Is suicide selfish?

[lastwords.com]

Sorry if this has been asked before on here, I joined not long ago and wanna know your guys opinions on this. After I CTB will everyone around me think I was selfish?

 

[FuneralCry]

I don't really care how other people view suicide, but the fact is that nobody is obligated to continue existing just because some people decided to selfishly procreate, the right to die is simply a basic human right. It's cruel to expect people to suffer against their wishes, and anyway the fact is that grief and loss are just an inevitable part of life, we are all destined to die someday. To me it would make sense to want to take control over my inevitable fate.

 

[Darkover]

what's selfish is bring someone alive here for your own pleasure, without any regard for what kind of life they will have, its selfish to force someone to exist when their being mentally and physically tortured every day of their existance just so others don't have to suffer

 

[81-Z@P@D]

There are definitely cases where it would be selfish (killing oneself after racking up massive debt that will be passed on to their children). But otherwise, someone calling it 'selfish' is a big red flag to me, since it might mean they view the existence of that person is based on their usefulness or something.

 

[dingokettle3531]

Not really. One can do whatever they want with their life as long as they know the risks and advantages of their decisions

 

[Sluggish_Slump]

I don't think it's selfless or selfish, it's a neutral action that everyone will interpret as they like (or at least it should be neutral) - i guess it all depends on the context of the death how people will see the CTB. Certain people will judge us negatively, that's for sure (some people do think it's selfish to choose CTB). But it shouldn't matter how people see us.

 

[Amakishiyo]

Suicide is selfless, you will free up all the resources that you would otherwise use up in your lifetime.

 

[itsallpointless]

yes but also no. It's not a simple question

 

[szk]

I personally don't think suicide is selfish as it gives the one doing it a sense of relief and closure on their life. The argument that it's "not forgiven" is stupid in my opinion because it's a free world where everyone is gonna die anyway, therefore people should have the right to leave if they don't want to stay and no one should force them to.

 

[that smell]

It's selfish to those who selfishly impose life on those who don't wish to continue living. I don't think selfishness is necessarily a bad thing sometimes.

 

[ButterCat]

I think it depends on your situation. And how close your relationships are with family and friends. In my opinion, it also depends on if you have kids or not and how old they are. Most of the time I do feel it is selfish. But at the end of the day, it's up to you to decide what's selfish and what's not

 

[tera_forest]

I generally think that those who call suicide selfish are ignorant to what it feels like being suicidal.

 

[outrider567]

I don't care if its selfish, if others see it as selfish or not, doesn't matter to me, they're not in my situation, they're not in my head, they could never understand anyway

 

[SatouR]

I dont think it's selfish.
It's your choice and it should be respected by others.
You could say killing yourself could mentaly harm others because of your choice wich would be selfish.
You could also say that others wanting you to stay alive so they wouldn't have to deal with the trauma would be selfish from them.
It depends from where you look at it but I think everyone should have the right to end their own life.

 

[coldblood]

people who think it's selfish only think it's selfish because they're thinking about themselves and not you, the sufferer and victim. They are the selfish ones if they think that.

 

[CentreMid]

Not at all. What we do with or lives is our business and our business alone, and that includes choosing to end it. People who try to interfere with that are selfish ones, not us.

 

[ShotgunShell]

No. The only thing that's selfish are the people calling you such when you go. People who claim to have been "affected by suicide" are the true selfish assholes who can't go 5 minutes without whining about themselves.

You are the victim here. Not them.

 

[Euthanza]

It could be selfish, but not necessarily true. Suicide prevention is the most selfish thing ones ever did in history of life and death as if life and death don't hold hands together.

Suicide is basic human's right if done without harming others.

 

[qsocdu]

If you are a psychopath or a rapist, or a fucked up person in general that would harm others, I'd actually believe it wouldn't be selfish at all. Now if you're suffering something you can't see a way off for a long period of time, and you can't just take anymore because it's being hell, well I don't think it's selfish at all too. Maybe to people who care about you, because it's kinda a abandonment (if you like them too). Now if it's something to hurt others, yeah, maybe it's selfish, depends if the person targeted is really a bad person or not. Now if you harmed someone and is getting away with suicide, yeah, that's selfish af. The thing is, what is not selfish in today's society? It rewards that kind of behaviour. Oh you're a empathetic person? Welcome to hell of collective suffering.

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

Well, if it is, don't we deserve to be selfish, at least one time in our lives?
I think that being dragged into this world against your will because parents wanted to play dress-up doll and live a vicarious fantasy life through you is far more selfish than saying you won't play along with this cruelty anymore.

After I CTB will everyone around me think I was selfish?

Maybe, it depends who they are. Grief is different for everyone, but it's probably more likely that those closer to you would feel guilt rather than contempt toward you. Those not close to you might label you like that, but really... what does it matter? You'll be dead, you won't have to bare the consequences of what others think of you anymore.

(Okay now this is some pointless philisophising so feel free to ignore the next part.)
Here's the thing about selfishness: If you don't act in self-interest, what are you acting in? Virtues serve interests, they aren't good in and of themselves just because they're virtuous, they're good because they help you in some way; humans are social creatures, they do things for others and others do things for them. It's bidirectional and always has and always will be. Doing something virtuous makes you feel good ("out of the good of their heart"), or they make you feel less bad ("brightened their day"), or whatever. Pure alturism is kinda just narcissistic, if you're doing something selfless for absolutely nothing at all, the only real possibility left for the reason you're doing it is to try and seek validation for your own belief that you're "good" through others, a very telling trait of narcissism.

Anyway, that's kinda my opinion.
Though I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel my suicide will be selfish too. I'd like to minimise any collateral damage and grief I cause but I know I still will cause others to hurt and I've just gotta accept that and not let the guilt I feel from it get in the way, my pain matters too and I need to stop thinking like it doesn't.
And hey, even if I'm feeling guilty on the day I go to do it, I at least won't be feeling it much longer.

It's okay to be selfish for once if you've been selflessly existing against your will for so long. It doesn't make you a bad person, at least in my eyes.

 

[Haruka]

I think it's subjective. My family and somebody close to me thinks it's selfish and 'mean', but I strongly disagree. It is just a way out for those in pain.

 

[orca87]

I like it the way the highest German court has put it:


The right to self-determined dying includes the freedom to take one's own life. The individual's decision to end his or her life in accordance with his or her understanding of the quality of life and the meaningfulness of his or her own existence must be respected by the state and society as an act of autonomous self-determination.

 

[AsAboveSoBelow]

It depends on the kind of people you have in your life. If they're proper and empathetic people, they wouldnt think that someone who's suicided as being selfish (I think), even though they might not agree to it/will be upset about it. People will grief. That's natural. But it takes a different kind of people to think that someone who had had to resort to killing themselves as being selfish.

Personally, I don't think it is an act of selfishness, as long as I don't leave like a mountain of debt for other people to pay off, or as long as I don't kill other people, or some other heinous act against other persons. Annihilating myself without unfinished business is my right (to live and die), especially since I didn't even choose to be here, and if I've tried my hardest to live and have exhausted all means.

After all, everyone will die at some point anyway.

 

[aubrey!]

it's hard to say in my opinion. everyone is inherently selfish - it's a pretty strange insult.
you should always live and die for yourself, but encouraging someone to live or die is also self centered around whoever is telling you that.
the line is blurry between what is and isn't selfish, and at the end of the day selfish shouldn't even be an insult. i'm selfish, fuck you. because all those choices are centered around one person, but imo when it's your own life nobody should tell you what to do with it, and those who encourage you to live or die are the worse people in the scenario, and doing what you want with your life is absolutely fine and i think there are zero things wrong with that morally. at the end of the day, it is typically You suffering. they don't know what it's like.

 

[TimeHasCome6]

It's always about the situation and the person. We'll all feel that sense of guilt at some point GeForce ending our own life. Weather it goes away and how viable it is depends on the person, but I don't think that should stop any of us. Death is a bai sic human right that we deserve to choose on our own. It could be selfish, and it could be selfless or it could be niether or a mixture of things. It's never one thing. We just have to decide what it is for us.
Before* apologies

 

[Viranamari]

Definitely not. Personally, I don't really care what others think about suicide as that's the only thing I see for my future. After all, suicide is a personal opinion and no one should be forced to live in this cruel world. Suicide is indubitably devastating for loved ones but grief and sorrow are commonplace in life and unfortunately, we can't avoid it. Depending on how pro-life you are, it might be considered selfish but honestly, I can barely care.

 

[Borgrot]

It all varies from person to person and situation to situation. Were someone a parent and their kid's sole means of support? Then probably that would fall more into being a selfish act. In my case, however, what would be more selfish is continuing to inflict myself on my loved ones, so it's not a selfish act to remove myself. It's an act of love.

At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

 

[scamper]

Though I obviously disagree with it, I see where the argument that suicide is selfish comes from. There's always something I never understood about that viewpoint though.

Let's say that, hypothetically, someone tells me that me committing suicide would be a selfish act because my family would suffer due to it. It makes sense at first, but why do they disregard that, even though I am to the point of ending my own life, they are trying to prolong my suffering? I understand the world doesn't revolve around me, but why should I have to go through this so you don't have to? Their own reasoning is selfish on its own. They aren't considering my best interest at all.

Let me reiterate that is all hypothetical, none of it really happened.

There is a side to this that I haven't mentioned, and that's the large quantity of people who believe they're helping those around them by committing suicide. To these people, the message that suicide is selfish is completely lost on them as their reasoning for choosing suicide is rooted in selflessness.

Both sides of this argument have understandable points behind them, but ultimately I believe that if you're forced to live you have the right to die. Suicide is not selfish, and those who say it is use selfish reasoning to support their claim.

 

[CompanyOpossum]

I like it the way the highest German court has put it:


The right to self-determined dying includes the freedom to take one's own life. The individual's decision to end his or her life in accordance with his or her understanding of the quality of life and the meaningfulness of his or her own existence must be respected by the state and society as an act of autonomous self-determination.

Law giving the right to do something doesn't make it not selfish. Law gives the right to hoarde money and resources while people are starving to death.

Not saying that suicide is definitely selfish since I'm not sure myself.

 

[lessthanperfect]

Yes and no.

There's a big difference between doing something you don't have to that you know will hurt others and being in pain and wanting it to stop.

In my opinion, selfishness isn't inherently bad, so I'd say that yes, it is selfish but also yes, it is just and reasonable to do.

If someone tries to guilt trip you into continuing to suffer just because they'd feel better if you're alive, they don't care about you; they care about the idea of what they want you to be.