Is Suicide a Selfish Act?

[Iamonfire]

@FRDE

Well met !

Last time I checked RF it looked as if the Chief had pulled the plug

• 5% interesting people, and too many using baiting tricks on their allies

Would you like an entirely plausible, but bogus, Email address ?

sure send me a note to madrapist@gmail.com. Obviously that is not my real name. You may remember me as fred with a friendly man holding a pint of beer in my avatar

Baiting tactics? I seem to remember everyone thought you were a spook and you hardly stopped their train of thought. very funny times.

[The_Good_Friday_Spell]

What is this baiting you speak of?

[Sam_Stone]

Suicide doesn’t have to be ‘selfish’. A good friend of mine killed himself a number of years ago. He always seemed happy, and was a really level-headed guy, so his suicide shocked all of us.

It turns out, he killed himself because he was starting to hear voices - voices that were telling him to hurt people. He was terrified that he might actually hurt someone, so to prevent it he shot himself.

That’s not selfishness, it’s heroism. Very misguided heroism, granted (treatment might have been a better first option). But he still ended his life to protect others.

[kung_fu_lola]

@Kalhoun

I know many people who have seemingly meaningful lives but they aren’t meaningful to THEM, and that’s really all that matters. Of course you’d miss the person and feel bad that they weren’t able to attain a sense of worth and happiness, but you can’t feel “it” for someone else. “It” has to come from within to be a motivator. For some people, it never happens or it happens so rarely as to make the rest of their existence a chore. I would rather see the pain stop for someone I love.

I just had to quote this again, because it is so true.

People ignore the fact that in certain cultures, in certain ways of life, if you will; not all skills or assets are valued equally. So even though a person may be wonderful, they just may not have a makeup that is valued by their society. What if you have the potential, drive and passion to be the best sailor on the high seas ever - but you’re born in 1952 and not 1452? Skills are currency and often, they dictate your value to the world around you. If you find a place in the world where your personal strengths are useful, you have it made. But those places cannot exist for every being on the planet - and what if you are the one who ends up with nowhere to belong or be appreciated? It’s not anybody’s fault, it’s just the way the world is.

Sometimes I wonder if the people who commit carefully thought-out suicide are people who are High Sea Sailors.

[Kythereia]

I have had suicidal thoughts.

I have to echo what Guinastasia said in this thread. When I thought about the act, it wasn’t that I didn’t care at all what my family or friends thought–I did and still do, very very much. I love them and I don’t ever want to see them hurt.

It was just that I was blinded to everything else but my own pain–I couldn’t see anything outside what I was feeling, how hard it was for me to go on… like a very big set of blinkers being applied.

Is suicide a selfish act? It’s self-centered, certainly–you’re coming at things solely from your own perspective. But from someone who’s been there, I don’t think anyone’s intention is to harm–just to end their own suffering.