I'm tired of hearing that suicide is selfish

[Jason0941]

I'm not going to keep fighting my battle with depression just because my family would mourn me after I'm dead. I've been dealing with depression for 3 years, up to the present day. I've tried therapy and it hasn't helped. If my family thinks that therapy is so effective: they can use it to cope with my demise after I'm gone.

"Suicide would be selfish", is something that I've heard multiple times throughout my years of therapy. Has anyone ever considered that maybe forcing someone to continue living, purely for other people's emotions, is selfish?

 

[usernamesarehard]

I don't think you'll like my take, but I think life in general is just selfish. Yeah, it is selfish to ctb. You're doing it because you're in pain and don't care about the pain it will cause others. Yes, it's also selfish for your family to try to keep you alive because they don't want to feel bad. Most, if not all, people are brought into the world because of others' selfish desires to have a family.

Don't let it bother you too much. Everyone is selfish. There are very few truly selfless people in the world.

 

[davidtorez]

I don't think you'll like my take, but I think life in general is just selfish. Yeah, it is selfish to ctb. You're doing it because you're in pain and don't care about the pain it will cause others. Yes, it's also selfish for your family to try to keep you alive because they don't want to feel bad. Most, if not all, people are brought into the world because of others' selfish desires to have a family.

Don't let it bother you too much. Everyone is selfish. There are very few truly selfless people in the world.

Some would even argue and say that seemingly selfless acts such as giving to the poor is a selfish act as well. If giving to the poor does not make a person feel good about doing it, would they do it? I don't think think so.

 

[dontwakemeup]

I dislike when people say suicide is selfish, because it's not. People fail to realize that we have been suffering in silence for so long!! We have tried every medication, therapy and for some people that is not enough. I hate waking up, there are simply no pleasures in life for us. They will never understand, I stop trying. If I had nembutal I would take it so fast. And for the writer of this post, do what you feel will make you happy! This will sound bad but stop living for others selfish pleasures!

 

[FuneralCry]

It's just so cruel to me how many wish to force others to suffer tortured in this existence they never even chose in the first place, I see so much cruelty in how there is no acceptance towards the right to die with the suffering and torture of existing seen as to force and prolong no matter what, forcing people to suffer will always be what is selfish to me.

 

[eljuicioporlaestafa]

I'm not going to keep fighting my battle with depression just because my family would mourn me after I'm dead. I've been dealing with depression for 3 years, up to the present day. I've tried therapy and it hasn't helped. If my family thinks that therapy is so effective: they can use it to cope with my demise after I'm gone.

"Suicide would be selfish", is something that I've heard multiple times throughout my years of therapy. Has anyone ever considered that maybe forcing someone to continue living, purely for other people's emotions, is selfish?

I do think suicide is generally selfish, but I also don't see how that's an issue. I guess it probably has to do with the negative perception most people have of the word "selfish".

 

[NiveusAnima]

To me, suicide is selfless.

I'm not committing for myself, but for the world. For the ones around me. The ones I love and the ones I hate. The ones I will never meet.

Because I am... a burden. A waste of oxygen and time and thought. I only ever hold people back, get in their way from being happy or having things to do that don't involve me. People notice how depressed I am, and it makes them worry. People think I hate them, or that I'm angry, or that they make me feel the way I feel. Even if they do, I don't want to be the reason they feel like me.

Even the world puts energy into my life. I eat, sleep, breath, and exist on its surface when someone else could have these things. if I stop living, that energy can be used for something better. Give someone else my bed, the food I would eat, the air I would breath, the space I take.

So, I decide I want to commit. That I want to not exist and stop being a burden, that I want the world to not hate me the way it seems to, that I want to be freed from the chains of life and offer them to another who would actually enjoy their presence.

 

[eljuicioporlaestafa]

To me, suicide is selfless.

I'm not committing for myself, but for the world. For the ones around me. The ones I love and the ones I hate. The ones I will never meet.

Because I am... a burden. A waste of oxygen and time and thought. I only ever hold people back, get in their way from being happy or having things to do that don't involve me. People notice how depressed I am, and it makes them worry. People think I hate them, or that I'm angry, or that they make me feel the way I feel. Even if they do, I don't want to be the reason they feel like me.

Even the world puts energy into my life. I eat, sleep, breath, and exist on its surface when someone else could have these things. if I stop living, that energy can be used for something better. Give someone else my bed, the food I would eat, the air I would breath, the space I take.

So, I decide I want to commit. That I want to not exist and stop being a burden, that I want the world to not hate me the way it seems to, that I want to be freed from the chains of life and offer them to another who would actually enjoy their presence.

I relate hard to this man, hence I said before suicide is "generally" selfish. In cases like yours, it definitely isn't.

 

[coked_pigeon]

I think it's infinitely more selfish to coerce someone to continue suffering for your sake. Bereavement is a serious harm, of course, but life is full of serious harms. Shouldn't we have the right to decide what harms we're willing to endure? If your life isn't yours to end it was never yours to begin with, which isn't a good look for a culture that claims to champion bodily autonomy.

I'm not going to keep fighting my battle with depression just because my family would mourn me after I'm dead. I've been dealing with depression for 3 years, up to the present day. I've tried therapy and it hasn't helped. If my family thinks that therapy is so effective: they can use it to cope with my demise after I'm gone.

"Suicide would be selfish", is something that I've heard multiple times throughout my years of therapy. Has anyone ever considered that maybe forcing someone to continue living, purely for other people's emotions, is selfish?

"If [they] think therapy is so effective, they can use it to cope with my demise after I'm gone"

LOL

I made the same argument to a friend once and he kind of laughed but couldn't refute it.

It's very easy to pontificate about the joy outweighing the suffering when the suffering is being incurred by someone else.

Suicide prevention efforts are more about guarding a certain worldview - that life is an inherent good that must be prolonged and perpetuated at all costs - than they are about materially improving the conditions of suicidal people. Even arriving at a different evaluation of the relative goods and harms on offer is often pathologized.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I smiled at the line about therapy. I also hate the double standard. The whole: 'No problem is too big for you to live with but, we can't cope with your suicide.'

I suppose the difficulty with suicide is it is pretty much a deliberate infliction of pain and grief on others. That's by far not the prime motivation though. It's just a terrible side effect.

I'd also agree that forcing someone to stay here when they insist they're in pain and can't cope is hugely selfish. I suppose it's partly based on wishful thinking. That all people, given the right time and help will recover. I doubt that's actually the case though.

That does tend to throw up an unpleasant possibility for them to admit- although, I doubt they will. Do they even care how much we are suffering, so long as we don't inflict grief on them?

Being anti-natalist, I would argue that bringing life here in the first place is primarily a selfish act. If it were purely to love and support an individual, surely more people would adopt. I think it's more that would-be parents want to replicate a part of themselves and their partners so, they still have something to love if their partner dies. Plus, to experience that close bond. I imagine the better parents do want to give their children a good life too but ultimately, there are so many things they can't protect them from. Including likely having to mourn their deaths. Ironic really- the way we're expected to take that in our stride. So, purely based on that- that we were brought here to fulfil a selfish need of theirs, I think it's terribly unfair to then trap us here if we end up hating their choice.

 

[Groundhog_Day]

I think a better word for suicide is merciful. Most people who go through with it have endured years or even a lifetime of torment. Everyone has a breaking point, it's just some are lucky to never suffer to that extent, and therefore can't understand and call it a selfish act.

 

[Jiroscope]

I think suicide could be selfish, but it being a selfish act isn't a bad thing. If there's one thing you can be selfish about, it should be your own life.

 

[Jason0941]

I dislike when people say suicide is selfish, because it's not. People fail to realize that we have been suffering in silence for so long!! We have tried every medication, therapy and for some people that is not enough. I hate waking up, there are simply no pleasures in life for us. They will never understand, I stop trying. If I had nembutal I would take it so fast. And for the writer of this post, do what you feel will make you happy! This will sound bad but stop living for others selfish pleasures!

Thank you for understanding my perspective. I've been dealing with depression for the past 3 years. My mental health has not improved, despite years of therapy and medication. I plan on ending my life on July 16th via nitrogen.

 

[wham311]

LeBron was selfish for leaving Cleveland and he got 4 rings for it