Discussion It's selfish to be against suicide.

[qhifwu4h5o]

I don't understand. There's so many people who say "suicide is selfish". If anything, I think that actively wanting to stop me is selfish. Everyone always say "don't do it because I would be upset/feel bad/feel guilty/ won't be able to forgive myself" It's my choice, you don't know the kind of suffering that I've experienced. Wanting to keep me alive and in pain to preserve your feelings is selfish. I suffer from physical and mental illnesses, I wake up every day in pain and feel nothing but apathy, yet I am supposed to continue suffering because I would upset a few people by dying?

 

[Darkover]

Yes why put your self through so much suffering for the sake of a few being upset about you leaving them for good, I belief that if you are no longer happy in life then it is time to split.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

Yeah, exactly. Those who are against suicide do so all because they're worried about the impact that it'd cause to loved ones. It always pisses me off at when suicide preventionists always focus on the loved ones instead of the suicidal person themselves. Why is it that the loved ones should hold more precedence than the suicidal person? It's the suicidal person who killed themselves after all so it should be mainly focused on their perspective. Also, looking at the calculations here, a suicidal person killing themselves to prevent decades of future suffering and pain far outweighs the pain that the loved ones would go through for a few months. Another thing to consider is that, since your parents gave birth to you in the first place, you're mortal and will have to die anyway meaning that grief is inevitable anyway. Suicide merely brings that grief to a closer date

 

[aubrey!]

everything is selfish. everyone does something for their own set of reasons. but i guess there's a fine and a bad side to it.

when you die, you choose your own life over other's mourning (even if really, their mourning will be short lived in most cases)
when people encourage you to live, despite your suffering, they tend to want to keep you around for their own gain. (whether it's just to feel better about themselves, or to actually get something out of you. time, money, knowledge, or whatever)

it's all self centered intent, really.
but that being said, it's important to control certain aspects of your own life. i don't think it's bad that when you suffer, nonstop, daily. pain that's worse than living. it's not bad to want to die. it's not bad to die.

i do think it's bad to "save" people who are clearly suffering beyond recovery, and are especially self aware enough to understand that.

 

[Marco77]

Suicide is an act of wisdom. It's life that is crazy and selfish.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Sometimes I wonder if it's because suicidal/ depressed people are maybe too generous in shielding people from what they're going through.

Obviously, there are reasons we do that. People can change entirely when they find out. They may panic and call the authorities on us, they may get annoyed or bored of hearing it, they may worry intensely and become depressed themselves, they may not be able to handle it and abandon us. Still- it still means they don't entirely appreciate what someone is going through. I think people have more sympathy for chronic illness because it tends to be more visible. Someone looks in pain or, looks weak or disabled.

What I'm trying to get at is- they know for sure our suicide would crush them but they may not recognise just how much pain that person is going through now. So- how unfair in fact it is to insist they keep going.

I agree though. I think if they truly realised that, they'd also realise it was selfish to expect a person to live like that- for their comfort basically.

 

[ringo99]

Couldn't agree more. It's just a form of pro-lifer gaslighting to ensure that you continue suffering

 

[wren-briar]

Sometimes I wonder if it's because suicidal/ depressed people are maybe too generous in shielding people from what they're going through.

Obviously, there are reasons we do that. People can change entirely when they find out. They may panic and call the authorities on us, they may get annoyed or bored of hearing it, they may worry intensely and become depressed themselves, they may not be able to handle it and abandon us. Still- it still means they don't entirely appreciate what someone is going through. I think people have more sympathy for chronic illness because it tends to be more visible. Someone looks in pain or, looks weak or disabled.

What I'm trying to get at is- they know for sure our suicide would crush them but they may not recognise just how much pain that person is going through now. So- how unfair in fact it is to insist they keep going.

I agree though. I think if they truly realised that, they'd also realise it was selfish to expect a person to live like that- for their comfort basically.

Since my failure, at the end of August, this has become very, very clear to me.

I had been brutely honest with my closest friends since I was made actively suicidial, i.e. while they didn't know when (or any other specific details) I was planning to CTB, they understood -at least as much as I could possibly convey it- just how much emotional pain I've been dealing with and just how thoroughly done with this world I am.

Since my August failure, I've been brutely honest with almost every single human that I've had any real conversations with.

Since my August failure

• I've "lost" one of my close friends (in their case, your statement, "they may worry intensely and become depressed themselves, they may not be able to handle it and abandon us" is so on point; the rest of their life was already extremely mentally and emotionally stressful, and I know that for their own mental health, they couldn't stay in touch with me anymore).
• Another close friend -one who I hadn't been brutely honest with before (for reasons beyond the scope of this) has become one of my staunchest allies in CTB, but it was only after we had a lot of discussions -about just how all encompassing and utterly devoid of anything even resembling hope I've been- that their attitude really solidified (they point blank told me that they really understood that the selfishness of ending my own misery paled in comparison to the selfishness of them asking me to staying for their benefit )
• As a condition of not being imprisoned again, I agreed to go to an alternative center. Again, I was brutely honest with most of the people there, and while they all expressed how much they wanted me to stay in this world, and how much hope they had for me, and how they could see a bright future for me, a few of them, in their own ways, let me know that if the roles were reversed, that they too would probably feel as much of a need to be gone, and that -while they selfishly wanted me to stay in this world- they also recognised their own selfishness and acknowledged that my need to end my own suffering was relatively less selfish.

There are a few other, similar acknowledgments, but they would be redundant at this point, and it'd be hard to make important distinctions without betraying confidences.

All of which is to say that, yes, when people truly see, hear, or otherwise vicariously experience our suffering, they are more likely to be supportive of our early and intentional CTB (because, of course, 100% of us are going to CTB, we're just deciding when and how).

 

[avalonisburning]

You have to realize that critical thinking and long-term risk management aren't innate skills in the human toolbox, unlike rationalization and immediate gratification. Most people will always find a way to spin their circumstances in a way that's conducive to second-to-second existence, until they reach a point where they're physically incapable of spinning it. The entire point of life is to perpetuate itself. They're like addicts in that regard, and anyone who's argued with an addict in denial understands the futility of the exercise.

Of course they're selfish and wrong. But I think they should be given just a little grace, because they don't know any better - they can't. They don't have the hardware to meaningfully comprehend or relate to why someone would want to pursue death, because it's anathema to everything they stand for, all of their social rituals, and everything they've learned in life and through evolution.

 

[not fond of it]

I try not to attribute malice to what could be explained by ignorance. Historically, people have seldom respected the autonomy of others. The generally agreed upon morals that we are told tends to be a product of whatever religion dominated our culture, which in turn is a product of whatever people liked or disliked thousands of years ago.

If the baker of a community decides that life isn't worth it, then now the town is left without the skill, efficiency, and connections that the baker had. The simpler-minded people of the time see this and say "Hey, this man just made a decision that benefitted himself and this is costing us! He basically just stole from our community!"

Even today, people tend to disdain those who make decisions that cause others perceived harm, whether that be leaving a job or a relationship. The manager at the job or the other party in the relationship gets emotional about the decision affects THEM and are relatively quick to blame the closest thing they see as the source: the free will of the person who left. Even those who are a little more empathetic might try and think of times they have thought of leaving and how they convinced themselves to stay. They see their decision-making process and call it strength and devotion, when it ultimately came down to whatever personal reasons they had to stay.

Combine this with the statistics that show that CTBs are done without the long deliberation that the decision deserves and now people are quick to lump everyone's decisions together as irrational, further solidifying their views. Also the fact that a dead person can no longer advocate for themselves.

The world has changed so much, but unfortunately people's minds haven't. Humans are emotional creatures, and tend to grasp at moral straws to justify the lack of autonomy they afford others.

Your mind belongs to you, my friend.