Is suicide selfish?

[Mey]

Is suicide selfish?

Discuss!

 

[Uara]

Well its damn selfish when im on the underground and some cock has to go kill themselves on the line im on. Generally holding me up for ages and often making me miss my train i have to catch.

Sensibly I think that at times commiting suicide can have a major impact on the family of the person who commited suicide. I know a family where a dad commited suicide which led to the mum commiting suicide due to the heartbreak he caused by doing that. Which left 2 girls with no-one to look after them. In that instance i think its pretty selfish, just think of what the daughters are going through.

 

[Dukat]

Depends alot on the circumstances I think, but in the majority of cases I think it is very, very selfish.

That said, and without going into details, I have personal experience of the fact that even in "every day", "non-extreme" cases, suicidal behaviour can make it feel like its the only option left to the person suffering from it, and so to them it really isnt about being selfish, its about being overwhelmed by something to the point that 'ending it all' seems to be the only way out.

As I said, I think it depends alot on the circumstances, and it might be that a chain of events such as losing all of a person's immediate family in one go, or having another sort of extremely stressful and emotionally painful experience, or suffering from constant stress for a prolonged period of time (such as domestic abuse etc), are what cases the person to feel suicidal. In which case I think its a little more understandable, but still selfish.

I think it would be wrong to over-generalise about something like this, but I think that it is, in many cases in 'every day' life, a selfish act.

 

[tris-]

the people around the person who comitted suicide can be said to be selfish too then.
if they are concerned with "what about how i feel" etc

 

[old.Tohtori]

If you're alone, don't know anyone, effect noone, as in, drive your plane into the atlantic never o be found.

Then yes.

Otherwise, you're ending your life, it can't be unselfish.

Unless ofcourse you're shooting yourself to avoid having to program a nuclear missile to blow up a city or something.

If you do it to end yourself, yes, it's selfish.
If you're doing it to save someone, no.

 

[nath]

Lol tris, that makes no sense at all. If I punch you in the throat, would you be considered selfish for feeling pain? No, that'd be ludicrous - and there's no reason it doesn't apply on an emotional level. Suicide is a selfish act, although selfish is a shit word for it - the emotional fallout is devastating and someone committing suicide either doesn't care or as mentioned above, things are just too overwhelming to consider that side of things.

 

[Shagrat]

If you do it to end yourself, yes, it's selfish.
If you're doing it to save someone, no.

couldnt have put it better

 

[gohan]

If you're alone, don't know anyone, effect noone, as in, drive your plane into the atlantic never o be found.

Then yes.

Otherwise, you're ending your life, it can't be unselfish.

Unless ofcourse you're shooting yourself to avoid having to program a nuclear missile to blow up a city or something.

If you do it to end yourself, yes, it's selfish.
If you're doing it to save someone, no.

technically dying to save some1 isnt suicide its matrydom

 

[Olgaline]

technically it's still suicide...

 

[Uara]

yeah essentially martyrdom is suicide for a cause! normally a religious cause!

 

[Olgaline]

actually, martyrdom is sacrificing your life for a cause, it dosent have to be achived through suicide

roughly, i'm sure some nerd out there has the precise description

 

[Imgormiel]

I lost two good friends to suicide, both for stupid selfish reasons, and even now I think about it, I can't but help being angry. So, yeah, I have to agree.

 

[Uara]

ok true, my wording was a bit bad there!

 

[tris-]

Lol tris, that makes no sense at all. If I punch you in the throat, would you be considered selfish for feeling pain? .

thats not the same IMO.

 

[Thorwyn]

Suicide isn´t more or less selfish than any other major decision in life, such as divorce, abortion, quitting a job or whatever. It´s a very personal decision, nothing more, nothing less. Why would it be selfish?

My brother commited suicide when i was a kid and I think it´s safe to say that this affected my entire life and the life of my family. However, after all the years I have to say that I have to respect his decision. I never came close to calling him selfish, because he lost quite a lot... after all, his life.

Selfish are those attention whores, who´re abusing the option of a suicide as a power tool. If someone wants to end his life... fine! Go for it! But make sure you´re doing it right.

 

[Billargh]

But isn't it selfish expecting someone not to take their life just because of how it will effect you and others?

 

[nath]

thats not the same IMO.

It is on a certain level. You can't be rational about some things, if a member of family commits suicide the rest of the family is going to feel awful, probably for a very long time. There's nothing they can do about that, it's just cause and effect. Given that, anyone who chooses to commit suicide has to know this is what they're doing. As I said, either they don't care or the pain is simply too much to be concerned with such things.

Sorry for your loss Thorwyn, I can't imagine how that must have been for you as a kid.


edit: Bill, perhaps it could be considered selfish stopping someone from committing suicide if you're aware just how much pain they're in. It's a pretty unpleasant area all round really.

 

[CorNokZ]

As I see it:

If you're lonely, no one cares about you, you have no family, friends etc., and you decide to take your own life, then no! It's not a selfish act, if you take your own life, so it won't harm the finder

If you, on the other hand, have friends, family and so on, and decide to take your own life, just because something bad happened or you want to commit suicide as a tool of power, then yes, it is very selfish to kill yourself

 

[Mey]

Perhaps I should of defined selfish (it's a fairly open description and a very clumsy one) but nevermind.

All interesting thoughts from everyone by the way.

 

[Marc]

I dont think its selfish no.

 

[old.Tohtori]

I think the more fun question is, "is making a baby selfish" as it is

 

[Hawkwind]

Yes, unless your an emo in which case it's compulsary!

 

[gohan]

I think the more fun question is, "is making a baby selfish" as it is

YES

they annoy EVERYONE that isnt the parent of that particular child, also mostly annoy the parent too.....


and we don't have enought food, jobs, fuel ect



no more babies

EVER




or maybe soon the goverment will introduce application forms for having a baby


on a serious note


i HATE non working single mums that sleep about to get pregnant to get a flat/benifits ect they should be forced to have an abortion then forced to drown in a pile of thier own shit!!!!

 

[old.Tohtori]

i HATE non working single mums that sleep about

*takes pen and paper*

Now tell me, where exactly are these women?

 

[Uara]

many council estates in Britain

 

[sayward]

I think it's the same as other sudden tragic deaths; i.e. road accidents. It doesn't just affect the friends and families for a very long time, it affects them for the rest of their lives, and can ruin them.

 

[Zenith]

Suicide isn´t more or less selfish than any other major decision in life, such as divorce, abortion, quitting a job or whatever. It´s a very personal decision, nothing more, nothing less. Why would it be selfish?

My brother commited suicide when i was a kid and I think it´s safe to say that this affected my entire life and the life of my family. However, after all the years I have to say that I have to respect his decision. I never came close to calling him selfish, because he lost quite a lot... after all, his life.

Selfish are those attention whores, who´re abusing the option of a suicide as a power tool. If someone wants to end his life... fine! Go for it! But make sure you´re doing it right.

I regard suicide selfish if it does a major impact on someone else who you are to take care of, say a daugther or a son. I have a friend whos dad took suicide, just to leave him with his mother, barely making it. Even if you take the emotional pain (which was huge naturally) out of the picture, the dad made a commitment when giving birth to a son and had a responsibility to take care of him. Selflish if anything.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Also Thorwyn "divorce, abortion, quitting a job or whatever" are all selfish

Selfish is when you think about yourself and not others.

Funerals are selfish too...damnit...

 

[Thorwyn]

lso Thorwyn "divorce, abortion, quitting a job or whatever" are all selfish

Yes, that´s why I said "...are no more or less selfish than...". My post wasn´t properly worded, the last sentence of this first break should have been: "Why would it be espcially (as in "more") selfish?"

My point was, that there is hardly a decision in life that´s not somehow selfish. Whatever you do, you almost always do it with a motivation that contains aspects of yourself.

Zenith, it´s always easy to judge things from the safe distance of a non-affected observer. You don´t know the internal circumstances or the exact motivation that drove this guy to pull the trigger. If someone is in an emotionally imbalanced state, you can hardly expect rational decisions. Most suicides are done over what other people would consider "inferior reasons". You can of course also pass the ball back to the wife of this guy and ask her: why didn´t she realise what was happening and why didn´t she try to keep him from doing it? Now, I don´t disagree with you (as pointed out above). Suicide has selfish aspects, no doubt. But it´s also selfish to expect people to stay alive JUST because YOU would have a hard time when they´re gone. Accusations are working both ways.

 

[Bahumat]

there's a def poetry song about this and he talks about how your family, friends and partner are left behind with the "could i have done something else to help" and all those other questions so i think its selfish