Please read me if you feel that committing suicide is 'selfish'

[wheresmymojo]

This is slightly a TAAT but I feel it's such an important topic I wanted to start a new thread about it rather than derailing one this has come up on.

A lot of people feel that suicide is 'selfish'. Selfish because of the impact on family left behind, anyone who sees the suicide (if it's in a more public setting) or has to deal with the aftermath and anyone who might be directly involved through no choice of their own (e.g. train drivers).

I completely understand why it seems selfish.

As someone who has been suicidal many times (albeit only one unsuccessful attempt) I just wanted to explain why the person isn't selfish.

Once you get to the state of depression where you are suicidal you are really no longer yourself. You look like you, you talk like you, but you are not you. Your brain has been overcome with chemicals that mean your actions are no longer 'your actions' any more. Your thoughts are no longer 'your thoughts'. Major depression is like an alien has taken over your brain.

It's a long slide (usually) - you become less 'you' and more the 'alien' every day. By the time you're suicidal 'you' have pretty much vacated the building.

You can't see suicide as something negative for your family and friends or the pain that it will cause because all you can see is how much better off they will be without you. In a twisted way you are doing it partly for them, because you feel you're just dragging them down. You're making their life difficult and they'll be so much better off without you.

As for others who may find your body/train drivers/etc....when you are that suicidal you don't really think about them. Not because you're selfish but because the illness makes you have complete tunnel vision. All you can see is your pain and how much you want to die. You are not capable of thinking about the impact on people who might see/deal with the aftermath.

I guess that's the bit I want to make clear....you aren't making a selfish decision not to think about them, you aren't capable of thinking about them.

You're not in charge of your thoughts any more, the illness is and it just wants you to die and it blocks out anything that might make you think twice.

Sorry - this is an essay but I feel it's important to try and get across what it's like. I genuinely feel that by the time I feel suicidal I'm no more 'myself' than someone who has dementia might be 'themselves' just in a different way.

I never felt bitter toward my sister for committing suicide H

Thank you so much OP . A member of my DH extended family is in hospital now due to this . Can anyone share how they got themselves back to a good place please x

Popetree

Give them as much space as they need but also be there for them if that’s what they want. Show them you will love them no matter what they do and that having them around means the world to you. I’m so sorry you and your family are going through this. It’s so so difficult to understand.

Also people saying it’s selfish to their loved ones - a lot of people have shitty families, had no support, are in such a bad place mentally because of their childhoods.

So to just assume everyone comes from a wonderful supportive family is very naive.

Sent to early, i never felt bitter toward's my sister for committing suicide she had been mentally ill for year's and was committed to hospital a few times, i saw her suicide as escaping from the torture she was suffering she was at peace, i think about her everyday, i wouldn't wish her back to suffer all over again

I dont neccesarily believe people who are suicidal are incapable of rational thought. A guy i worked with killed himself and in the days, weeks, months running up to it he appeared totally fine, happy in fact. He wad obviously capable of masking his depression so well that not one single person would have guessed he would take his own life. How can you plan something so meticulously and manage to keep up an act of being fine and be simultaneously incapable of any rational thought?

I think some people in that position are definitely incapable of rational thought especially when its spur of the moment and they just commit suicide, but i dont think all are especially those who pre plan it so to speak.

Well written OP I went within weeks being depressed to 11 serious suicide attempts I’m still not out of the woods yet but I’m beginning to see things clearer. Being told to think about my kids never helped I was in the mindset of so what, what about my choice. Reading back now I realise how poorly I was

I think whats selfish is thinking someone in that much pain should have to continue on living when they don't want to just to benefit you.

My dad killed himself a few years ago and never ONCE did I blame him or call him selfish. If anything part of me was happy that he wasn't in pain anymore. I was happy that he was at peace and wasn't living his life feeling degraded and depressed anymore, because I loved him and and if he felt that was the best thing for him then so be it. It was never anyone but his decision.

This topic really riles me up because I've had it said to me a few times. Of course his death was hard, I'm still not over it, he was my world growing up and as a teenager. Its even harder since I had DS that he can't ever meet him. However, I still understand that although its hard for me, its nothing compared to the pain he was in. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, least of all my own father.

My adult child said to me that if I was on the cusp of killing myself take 5 minutes to really feel the pain I am enduring, then times it by 10,000 and it still wouldn't touch the pain I would be transfering to my children. We were standing at a bus stop at the time. There was no build up to this comment; it was said straight after discussing a holiday we had taken 2 years earlier and we were both enjoying our time together.

Living with a great need to end your life but knowing you can't do that is tortuous; I had an horrendous childhood followed by equally difficult situations as an adult and often feel I cannot bear any more pain or suffering.

I have spent many hours/days researching how to kill myself but so it looks like natural causes or a genuine accident.

When I feel most vulnerable I cannot ask for help. People say ask for help, but it is impossible, for me and others, to make that call. It isn't easy to pick up a phone and make that call - you feel worthless, so why would anyone want to listen or help? Every night I cry because I don't want to wake up in the morning and often deliberately stay awake for up to 80ish hours as the pain of waking up and realising I am still here can feel devastating.

I don't think committing suicide is selfish in the general context of selfishness, but the act is selfish as you are doing it only to relieve your own pain and putting that relief above the pain of others. However, when your emotional pain is so severe and devastating that suicide feels like the only option there is no room left in your mind and no capacity for logical thinking to make a rational choice - and it is this that people seem unable to fully understand.

The one thing that makes me feel guilty about feeling a desperate need to end my life is that my adult children are aware of my depression after I tried so hard to keep it secret.

I haven't rtft. DD has wanted to take her own life many times in the past 6 years and has tried to a few times. I have spoken many times to people who do suffer/have suffered with depression, including DD.

My conclusion is that depression is a selfish illness. The sufferers think about themselves all the time and see everything in relation to them. I'm not at all saying that they want that; it's an involuntary selfishness but selfishness all the same.

It's a very interesting and timely thread.

@TheLoneWolfDies

I feel the same about my father's suicide. Obviously, I would do anything to prevent it, but I also wouldn't want someone kept alive in misery just for my sake. I've never been angry with him over it.

I do agree that euthanasia/suicide is something we need to think more about in general. Life isn't always a beautiful gift. It can be horrible and painful. For some people in a lot of pain, death is a kindness. We are able to see this very clearly when an animal is sick.

If you can imagine why your loved one would want to die when in awful physical pain every day then why make the distinction with mental pain .
How can you call someone selfish for having a terrible illness!?? ffs, selfish is eating the last biscuit or taking up 2 seats on a bus!! Not being unable to endure one more hour on this planet!

pope a combination of ADs and really good therapy for me

Bumsnet , thank you x

My conclusion is that depression is a selfish illness. The sufferers think about themselves all the time and see everything in relation to them

Absolutely not true.
My downward spiral started because of the hurt I had caused other people.
I won’t go into detail, but certain things I’ve done in the past, bad decisions I’ve made, have had a negative impact on a few close family members.
It’s the guilt over this that caused my depression. I’m hurting because I hurt other people.

If someone really wants to die then why do so in a public place? The children who found the man who hung himself in the local park, the train driver who drove into the platform jumper - if someone is truly suicidal and wants to die, and I truly understand that some do get to this point - why not do so in private? The two episodes I mentioned above really happened and the two children and the train driver were very badly affected. Still are. They should not have been subjected to that.

If someone really wants to die then why do so in a public place?

Because they are unwell and not thinking!

My often suicidal ex friend frequently planned her death and got all her affairs in order and planned the method, day, time etc. So she was quite capable of thinking of the effects on others.

What about suicide notes? Writing one of those shows that thought has been given to those left behind.

Normally those who are so deep into depression don't have the motivation or energy to kill themselves. The danger comes once they are feeling slightly better.

Someone I knew threw himself under a train when I was 16. It haunts me to this day.

I was suicidal in my teens and my thoughts were that everyone would be happier without me. I didn't have the maturity to think further than that.

Very public suicides seem like the final fuck you of a person angry with the world.

I wonder if they choose to do it in public because they want to be away from any family or loved ones potentially finding them.

The thing is though, family and friends usually offer no support or understanding to someone who is depressed. They tell you to pull yourself together, others have it worse, keep taking the tablets or they disappear and avoid you. Dh told me that he wasn't a mental health worker when I confided in him that I felt suicidal. He said I had children to think of and to stop being selfish. We have an otherwise good relationship, but he doesn't do distress or mental health related stuff. Nobody ever really offers a solution to suicidal feelings. The person either acts upon them or doesn't depending upon how they can cope alone with the feelings.

It's incredibly lonely being suicidal. Whether it's a selfish thing to do is neither here nor there, you can't judge another person for being unable to feel that they can't carry on.

All those people saying:

• But why do it in a public place?
• Why didn't they think about the hurt they were going to cause?

Etc.

You are looking for a person who is so ill as to have lost their ability to have rational, logical thoughts to be having rational, logical thoughts.

Of course no-one in their right mind would want to hurt the people they love or to cause other people trauma via finding them/seeing them....they are not in their right mind.

Again - I can't say this enough:

Severe depression isn't just feeling extremely sad and desperate. It is a severe mental illness and at this point in severity the sufferer will not be capable of rational, logical thinking

They are NOT CAPABLE of thinking in the way you expect them to.

You are expecting them to behave like a rational person and they are not because they are so ill parts of their brain have shut down.

Thank you for your insightful and considered post, op. I agree wholeheartedly with your words on the subject and appreciate your sharing them

Your brain doesn't shut down though. Suicide can be a rational choice and a solution to unbearable pain, either physical or mental. It's a myth that suicidal people are mad or aren't thinking clearly.