Suicide - who is selfish?

[StringingIT]

People who take their own lives I have often heard them being referred to as selfish. However, if somebody is only here to please others and keep others happy - then who’s really selfish?

When my mum took her own life she'd gone through 18 months of doctors pumping her full of different drugs, plus several rounds of electroconvulsive therapy. She was in absolutely no way the person who I'd known for 32 years of my life, and I would never, ever call her actions selfish!

In my own circle I knew a family member who committed suicide as he was facing serious illness from terminal cancer and a teenager who killed herself seemingly out of the blue, even those closest to her couldn't think why she did it. I know you can't really tell as none of us are mind readers but it seemed like a real spur of the moment act.

The two cases didn't seem to have much in common if that makes sense. The aftermath were completely different.

@bubbles1345786

I'm not missing the point at all.

In your experience suicide is not selfish.
In my experience it is.

You know nothing of the circumstances of my husbands death. Nothing. You can not tell me how to feel. My feelings are valid.

You lost people in different circumstances, your feelings are valid.

I'm not upset by your comments. I haven't attacked you. I wouldn't do that because I'm fortunate enough to understand and appreciate that people have different opinions.

I am currently well but have in the past been suicidal.

At the times I have been part of my own strategy included reminding myself of the pain it would cause others. However I also felt selfish putting them through my mental illness. Things were not easy for them during those times and I wondered if my death would really make it worse.
I am very grateful to friends and family and health care professionals who helped me through to now.

My next door neighbour was an elderly woman killed by a man jumping from a building so I can see how her family could think that was selfish. But agree it's more complicated than that

I think we can all agree it's a shit storm for all involved. I knew someone who's mental health was very poor and he yo-yo'd between it being my fault and his, and highs and lows. And leaving him was difficult because I knew he wasn't well. But for as much as he was an asshole to me he was a bigger asshole to himself god love him. I wouldn't wish his mental state on my worst enemy.

My DF made sure no family member found him first, he called emergency services while everyone was out before he ended it.

This made me cry.

My husband knew the person who would find him was our eldest son. He'd planned it that way. There was zero chance of anyone else finding him. My poor, poor, devasted heartbroken son. My husband was selfish in life and selfish in death.

@MaidenMotherCrone
Okay. Probably best to leave it, it's too much of a complicated topic to talk about online perhaps.
I am genuinely sorry for the loss of your husband and for any suffering you and your family have gone through as a result. I certainly wasn't trying to minimise or invalidate any of that.

MaidenMotherCrone
I amend my above post. That isn't just selfish though, that's pure unadulterated cruelty. I'm so so sorry for your son, and also for you as his mother. Unthinkable that someone who is a parent could deliberately do that.

Stringing - I don't see the act of suicide as selfish, and I speak from family experience, but I do see it as an act carried out by someone who is very mentally disturbed and not capable of rational thought. Maiden I was very moved by your post. I grew up being told that suicide was a sin, as I got older I questioned this in great detail. To everyone who is in a dark place, I do from the bottom of my heart wish you peace and wellbeing.

@kristallen

Still, nothing like condemning people who are a) mentally ill and b) no longer here to contradict you!

Cheers for that.

My 13 yr old self was just misunderstanding my mother.

When she cut all gas/elec on the day she killed herself.
Told the landlord she had no use for the property.

The method she used took three days.

She knew what she was doing.

I found her.

She was selfish.

I have every right to call her selfish because she was.

I'm the one that has had to deal with that.

When my kids asked about her, I told the truth.

The only thing she taught me was how NOT to be a parent.

When my kids reached 13, it was harder for me to comprehend what she did - how she could leave.

I also hate when they say it's a cowards way out! They must have balls to end there's own life!

Maybe nobody is being selfish?

Speaking as someone whose mother often threatened suicide when I was a child, as well as someone who has lost three friends to suicide.

I don't think suicidal people are selfish, they are ill and suffering. They are a million miles away from, for example, someone with terminal illness making a rational decision to end their lives at Dignitas. I don't think the feelings of (and inconvenience even to) others comes into it, this is not a rational thought process, it is all about them and their pain. That may be perceived to some as selfish and I can understand why someone would think that. As for me, I think they are unwell and need help.

I have an equal amount of sympathy for the family and friends who support suicidal people and people with various mental illnesses, and who have lost loved ones. There is a lot of mental health virtue signalling going on recently, but I see very little support offered to those left behind or left dealing with someone who is suffering.

@StringingIT I don't know if it helps, but many of us have that record playing over and over, the pain and desolation is full on at times, we feel guilty for the impact we are having on others, and I completely hear you about the idea of living this for another 40+ years feeling completely fucking unbearable.
But, like you said, you are doing the extremely hard work of reaching out, and none of us know when we may potentially be done playing that record and our lives could change completely. If you can't have hope for yourself then allow those around you to hold it for you. You deserve to feel better. You are reaching up and out of that hole. There are so many of us who have felt or are feeling similar. Depression is very clever at convincing us that life will never change. It is a liar.
I wish you the best of luck.

I sometimes think that, for so,e people, life is so unbearable sad that they can't bet to live in it anymore. I don't even think a person who ends their life is necessarily suffering from a mental illness.

Bear to live in it

If your in a place where you want to take your own life I think your beyond selfish I think yourin a place where you really feal you make no difference anyway so what is the point. I get where people are coming from, but those who are suicidal need help, love and support not judgement and condemnation.

I don't think the act of suicide itself is selfish as many PPs have said that a person is psychologically unwell and can't think in the same way. Mental illnesses are illness just as much as physical illness.
Although i feel like involving others could be possibly construed as selfish. (Eg jumping from a motorway bridge, or jumping in front of a train involve another person who has no say in it) And i feel incredibly bad for both the person unwillingly involved, and their family, as well as the person who felt they had no choice but to end their life.(and of course their family and friends)

It is a selfish act in that, in the moment, the act is purely for the "benefit" of the person in that moment.

But in that moment, the person may be thinking UNselfishly - they may well be thinking "I'm such a burden to my family, it would be better for them all if I were dead". Of course, we know that is illness speaking.

Suicide is so painful, so sad and so unfathomable to those left behind. The guilt, anger, helplessness and despair are horrific. As another poster said, it adds an extra level to grief. We like answers, and with suicide we rarely get any. We carry on but we can never answer the biggest question "why?"

Hello OP, we are really sorry to hear you are feeling this way.

We hope you don't mind, but when these threads are flagged up to us we usually add a link to our Mental Health resources.

You can also go to the Samaritans website or email them on [email protected]. Support from other Mumsnetters is great and we really hope you will be able to take some comfort from your fellow posters, but as other MNers will tell you, it's really a good idea to seek RL help and support as well.
We also like to remind everyone that, although we're awed daily by the astonishing support our members give each other through life's trickier twists and turns, we'd always caution anyone never to give more of themselves to another poster, emotionally or financially, than they can afford to spare.

It's massively individual isn't it? Some are mentally ill, some aren't.

What about the people who get found out for a horrible crime and take their life to avoid being held accountable? I don't think many people would have a problem labelling that as selfish.

And sometimes mental illness can be selfish. Not in a blamey 'I don't care about anyone but me' way, but in the sense that it can leave the person trapped in a dark swirl of only their own experience and thoughts and unable to see the impact it has on others. Doesn't mean it's their fault at all, but an illness of that sort can end up being very self centred in the literal sense of the word.

Suicide can also be a way of sparing others of, say, looking after you when you know it will take over their life and be a burden. Of the face of it, not selfish. But what about an elderly person who persuades a relative to help them commit suicide so they don't have to suffer, but knowingly leaves that relative in trouble with the law, maybe in prison, as a result.

Suicide isn't one path, it's just one end point. It's way to simplistic to say that it categorically is or isn't a selfish act, it depends. There can even be elements of both selfish and unselfish thoughts/behaviour in any one suicide, just like any other choice in life. The trouble with this one is it's final and can't be come back from.

OP, I'm sorry that you're in such a rough place though. I hope you can find some help and peace

I don’t think anyone who attempts suicide can really me in their right mind - it must be a horrible, dark and lonely place that only those who have experienced and sometimes are luckily enough to survive can really understand. I don’t think selfishness can ever fit in to that place or frame of mind.

There's no 'one size fits all' answer. There'll be the people who are seriously mentally unwell and genuinely think it's the only way out and that their loved ones will be better off without them. There'll be people with no mental health problems who make the decision to end their own life and there's everyone who comes in between.

@SpamChaudFroid we “met” on the sciatica thread. I just opened this one as I lost my dad to suicide five years ago. Just wanted to say hello, and so sorry to hear how you’ve been affected by suicide. Also hope your sciatica is getting better.

Personally I don’t think suicide is intrinsically selfish, I honestly believe my dad couldn’t see another way forward. But unfortunately it’s a permanent solution to a usually temporary situation. I think if someone could have helped my dad better, he wouldn’t have gotten that far.

I don't know if it's selfish but someone close to me told me that ending your life doesn't end the pain, it just passes it on. And I think that's very true.