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

[samstown]

One of my facebook friends has today written a moany status 'thanking' the 'idiot' who jumped under a train (am assuming he was delayed getting home because of this).

Some poor bastard has got to the a point so low in their life that they feel that the best thing they can do is end it all, and all some people can do is moan that they have been mildly inconvenienced getting home.

This isnt the first status I have seen like this either. Now granted, I am not a commuter so have not been in the position where I have been delayed on a train due to a track suicide, although I do know of a girl who ended her life under a train.

AIBU?

Depression grips you totally and you cannot see beyond anything but your own situation- the point I was making is that it makes the act about oneself. It cannot be anything else. Not sure why I am getting a hard time about pointing this out!

Someone jumping from a great height once landed about 2 metres away from me. It was not a pretty sight, or smell. And had I been 2 metres over I would have been killed too. I am very robust so it led only to a few sleepless nights and a reluctance to walk below high buildings without a jolly good look up at the windows but other people might have been very traumatised.

Whilst this man was at such a low place that he could not bear his circumstances for another second, that does not negate the fact that there are more and less considerate ways to commit suicide: to give an extreme example, to take anyone else "with you" by causing a car pile up (say, jumping off a road bridge or steering your car at oncoming traffic), or even deliberately killing them, or landing on them from a height, is pretty selfish and blameworthy even if the suicidal person also deserves compassion and is not fully in control of their own actions. In the middle of the scale is doing it in such a way that someone vulnerable (your child, say) might find the body in some shocking way. At the other end of the scale is a calm, reasoned visit to a clinic in Switzerland having told all your loved ones that it is your way out and not a shock to anyone.

So whilst your friend is insensitive to prioritise his annoyance about a commuting delay over someone's tragic death, I do agree that suicide can be seen as a selfish act and believe that people who have chosen that path still have a duty to others about how they do it. Most people who are very depressed still retain enough awareness of the outside world and others to be able to bear this in mind. IME depression makes you MORE empathetic to the suffering of others so you should be hyper aware of the impact of your own proposed suicide.

I am sorry for anyone who has lost a friend/relative through suicide incidentally and hope that you have come to terms with it somehow.

Youwith - blimey, I'd never thought of it that way round before. Am so glad you made it.

Suicide is an inherently selfish act - people are very much thinking about themselves and not their families or the poor sods who have to clear up the mess. That doesn't mean people who commit suicide are evil, just very disturbed.

As a commuter, train delays are extremely stressful and long delays, especially those where you have no way of knowing how long they are going to be make me extremely anxious. Not knowing what time I will get to the childminder's to pick up my son is horrible. Not knowing what time I will get to work ditto.

But that's nothing compared to the poor drivers who see someone chuck themselves under the train. That's horrific.

Pacifist - I think that your 'scale' is pretty irrelevant to someone who has a mental illness. Would someone with depression really take a calm, reasoned visit to a clinic in Switzerland to end it all with the blessing on their family?

I still think it is a bit naive to think that someone who is mentally ill has the capacity to be as rational as you think and that the 'chosen path' that you speak of is not actually much of a choice at all - if the voices telling you to jump onto the train tracks are loud enough, not much else is going to register. Its kind of like saying that someone with heart problems should ensure that they have a heart attack in a solitary place so as not to traumatise those around them.

I dont know, maybe there are some people who think 'right I want to kill myself and I am going to do it in a way that inconveniences and upsets as many people as possible', but I would say it is not very likely.

I am really sorry that you had to witness someone ending it all so closely though,how horrible

Thanks Samstown. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, that's for sure, but I beg to differ from the sentiments in your penultimate paragraph: obviously there are some who are psychotic and have no idea what they are doing but, with that exception, most who are suicidal have the capacity to make a reasoned judgment about method. Indeed, many spend ages researching exactly that.

I am with earlier posters who have (many decades back) stepped back from the brink of suicide partly because of an awareness of the effect it would have had on others, in my case on my parents - this is when I was a teenager. And the methods I had thought of for doing it, if I couldn't resist, were (mainly, but I admit not exclusively) ones that would not let them even realise it was a suicide as I reasoned that would have the least long term negative impact on them. As a parent of teens myself now, I now know I underestimated how devastating any death of a child would in fact have been.

So I am not without compassion for the tortured soul who feels he/she cannot go on BUT at the same time I do believe that suicide (especially choosing a method that impacts more than it need on others) can be an inherently selfish act. There are times when it takes courage and a sense of obligation to keep living.

My brother killed himself by train.

I am also a London commuter.

I have many times (sadly) been delayed on journeys to clients, the office or home as a result of "jumpers". I've suffered the long delays on hot stuffy trains when you are knackered, hot, sick, can't get a seat, there are screaming kids upset and don't understand what's happening. I've lost business through missed meetings, cancelled social plans because I'm too late home.

But through it all I've sat thinking firstly of the driver, the person who took their life and everyone who will be left dealing with it ( from
cleaning crews to family left behind).

Never in a million years would I dream of complaining about the reason for my lateness. Be annoyed at the consequences of being late? Yes. But annoyed at the person who was so desperate they thought this was the only way? Never. Verbalise it? Never.

Common decency, compassion and empathy would prevent it. Respec for the dead and their family would prevent it. Regardless of the circumstances - basic manners should prevail. Surely?

There is nothing worse - having been on both sides of the fence - hearing colleagues bitch and moan about "jumpers". I can't even speak up because it would make people aware of my own situation and they'd invariably feel terrible and I'd be labelled as the one you can't speak about suicide in front of - when really I'd be speaking up in the name of common decency - not because of my brother.

I am so relieved that I stumbled upon this thread. I've been feeling haunted because someone I know committed suicide this week and my overwhelming feeling is anger. Sheer rage that she would be so selfish as to leave her child and to do it where her family could find her.
It's not that I don't understand depression and suicidal thoughts, as I have had them, but this thread has reminded me of that true depression and that feeling that you are totally worthless. I might be able to move past the anger now.

committing suicide is one of the most selfish things a person can do.

I was delayed by such a selfish twat recently. It wasnt a mild delay. I was travelling with my ds, and what should have been a five hour journey took us ten hours, we didnt get home till three in the morning. I had a 9 am meeting the next day. Yes i was inconvenienced muchly. But what got me incredibly angry, was how the twat could do what he did to the poor train driver. let alone his family and loved ones. yes, everyone has loved ones, even if they dont know it. What was the poor train drivers fault? He will forever know that he caused the death of someone. why? why should he or she suffer because someone else is being so selfish?

God, feelingbullied, considering your nickname, you don't seem the most sensitive person on the planet, do you?

I think it is sad that some people think that the method is selfish and suggest doing it another way-a less selfish way? Don't you care at all that the person is gone?

pacifist but surely the difference between someone who doesn't kill themselves someone who does is that point at which you consider the effect on others.

The people who jump or choose another means are past that point. It would be wrong to assume that, however desperate you feel, the experience of someone who nearly does but then doesn't, if very different to the person who does.

For me, the person on this thread who mentioned dementia nailed it.

My grandma had altzheimers. How could we expect her to behave rationally? How could we be angry with her for turning the cooker on and walking away? She 'decided' to do this. But we understood that this cruel disease had changed her thinking. We could have said how could she DO this, how selfish of her. Regardless her state of mind, her actions affected us. She should have thought of us, of how we'd feel...

But how could she?

Is it such a leap to apply that understanding to a person whose thinking has been so altered by depression that their mind no longer works in the - I hate this term but I can't think of a more appropriate one - 'normal' way.

You want 'normal' behaviours, responses, thoughts and actions from someone who is incapable of giving them to you!

Years ago, I tried to kill myself. I ended up in a mental health unit on anti-psychotics. How could I do that to my family? How could I put them through the anguish of watching me have hallucinations?

See?

I am being sensitive, but i am empathising with the poor driver of the train that railroads into the living body of a human being and kills it. The poor train driver has no choice about becoming the instrument of killing. All my sensitivity is reserved for him/her and almost none for the person who is selfish enough to do that to them.

would you suggest i feel sympathy for the person who guns down innocent bystanders whilst on a murderous rampage? He/she may or may not be suffering from mental illness, but that doesnt mean that the bulk of my empathy will be for them.

my sympathies lie firmly with the innocent train driver.

That may be, feelingbullied, and you're entitled to your opinion, but maybe you could phrase it in slightly less horrible terms? Remember that there are people here who have lost loved ones in that way, and people who have felt suicidal.

Hecate makes an excellent point. Maybe you could read it and try to understand what she's saying?

What's wrong with having sympathy for murderers too? Don't get me wrong, some people commit horrible crimes and they should be punished for that. But there's nothing wrong with trying to understand why they did what they did and seeing their human frailties. After all, monsterising them does society no good at all.

Personally, I would be greatly annoyed if my train was delayed or cancelled because of a suicide. On a very basic level it would make me very late to collect my ds so would also inconvenience his carer. I am afraid that I probably would think the same as the person who posted the fb status, although I would never be brave enough to post it myself.

This is because as the child of a person who has attempted suicide more times than I can remember, I am afraid I lost any sympathy for people like my own mother a very long time ago. Suicide, whether successful or not, is awful for everyone else to deal with - from the family that is left behind to the people who have to clean up the mess and in the case of suicide by train, the poor driver!

YANBU
Clearly if you throw yourself in front of a train you are not in the best frame of mind.

Magneto, that sounds horrible about your mother I am sorry. However, if it were alzheimers/dementia that someone close to you had been suffering, would you feel the same? It is awful for everyone else to have to deal with watching a member of their family deteriorate to such an extent that they dont even recognise their own kids, but no one ever 'loses sympathy' for them. Mental illness is still an illness, it cannot be controlled.

Also agree with Folkgirl who articulated what I was thinking about the difference between someone who stops themselves going through with taking their own life and someone who jumps - the person who goes through with it is past the point of considering anyone else, ending it all is all they think about.

I agree with samstown. There's a massive difference between the person who is considering suicide and the person who goes through with it. Have been there many many times myself and yet never done it. To actually do it, I can't imagine the state you have to be in.

Sorry about your mum, Magneto. It must be horrible to experience that.

Why is it that people with broken arms or legs get sympathy but people with broken heads who aren't capable of seeing other's needs because they are BROKEN get condemnation and called selfish.

I used to think that people who committed suicide were selfish but I dont' think that now. How can I, when people are in abject despair to the point where nothing in their lives means enough for them to stay. To be so alone and so desperate and feeling that you're completely alone in your misery must be hell on earth. I can't feel anything but absolute sadness for them and their families.

Agree with Faeriefruitcake, broken people - and that's what they are - broken human beings who feel they have come to a point that they cannot go on - they deserve compassion and so do their families, not feeling the stigma from emotionally bankrupt people who will hopefully never come close to that level of sorrow.

faerie - I should imagine because if someone accidentally breaks an arm, they aren't causing hundreds of other people trauma and massive inconvenience which is what jumping in front of a train does.

I am very sympathetic for the person who has decided that their life isn't worth living - that's utterly tragic. But I also have a huge amount of sympathy for those people - the train drivers, the passengers, the witnesses, whose lives may be forever altered by one person's decision to kill themself.

It doesn't make someone a heartless unfeeling bastard to complain about the inconvenience, the fact that they were late to their childminder and weren't able to call because they were underground, the fact that had to pay a late fee which they could ill afford, and were hugely stressed by the whole experience. It makes them human.

Accidents happen all the time, resulting in fatalities, or serious injury and delays to commuters. Do people rant about those in the same way? No, they don't.

It doesn't make someone a heartless unfeeling bastard to complain about the inconvenience

No I agree that it does make you human to feel cross that you have been inconvenienced, however, complaining in a public place such as facebook 'congratulating' the 'idiot' on their 'great work' does make you a bit of a dickhead.

samstown incidentally my grandad (mother's father) suffered from alzheimers for many years before he died (just to clarify, his death was the natural progression of the disease and his age, not "assisted" in any way). However, it has made me think very hard about where I stand regarding assisted suicide and my feelings are that it should be legal but I can't even begin to think how it would be monitored to stop people abusing it if it were ever to become legal.

I am afraid that my experience with my mum has made me very bitter. I was 15 when she first actually went through with an overdose (she overdoses on medication she needs to live so we can't keep her away from it) and it was a week before my first GCSE exam. For about 10 years previous to this she had repeatedly threatened to overdose which would lead to me sitting up all night making sure she didn't go through with it. Ever since she first plucked up the "courage" to do actually do it, it was like she couldn't stop and now all it takes is for someone to disagree with her before she does it again.

She has been warned that one more time could make her permanently brain damanged/comatose/dead...that was 2 overdoses ago. My sister and I no longer go with her to the hospital, we call the ambulance and leave her to it. The emotional blackmail is too much now.

Anyway back to the point, I can't feel sympathy because she has no sympathy for us. Her own children who she claims to love more than life have been forced to live with this burden and the knowledge that mum doesn't love us enough to want to live. I know that my mum has her (unreasonable) reasons and problems but it was not fair of her to put that pressure and stress and abuse on her children. I also know that my judgement is clouded by my own experiences and that my feelings may be very childish but unfortunately I can't help that.