To think that people who moan on facebook about being delayed after someone has committed suicide under a train are insensitive twats?

I have great sympathy for people who feel that bad that they can't see any other way out but suicide, I do. I've had big problems with depression in the past, I know how overwhelming it can be BUT jumping on a train line is horribly selfish. It's making some random stranger responsible for your death.

My sister works for Network Rail, she knows the drivers who have to take medical retirement because they can't cope with the knowledge that they've killed someone albeit unwillingly, she knows the poor sods who have to spend hours picking up every last piece from the train and tracks.

However, having said that, commuters whinging about delays. Yep, whatever you feel about it, keep your mouth shut. It's crass and insensitive to moan about the inconvenience of someone dying no matter the circumstances.

It is awful that someone has decided to end their life. Just awful and upsetting.

However, unless you are a commuter who has dealt with hours and hours of delays on an almost fortnightly basis this winter ( I have) then I suppose the achingly frustrating nature of hearing the train company shrug about a fatality on the line isn't very real.

I want to move closer to work but can't due to finance/wages like many other people. I have also commuted witha minor disability in the past and that was hellish. What if you were a pregant woman and forced to stand for hours without food or water on a train behind it? The thought of that alone has me reconsidering my options on commutes and pregnancies.

I think many who don't commute don't realise how bloody frequent and how severe the delays are when this happens.

Plus the impact on the poor driver, for god's sake!

I think the trouble with the word selfish is that it implies a rational choice made.

Nothing to do with wanting them to suffer indefinitely at all. What an odd thing to say. Just trying to emphasise the point that it can't be anything other than selfish because of the despair the cannot help feeling. They cannot think beyond their own situation.

Boomerwang... I think you're absolutely right in your post. People often don't realise that life can turn on a sixpence and what you dissmissed from your mind before is now up close and personal and you're left vulnerable to the comments and thoughts of others that you so glibly engaged before.

Ah, unfortunate cross post, I agree with Pagwatch!

I disagree, that distorted thinking makes it anything but selfish. Wanting someone to suffer in indefinitely to avoid yourself feeling any pain is a selfish act.

I think this is totally polarising to be honest.

Some of the comnents on this thread just illustrate how deeply misunderstood acute depression is.
Folkgirl expressed it well.
In the midst of a chronic depression your entire perception of the world becomes warped.
You don't consider and then reject the hurt you will cause others. To list the people you should have thought about is banal.
You lose any concept that your actions can hurt others. You feel that your life is diminishing others, you are a drain on them, a negative. You can't see anything except positives arising from your death. You feel people will be relieve of the burden you cause.

The idea that people disregard the hurt they will cause is quite simply and totally misunderstanding the state of mind involved.

It is the extension of the 'pull yourself together' attitude.

I certainly wouldn't moan about it on Facebook. I feel terribly sorry for the driver and the person who was so low that they had to commit suicide - truly awful. HOWEVER, I will also get pissed off that I will be late to collect my daughter and that a nursery staff member will have to stay late to accompany her until I can get there.

Totally agree...

You should challenge his/her comments. Might make him/her think twice next time.

And that distorted thinking is what makes it a selfish act.

I used to be a commuter and this happened on occasion. Similarly I missed a flight because of it once. And yes, the delay is bloody irritating, but I could never, ever moan about it, or be blase about it, cause bloody hell, priorities!

Selfishness implies rational, suicide implies anything but to me, a complete desperation. If you really, really are so unhappy that the only thing you can think to do is meet a violent end under a train do you really think the driver is going to take priority.

Someone is always affected. Someone always finds the body, takes the call, tries to talk down but fails etc, and I speak from experience.

General you. general comment on the attitude that suicide is selfish. not addressing anyone in particular.

I can't believe people can know that a fellow human being has ended their life and all they can do is moan that they have suffered an inconvenience. Where's their compassion?

And I disagree strongly that suicide is a selfish act in the mind of the person doing it

Someone doesn't kill themselves thinking haha! I'm going to leave everyone and they'll be devestated and it will ruin their lives and they'll never get over it.

That may be the reality of it, but it sure as hell isn't what the person is thinking. They think there is no hope, no way forward. That they are alone, that people WANT them gone. The thinking is really really skewed.

From outside their mind, you look at you see someone who ended their own life and you see the impact it had on those around them and you call it selfish because you say they were only thinking of themselves.

You are wrong. They WERE thinking of other people, but their depression had their thinking so screwed up that in their mind, they were doing the right thing for other people. The best thing for other people. Even - what other people WANTED them to do.

One thing that makes train delays much worse is that they close ALL the lines not just the one, um, affected - or even that plus the one next to it.

A while ago I was at Preston when someone threw themselves under a train just to the south of the station. Even though there are loads of lines, the railway authorities closed the all and everyone coming south from Scotland had to get buses to Wigan. Similarly someone did it at Southall (London) and every line out of Paddington was closed.

I don't know why this is done: when there are more than 2 lines, surely they could keep one or two open and have trains go past slowly.

I can't help think of the family and friends left behind and feel for them.

It's the sick nature of depression itself that stops people from seeking help.

The fear is the depression; the anxiety is the depression; sense that no one will be interested is the depression; the belief that it's not really worth it because that help is for someone else who deserves it and you don't deserve it is the depression and that you'd be too embarrassed to seek help because if you did you'd be putting yourself out in to the world and saying "oh I'm sorry, I know it looks like I think I matter, but I don't. I thought I mattered to but now I can see what a pathetic laughable error I have made because I don't" is the depression.

By the time you get to this point you don't even consider other people, or what they might be posting about you on FB. Depression is selfish. The illness is selfish. The people who have it aren't able to consider other people because their world has become so small that it only includes them and they aren't able to consider the consequences of, for example, jumping in front of a train because (in their head) a) the train won't even stop, "after all, it's only me"; b) no one is going to be traumatised by it, "after all, it's only me"; c) it's all going to end in that moment, there is nothing else beyond that moment. And more than that, any fleeting thoughts that touched on it's impact on other people would be quickly disregarded as disgustingly arrogant.

FWIW I have very close experience of depression and suicidal thoughts. I know how utterly desperate life becomes, I understand that the knowledge someone has the ability to end it all, whether they exercise it or not, can be the only thing that gets people through the day. And then for some people the balance gets tipped. I understand the absolute wretched desperation that means someone can't consider the impact on other people, not that they don't.

However, if someone else's work day, child care, commute home, commute to work is disrupted for whatever reason, that is incredibly stressful.

Having to grovel to the childminder who's missed a night out because they've still got your child is embarrassing and stressful.

Having to try and explain to a manager at work (who has a million and one other constraints and pressures) why you didn't arrive at a meeting that 12 other very professionals rearranged their work schedules/found cover to enable them to attend is stressful. They weren't there. They don't care why you're late, only that you were and that everyone has been inconvenienced and extra work has been created because of it.

In that case, I think it's perfectly understandable that, whilst having sympathy for a complete stranger, someone can be focused entirely on the impact on them because their's is the only life they're ever going to live.

I wouldn't think it was 'selfish' but I would be mightily pissed off. Wouldn't put it on FB though.

I know this is long. Sorry.

It doesn't touch ya til it gets one of your own. If I turned on the news and heard '...50 soldiers dead in Russia' I'd sup my tea and tut. If I heard '...homosexuals beaten to death outside club in London' I'd suck on my teeth a bit and actually watch the story. If I heard '...whole family wiped out in a car crash' I'd be horrified and stare open mouthed at the tv. If I heard '...child missing, last seen with known [badmofo]' I'd be practically grieving on my knees in front of the telly. Cuz it's what touches you that you can identify with, innit? The closer to home it gets, the more respect people give to those dealing with that situation.

People who make chuckaway remarks about sooey cider lists topping themselves over a line and making them late getting home are making sure it don't touch them. If they wanna alienate a few more, they actually talk up the crap they're thinking about and look like a heartless berk. Enough people would make it known they don't think much about what was said so the world keeps turning much the same as it did before.

So many people do not understand suicide and the feelings that go with it. No wonder people are so frightened to talk and seek help when they will get attitudes like this.

Are we linked to the same person, I wonder. I got something similar tbh. YANBU

Eeeurgh, yanbu.

At least it's not Japan where the families of the deceased have to pay compensation to the rail company for the inconvenience. Awful.

My friend"s father committed suicide by stepping out in front of a train. It was his third attempt at taking his own life and I except he decided to choose a pretty fool proof method.

It happened 25 years ago and I was on a train that was delayed (I was 14). I can't imagine there is a single passenger who even remembers the delay much less be affected by it the same obviously cannot be said for my friends family.

And in any discussion on the subject my friend believes her father effectively had a terminal illness. Which is sadly what depression can be.

I don't understand why people say that it is an inherently selfish act, turn it around (I see that children will complicate matters), your for the sake of argument Brother has had a terrible life, he suffers from depression which he can gain no relief, he just genuinely does not want to live for a second longer.

How is you wanting him to live a life full of pain and anguish, not selfish? Surely it is every single persons right to decide their ultimate fate. You are basically saying, live a life full of anguish and pain, because I don't want to feel grief or loss, how is that fair?

LadyFlumpalot I've just read Eva's link. Can you tell us what her background was? I've reason to ask. Poor Eva, and her poor mother, I hope her mother got the response she asked for from others in the same desperately sad situation.

I think people often forget that depression is an illness like any other, just because the symptoms are primarily emotional doesn't make it any less real or potentially life-threatening. If someone commits suicide they are dying from their illness - because the chemicals in their brain are fucked up, not because they want to, any more than anyone wants to die of cancer.