In regards to death due to suicide

[RedRedWine1980]

To think if people can't have some respect for the grieving family left behind they should truly shut the hell up?
Someone dies of cancer/in a car accident its 'aww thats so sad, such a tragedy' somebody comits suicide and on top of mourning that persons sad demise you have to hear people opinions on how 'selfish' and 'cowardly' it is?

"Are people who commit suicide not capable of rational thought? They alot of the time DO know what they are doing. They DO know the effects of their actions.

They are not all mentally ill........... "

I work in Mental Health care and really struggle to digest comments like this. Anyone contemplating suicide must be in some form of mental distress at that time.

I don't believe that everyone who decides to take their own lives are mentally ill. Emotionally distressed/despondent-almost certainly.

Having experienced the death of my parents at a young age-mother 43, father 60 due to terminal illnesses and having been successfully treated for my own diagnosis of early stage cancer 2.5 years ago, I am reasonably certain that in a situation where
I was terminally ill and there was no hope or rendered severely disabled, I would take my own life if I could or persuade my husband to take me to the Dignitas Clinic. It's something I have given a lot of thought to and actually discussed with him.

I agree with SGB in that people should express condolences to those bereaved due to a loved one committing suicide and then shut the fuck up with the sanctimonious and judgemental comments.

yes,deliciousdevilwoman...i agree with that also

i dont think we got any such comments when bil died. on the whole,people were very supportive

bil knew the upset his actions would cause his family,he acknowledged that in notes,but didnt explain further.

The trouble with calling suicidal people selfish is that you are looking at their (intended) actions from the outside. You see the friends, partner, children, parents, siblings grieving for their loved one. You see all these people who are worse off for the person dying, who miss them and love them even though they are gone.

You don't see the thought processes that has convinced them that everyone they know will be BETTER off with them gone, that they are unlovable, unworthy of anyone's time and attention, that the pain they feel will be taken away when they die, that people may even be glad when they have died as they will no longer be a burden to their friends and family and that they are sacrificing themselves for the good of everyone they know.

Suicide can feel like the brave thing to do not the selfish thing to do. I have got myself to the point of 'realising' that everyone would really be better off with me not existing even to the point of me wondering how I could destroy any trace of my existence from the family home so DH could move in a new mum for my DCs with out having to do any of that pesky taking last effects to charity shops etc .

That's not to say of course that hundreds of people don't commit suicide every day for shits and giggles .

Making insensitive comments to any bereaved person is unacceptable.

But some people who commit suicide do it as an act of revenge, violence etc as well as the many suicides who simply lose the will to live.

It's not the place to talk about selfishness etc at funerals or with bereaved people, but that doesn't mean that we should never speak of suicide or it's victims in anything less then reverent terms.

We're all going to die, all of us. The good people, the bad people, the people who were much loved but a pain in the arse. Every one of us. I don't agree that we must only discuss the dead in glowing terms.

My friend is absolutely furious with her young relative who committed suicide, as well as greiving and mourning her loss. It just isn't a black and white issue.

My step father commited suicide last year.

I did tell one 'friend' of the family what I thought of her comment 'well he didnt pick a very good time to do it did he'??? WTF??

I am still angry at him sometimes for what he did but suicide never makes the death any less painful.

People who think they are selfish or cowards are ignorant IMHO. I think it takes a lot of guts and courage to take your own life and to be in that position must be awful

Just to add the vicar read a piece at the funeral about suicide which was beautiful, we found it in a book called 'funerals without god' and was about having the right to make your own decisions, sounds weird but at the time it was perfect.

If someone is so deeply unhappy that they find living unbearable, then the only purpose of them living their life is to benefit other people.

I don't think it is reasonable to expect anyone to be so selfless as to live their life solely for the benefit of other people. We would not make that demand on people under other circumstances.

ThreeBlondeBoys- I have understood what you have said on this thread, you have your own experience of the aftermath on suicide and i am very sorry that you were affected indriectly in this way. i can see why you got attacked earlier, but you are just being honest and sharing your own personal experience, even though others feel it innapropriate.

you are allowed to feel however you want to feel about suicide, you are allowed to feel devastated, numb doubting of yourself, but you are also allowed to feel anger, you are allowed to rage, you are allowed to feel how you want to feel.
one of my friends is in the grip of lung cancer after years of smoking, and if, IF she dies, i will be so sad, but so very angry in that she brought this on herself.
it's just not appropriate to share these feelings with others who are grieving and may not share this anger.

MorrisZapp has made a good point about not speaking of people in reverance.

a friend of mine still struggles with her fathers death 8 years later, as she is still so angry with him, he veered wildly between a loving and manipulative in their reltionship, and she is still angry with him, even though she grieves.

When I think about my friend, all I remember is the happy, confident, beautiful girl that I knew. But I also remember the deeply despairing girl who collapsed on my shoulder having taken her first overdose...and then discovering pages and pages of diary entries detailing how she had felt. I cannot describe the agony of how she was feeling, or how reading it made me feel. She tried again a while later, and failed...before trying a different route when we were least expecting it and succeeded.

I have never known what caused her to feel the way she felt, though I have my suspicions. All I do know was that life was a scary place in her mind, filled with pain. That was all she could see for the rest of her days, punctuated with the odd spot of joy, a job, periods of deep sadness followed by eventual death. What was the point? She was so unhappy she couldn't see what happiness could ever pull her out of it.

If she was so desperate as to throw herself off a multistorey building, she is far happier where she is now. There is rarely a day that I don't think about her, and feel guilty for not doing more. I was meant to be with her that evening but couldn't go out. I had a missed call 25 mins before she jumped. But the policeman who tried to talk her down (he needed intensive counselling) said that he was very glad I hadn't been there, and he would never tell people what it had been like.

Yes, there have been times I was angry with her for not having seen her own potential and trusting us who cared to try to help. But far more I am just so sad for her and all else who were affected. Her parents had to convince her parish church to hold a funeral, and to bury her in the grounds. (They were very religious.) She doesn't have a gravestone or anything, just a tree that we have to remember the position of if we want to visit her.

I think if people don't have something sensitive to say to the people affected by these things then they shouldn't say anything at all. There is a place for the 'truth', or how we independently view it. I agree that it is different when talking to someone or trying to convince them not to.

Thanks britfish. I havent really shared alot of it on here, but those on lone parents threads may know more of what I went through. Ten Years of abuse. And then he started on eldest dc.

Threatening suicide at every turn. I have wrestled knives and pill bottles off this man with dc asleep in the next room. And alot more.

There was never help for me.... Mental health was of no use. He's been to the priory and headley court. Attempted suicide there.

All the time he was a serving soldier working as gate guard with a loaded rifle strapped to him. I had an horrific time. He threatened to kill himself and take the dc with him, ss listened to me then.

So much more. He tries it now with new partners. It's horrible, but he knows how powerful these scary feelings are and plays on it. It's abuse, but the focus is always back on him, sectioning him. Probation have described it as his signature .... Controls women with these threats. I know this because it was in the report psych gave to courts on Monday. He isn't allowed to have any contact now with our dc. None,judge filed a section 91.

Sorry , I'm rambling on. But nobody understands the fear. I left him 5 years ago and he's 230 miles away.

This is one example of how a suicide can affect someone. Me

I'll be flamed for this, prob by hmc who seems to know EVERYTHING about suicide. It doesn't matter.

I am very confused now. Surely no-one in their right minds would take their own lives just to make life horrible for others? Threaten to maybe, but not carry it through.

I've not lost anyone really close to me yet - since my gran died in my teens - but I was close to it with my dad last year. If the worst had happened and someone had even attempted to critisise him I'd have flipped. Why would it be different because the manner of his death was different?

Yes they would.

I know of a guy on the edges of my family (many steps away) who had a silly argument with his girlfriend, which ended with him saying I bet you just want me to kill myself, well then I will.

He then stormed out, slamming doors etc and went and killed himself by running the hosepipe into his car, leaving his girlfriend 'widowed' in her early 20s.

He killed himself in anger, to upset his girlfriend.

I have no personal experience of this, but wanted to express my deepest sympathies to any of you who have suffered such a loss, or who have found yourselves in a place where it was something you considered. Just that really.

Oh, I so agree, my Dad committed suicide when I was in my early twenties, a year before my first marriage. At my wedding a (strict Catholic) cousin in her late teens took great delight in describing purgatory to me, and telling me that's where my Dad was. Gee , thanks. Funnily enough , when her Dad (my Uncle) died suddenly of a heart attack a couple of years later, I expressed nothing but condolences. Still piques me thirteen odd years later. Strange world.

not helped my my ex-husband threatening to kill himself every day when we were in the process of splitting up. Nice guy.

People sometimes say the wrong things, that's the way life is. We can't control other people, but we can control our own reactions. Simply "That's not appropriate and I don't want you to talk about this any more" then just turn away.
As for suicide being a selfish act... My dear friend was depressed and of course she was ill. I have to admit that in my heart of hearts I also feel that there were aspects of "revenge" in how she went about things. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I can't get over the fact that she knew her husband would be driving home for 8+ hours knowing he was going to see her dead body. Or that she didn't leave him a note. She blamed him for some of the situation they were in, and I think that she hurt him in ways he will never be able to move on from.
Selfishly, I am thankful that I was on the phone when our mutual friend started to be worried about her and rang me for advice. If I hadn't been engaged she would have got through and I'd have probably driven over and let myself in and found her. Racing to the hospital and getting the bad news was bad enough.
My heart goes out to all of you who are affected by this thread and who have lost loved ones in this way.

Does anyone ever say anything like: "That's not appropriate and I don't want you to talk about this any more"? This is the problem, inappropriate things get said all the time

I don't think very many people kill for revenge, but I think the way in which they 'check out' can contain an aspect of it. But I still don't it's not the driving cause, even if it may appear that way to family or friends.

As I said before, I would rather someone DID talk about it however thoughtlessly than not. I saw my mother so upset after her best friend left a restaurant by the backdoor to avoid her when she nipped in for a takeaway ... they just didn't want to deal with her.

Funnily enough they were the parents of the friend who said 'you should be glad he's gone'

I don't think people who say suicide is selfish are necessarily being heartless. More they are trying to reach out to you, say something to make you feel it wasn't your fault. It still hurts and rankles though.

inappropriate things get said all the time.... and even a fairly forthright person like me, I can't bring myself to be that bald in a delicate bereavement situation. So most people smile, thank the person and take the hurt home with them.

Suicide is the last taboo imo. People cross the road to avoid you. It never leaves you..
I am 19 years on and I think about it every day

How anyone can think of the act of suicide selfish is beyond me. An actual act of taking one's own life with no room for error. The people who do this must be at a lowest place imaginable. They end their own life ffs how can that be selfish or cowardice?

Speaking from experience here as someone left behind and yes, it does haunt you for the rest of your life, perhaps even messes the rest of it up but at least I'm still here to live with it.

Have been reading this thread with very mixed feelings and emotions. Part of me thinks I should just shut the fuck up as I have no wish at all to upset anyone affected by the issue, but it keeps coming into my mind and raising a lot of issues that i thought were dealt with long ago.

Firstly, and whilst absolutely accepting the 'first rule' that insensitive things should not be said to those who are grieving, if no-one raises the issue of selfishness, then those people who have been affected by it - and I am thinking specifically about the children of suicides - have no outlet for their anger and no-one to talk to about it.

Secondly, I believe that most suicides genuinely feel that their loved ones would be better off without them - it does not seem like a selfish act. Perhaps that is mental illness.

Finally, I would like to offer support for threeblondeboys. I was also in a relationship where control was exercised by the threat of suicide, and an attempt was made. Afterwards, medical staff told me that the wounds could only have been made in a very specific way - to make it look like a suicide attempt without any danger of real harm. It was a terrible position to be in and being angry about being manipulated in this way is entirely understandable.

I think it's important to acknowledge that people's experiences vary a LOT. It is not a slight on you (any of you generic yous) who have been bereaved by the suicide of a dear troubled person who couldn't cope with the world, to say (in general discussion on a forum like this) that there are people who use suicide or the threat of it as a weapon to bully others, that there are people who commit suicide in a very selfish and aggressive fashion - think of those people who kill their whole families and then themselves - now that is fundamentally selfish, deciding that you and your distress matter more than these other people's right to stay alive...
And the other category, of people who end their own lives because they are terminally ill and would rather choose to go before the pain and indignity get too much... It's a complicated issue.

ThreeBlondeBoys I had an ex who would use suicide threats and attempts to manipulate and control me, I know what it is like.

However when someone has started a thread expressing how upsetting it is to hear the "selfish" comments, even in AIBU, it doesn't seem right to respond with a comment on how it is selfish, however true.

Did you mean me kaloki??

Cos I haven't said 'selfish' to describe suicide anywhere on this thread, apologies if you didn't mean me