Yeah, unfortunately those closest to you will be hurt by suicide, at least if their decent people and not like abusive monsters. Like even if you could make logically sound argument that their lives are better off without you, like being financial burden, that alleviation is not going to outweigh the emotional pain of losing like a child or like a fixture in their life. I guess it's good in the sense of realizing that your depression is just clouding your mind and you do matter to people, that's a thought that I know can help several people but on the other hand, it does make committing suicide a bit harder to commit. In a circumstance where you have a good family, you basically have to just accept that your suicide is probably going to hurt them for the rest of their lives.
But I'm also posting here because I want to rally against the idea that that fact makes suicide an selfish act, because as stated in the OP, it's usually framed as the epitome of selfishness, and that's always irritated me. Because I'd argue that's is equally selfish to want to force someone to live through misery because you personally will be sad if they're gone. I'd actually argue that it's more selfish but it is at least equally selfish. Then I guess their counter would be the quantity of people affected but the argument of condoning people's suffering for the benefit of a larger group is sort of baffling to me because I feel most people would not make that argument under any other conditions.
Like let's say you lived in a toxic household, where there's some drunk alcoholic father that takes out his drunken rage on you, the mother takes his side, maybe out of fear of being on the receiving end herself, and the father only takes it out on you specifically because your sibling is seen as the golden child, and they themselves buy into that hype, and treat you like dirt as a result. Nobody is going to argue that you should you satay with your abusive family because if you leave, that's going to negatively impact them, like maybe the father takes it out the mother now, or something like that.
Maybe that hypothetical is bad because those are like objectively bad people but you can just think of having an awful job. Like a retail job, where you really like your co-workers in your department but the job itself is demanding way too much from you for way too little, maybe the only problem is really management is just too business driven, and they're not treating you with the proper respect. And this job is causing you like mental breakdowns, and really stressing you out. If you describe this scenario to somebody, there's an astronomically low chance that they'll tell you "Tough it out for your co-workers, if you leave it'll just make things worse for them".
Now I don't think all of them would just say quit but I think it's more likely that people would just say, well give your two weeks, try to find a new job, maybe even talk to the management. I think in this analogy talking to the management can be like the equivalent of going to therapy, right. Now for some people that can work, but it doesn't always pan out that way. If talking to the management doesn't work or actively makes the job worse, that person who suggested that is highly unlikely to tell you to remain at that job.
But I think the two weeks thing is the more apt comparison because there's definitely ways to commit suicide super selfish, right? Not that most people who commit suicide in those ways are motivated by harmful intentionality, it's usually just that for whatever reason their situation has became so unbearable they can't take it, but still whether they're not in the right state of mind to consider everything or maybe they just want to give one last middle finger to a world that's tormented them, there are definitely selfish ways to commit suicide. Like I guess running into traffic and forcing a random stranger the weight of your death, as an example.
This is getting super long-winded but I guess my point is the two weeks analogy is basically like advocating that if you're going to commit suicide, you should make an attempt at mitigating the pain. Like writing a suicide note, so you could attempt to give them closure, you could at least attempt to re-affirm it's not their fault or something like that. To me, if you know your family cares, and you care about them, a suicide note is typically a must, extreme circumstances notwithstanding. Like I don't think it's fair to call it selfish, if they one who despite having enough pain in their life to commit suicide, still had the compassion to write something in effort to ease the pain of others.
Sorry for the essay, it's just this selfish mindset thing really bothers me.
