? Can a man sacrifice his integrity? His honor? His freedom? His ideal? His convictions? The honesty of his feeling? The independence of his thought? But these are a man's supreme possessions. Anything he gives up for them is not a sacrifice but an easy bargain. They, however, are above sacrificing to any cause or consideration whatsoever. Should we not, then, stop preaching dangerous and vicious nonsense? Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed. It is the unsacrificed self that we must respect in man above all."

Ayn Rand. The Fountainhead (Kindle Locations 13511-13515). Plume. Ayn Rand. The Fountainhead (Kindle Locations 13509-13511). Plume.

 

[EmptyFields]

It may be selfish, but someone expecting you to stay alive because your death would negatively affect them as a result is at least as selfish, if not more so. People who tell you to think of your loved ones are the ones who are truly hopeless, because they lack empathy to a point that they can't conceive a world outside of their own validation. I've seen tons of vapid people give clueless reasons for staying alive. It all adds up to a positive bias on life itself. Ironically, people tell me I need to be more selfish, but that isn't what they actually want. What I want isn't valid according to their terms. All people actually want is for others to acquiesce to their own myopic world view.

 

[Blondi]

Whether it is selfish or not is irrelevant . Calling ctb selfish while eating meat and using products made by literal slave labour is beyond laughable.

 

[WiltedSoul]

How many of you'll think committing to ctb is a selfish act towards the others who know and care about you?

I think one must always put themselves first and if we are so unhappy that we want to ctb it should be our choice that is about us first before others.

It's absolutely selfish, but my opinion is that it doesn't really matter in most situations. Plenty of socially acceptable things are selfish. Why don't we all live in tinyhouses and eat vegan diets, or similar? I feel like to be alive at all, to be a functioning organism, is inherently selfish. Other pulsating blobs of flesh have no right to condemn you for valuing your quality of life over the temporary grief they'll experience when you're gone.

At least suicide is an attempt to escape pain. What's the reason for owning a Cadillac?

 

[Hurt]

I think it is selfish and that I will destroy my family if I attempt. But I'm getting weaker everyday and this disease is winning. Nothing left to do. I'm going insane.

 

[its-about-time]

In my head, for me, it's selfish, yeah. Hence all the guilt I feel. I think it's selfish for me to place ending my own suffering above the well-being of everybody I know. Sure, I'll be better off, but I will destroy those around me. What makes me so important or worth so much to where that's a justifiable action? Nothing. I know many here feel otherwise. But I've never had the self-worth to ever place my needs/desires above those of others. This is no different.

Doesn't change what I want to do. Might not even change what I wind up doing. But I do feel horrendous guilt.

 

[Insomniac]

so is giving birth.

 

[YuckyDucky]

I genuinely feel bad about what I know ctb would put my family through. They will be devastated. I have the power to prevent that. Me choosing to ctb would be putting myself and my own desires first, so I suppose by definition it is selfish. But I also believe that if there is anything in life that anyone has the right to be selfish about, it is their literal life. Will I be able to put myself first and do what I need to do, knowing it will hurt the few people I genuinely love and never want to hurt? Or do I keep going, fake smiling for them so they can be happy? Only time will tell if I have the courage to overcome the guilt and do it. I genuinely worry that I won't when that time comes.