To state that suicide is NOT a selfish act ?

[Coffeenowplease]

Really riled by this. People who commit suicide are ill and by the nature of their illness cannot think rationally so therefore cannot be "selfish" and think of the damage it causes to others.

I am so angry by this I had to make a post just to get it out.

Feel free to discuss.

I'm so sorry for your loss, Woof, what an absolutely awful thing to happen x

When I was suicidal I truly believed it was an unselfish act as I felt I was just a burden on everyone. I wouldn't see it as selfish now, just terribly sad. I think it's quite judgmental to label it as selfish, actually, and I don't think people who have not been suicidal are really in a position to judge. A person's thinking can be very skewed, coupled with extreme emotional pain. It can be an enormous struggle to not commit suicide and that gets so tiring. I really don't think it's selfish, just symptomatic.

I have been suicidal. Years ago now. Heavily related to an eating issue I think.

I look back now and don't recognise myself in any way.

I don't remember thinking about anybody else, though no doubt I did, I just remember really wishing I was dead.

'is the act itself enough to determine someone as mentally ill'

I think so, yes. Although I think differently about assisted suicide/euthanasia, which doesn't really make sense. I think it's the thought behind it that differs, there is a big difference between jumping in front of a train and being helped to end your life medically.

Having been suicidal, some suicides are the opposite of selfish. I hated myself so much, it was quite easy to see how they'd be better off without me. I wanted to kill myself, I wanted to end the pain- and it would be better for them too. I got to the point where I was daydreaming about it all happening before I realised I needed help and fast.

And yes, it puts the family through extreme, extreme pain. The person in question might well have extreme pain too. I have known a person to commit suicide after being diagnosed with an untreatable brain tumour, because they would eventually get even weaker and in even more pain- even with palliative care, morphine and so on. Mental health problems cause extreme pain too.

I was in a support group for people who were suicidal. Many of those in the group has personally suffered losses to suicide themselves- a father of a son who overdosed on purpose as a young teen, the wife of a man who killed himself, the child of a mother with severe depression and anxiety. It affects the whole family in that way, but I haven't met any who blame that person. Suicides are obviously incredibly sad and heartbreaking for everyone, including the person who dies, and no one would kill themselves on a whim, to be able to kill yourself goes against every instinct, your body and mind basically do everyone to preserve your life for biological reasons, so to override that takes a lot of doing. I can't see it as selfish, but people who tell already depressed and suicidal people that they are being selfish is horrible- which I have actually witnessed

I'm so sorry about your bil, woof. :(

You can be mentally ill and no one knows it. Men are very under diagnosed.

Im sorry about your BIL too woof.

I am sorry about your BIL as well. 5 weeks is such a short time

DS2's dad committed suicide in June. He's left a little boy who will grow up without a daddy and have to deal with the pain of that. He's left me to bring DS up completely alone and to have to watch my precious boy feel the pain.

He wasn't mentally ill. He was in an extremely difficult situation and I truly believe he saw it as the only way out (although I'll never know for sure as he left no notes and gave no hint of what he was going to do).

Do I think he was selfish? Without a doubt. But then maybe it's just too raw for me to see it any other way right now.

hahh, when I saw the title of this post I assumed it would be someone disagreeing with somewhere I said that it is not selfish to commit suicide. Glad to see it wasn't. I can however understand people who think it is - they have obviously never been suicidal, good for them! People who take their own life would normally think they are doing their loved ones a favour - not hurting them. Whilst this is most likely very incorrect, it is an illness of the mind, and messes with your head. Don't judge one persons suicide/attempt if you have not felt their feelings and thought their thoughts.

Erm, not ALL people who commit suicide are ill.

Every instance where someone commits suicide has many different aspects to it. Many different reasons.

Some suicides are selfish acts. Some are not. You cannot generalise here at all.

YABU.

ffs.. anyone who intentionally destroys themselves for what ever reason is clearly not thinking rationally.

I find this very distasteful in the light of the 14 year old who killed herself over vile vile Ask FM.

unsure whether to report this post to he honest.

but understand op what you mean.

Going through some of these posts I still believe my DM was selfish ... At the time of it happening ( aged 7 through to late teens) I felt terribly anxious and sorry for her. Until she explained that every time she attempted, it was to teach my DF a lesson with no thought to me or my DB and I do hold out that that was a selfish act. She says sorry for doing it, but her main aim was to make DF feel guilty ( he left her for OW )
I don't believe ALL people who are suicidal or have died are selfish.

Suffered from depression on/off since teens and have attempted suicide on a few occasions. I've been well/depression controlled for a while now and where as it truly pains me to see what I must have put my loved ones through, I can honestly say my intentions weren't desperate.
At the time, my actions were if anything,(what i believed) to be selfless- my state of mind was telling me that these people would genuinely be better off without me! Yes, now it seems ridiculous! I have my own daughter now- and the thought of what my mother went through really upsets me.
All i can say is that my mind wasn't healthy! People shouldn't be punished/thought badly of because of suicide/suicide attempts. They need genuine help!

So sorry Woof, and HHH3

'unsure whether to report this post to he honest.'

Report it then! Do you think it's going to be deleted?

I have not read all this thread as I am too sleepy, but my thoughts on this are that these people have arrived at a point in their lives where it is too painful to want to go on. No one can really say what has brought about their situations, it could be any of a million reasons.

I have been there. My life circumstances were beyond my control and I admit I was depressed. However. I remember the emotional pain. There is no tablet for that. AD's help but it is like putting an elastoplast over a thorn in the foot. You have to get the thorn out!

Suicide IMO is the only (perceived) relief from that 'emotional pain'... and I use that term loosely because I only have my own experience to go on.

Would you expect someone in extreme physical pain to continue suffering? Would you consider them 'selfish' to want to end that pain? To go on living in suffering for the sake of others? Because that is how it felt to me. The pain was unbearable.

I was very lucky to get the support I needed. I feel so sorry for those who feel that they cannot cope with their life, their circumstances, their problems. Everybody has their cross to bear, to onlookers, it may not look so heavy, does not mean it does not weigh a ton :(

My husband killed himself many years ago leaving me a widow at 31 with 2 very young children. He was not mentally ill although was drinking heavily. I view his suicide as a supremely selfish act as not only did he leave me to bring up our children on my own but most importantly he left our children to grow up having experienced a terrible trauma and knowing that their father had chosen this way of dealing with whatever problems he had instaed of facing up to them. It leaves a legacy not only of the normal bereavement emotions but of confusion,anger and not knowing the answer why, and I am forever thankful that despite suffering this my children have turned out to be normal happy well-adjusted adults.

I wouldn't want to judge anyone who does commit suicide. But I would judge the way they did/do it.

As I can not think it was anything but a selfish act when a friends dad committed suicide knowing that his 12 yr old twin boys would be the ones to find him hanging when they got home from school.

Yes he had issues but I can not understand how he could do that to his children.

Of course not all people who commit suicide are ill BUT some suicides are written off as "he wasn't mentally ill" when, unless the writers offers are psychiatrists, how could they possibly have known?!

This is not a subject for AIBU, in my view. It's too sensitive.

My brother died by his own hand and whilst I have often felt he was selfish as it left our family in pieces and we will never fully recover I do not believe for one moment that it was something that he did having thought through the consequences and thought sod the rest of them. He was clearly a mess but none of us saw it coming unfortunately. To simply label it as a selfish act doesn't seem to give the awful act the seriousness it deserves.

I'm not going to read the whole thread first, because I don't want to be influenced by other people's opinion - will read after I've posted.

My cousin committed suicide in the late 80s. He was a long time sufferer of schizophrenia - diagnosed in his late teens, he took his life when he was 34. The new generation of antipsychotic drugs didn't exist, and he swung between not taking his meds and suffering florid symptoms and taking his meds and suffering incredible negative symptoms. He had a wife and two young children.

We all understood why he ended his life. What we did not understand, and found very difficult to forgive, was the fact that he called my aunt - his mum - and told her he was going to jump off a building. Then he did it. It was the first time he had openly communicated suicidal ideation in this way, and it was appalling - my aunt was left utterly powerless to do anything. It wasn't the suicide IMO that was selfish, it was the way he tried to involve his mother in it.