# Is suicide "selfish"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 12, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389 "2014-08-12T19:18:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/21 "2014-08-12T20:03:18Z")
My sympathies, **Lacunae**. > [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > If you don’t care about any kind of accurate representation from people on the Dope, then why on earth did you make it a poll, as opposed to a standard thread? Because the poll keeps track of everyone’s position in nice little organized lists, along with the percentages. That’s “why on earth”. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/22 "2014-08-12T20:04:57Z")
I can’t vote in this poll. I need an option for “I’ve lost someone close to me to suicide, and I’m NOT mad, and I don’t hold it against her.” ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/23 "2014-08-12T20:05:59Z")
I’ve lost someone close to me because of suicide. I’m **not** mad at them, they’re dead. But I still think they’re actions were selfish. So I didn’t answer you’re poll. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/24 "2014-08-12T20:07:02Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I can’t vote in this poll. I need an option for “I’ve lost someone close to me to suicide, and I’m NOT mad, and I don’t hold it against her.” Damn, you’re going to mess up the biased percentages, Skald. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/25 "2014-08-12T20:11:49Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Wanting someone to live in misery so you will not be hurt by their death is selfish. Exactly what I was going to say. It seems manipulative to demand someone to live against their will. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/26 "2014-08-12T20:18:32Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Exactly what I was going to say. > > It seems manipulative to demand someone to live against their will. You are now the 4th person in this thread to say something that nobody seems to disagree with. You’re damn right I’m selfish for not wanting my loved ones to commit suicide. I don’t see how that has anything to do with the OP’s question. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/27 "2014-08-12T20:19:24Z")
Depression is a disease. Sometimes a terminal one. I don’t think someone is selfish for dying of leukemia. I don’t think Robin Williams was selfish for not surviving his illness, either. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/28 "2014-08-12T20:24:50Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I can’t vote in this poll. I need an option for “I’ve lost someone close to me to suicide, and I’m NOT mad, and I don’t hold it against her.” There already is an option that is compatible with your feeling. Unless you are not _sad_ that she died? 😕 **Omar** , your objection seems very nitpicky. ETA: I would be interested in hearing from **August West**. **Shodan** et al, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/29 "2014-08-12T20:28:06Z")
Looks like I’m the lone voter in the number one option. Yes, I’m also selfish for wanting my friend to be alive and it probably is rooted in anger. We were pretty damned good friends and he never mentioned anything to me about whatever it was he was struggling with, so I’m mad that he didn’t ask me for help and, yeah, I think that was a little selfish. ---
**Author:** ![iamNobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/848f3c/32.png) [@iamNobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamNobody)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/30 "2014-08-12T20:28:07Z")
Anybody who would call a suicide selfish has obviously never been in a position to feel like that was the only way out, and therefore really does not have enough information to make a judgement. I have been suicidal many times, and most of the time it had nothing to do what was going on around me, but was caused by a brain chemical imbalance. I HAVE to be on meds to keep from feeling that way, but when I am on the right meds, I am fine. I am happy. I love life. If I forget my meds for a couple days I start spiralling down. It sucks. I am so very sad that Robin Williams was suffering from depression. I had no idea. It’s a tragedy. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/31 "2014-08-12T20:28:08Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > There already is an option that is compatible with your feeling. Unless you are not _sad_ that she died? 😕 > > **Omar** , your objection seems very nitpicky. He didn’t answer because he thinks it’s selfish. You seem to think that everyone who views a suicide as selfish automatically “holds it against” the deceased. Multiple people have demonstrated that this isn’t the case. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/32 "2014-08-12T21:00:33Z")
I’ve known some people who had small children, and committed suicide, and in those particular cases, yeah, I think the person should have put up with the psychic pain for a while longer, until their children were old enough to deal with losing a parent, particularly to suicide, and understand (even if it took therapy) that it wasn’t their fault, and until it would be a little easier for the other parent to go on as a single parent. Leaving someone with a preschooler and a first-grader, as it was in one case, was a terrible thing to do. Check into a hospital. Figure out some way to make it for a few more years, even if you still eventually commit suicide. On the other hand, some suicides may be self_less_. When my father was in the last stages of cancer, he couldn’t care for himself any longer. He signed a DNR. When he died, it’s possible he might have been revived, and lived another month, but he knew he would have been a burden on people, and he might not even have been fully conscious. He signed the DNR when he was still capable of saying good-bye to people. He planned his own funeral, even asked a friend to deliver the eulogy, and “make it honest.” If my father hadn’t had a form of cancer that was pretty deadly, and he might have spent a long time in pain, or might have had the protracted dementia that some end-stage cancer patients have, and he wanted something more pro-active than a simple DNR, I would have been fine with that. My point is, that I don’t think you can make a blanket statement about all suicides, because they aren’t all the same. Just like the methods aren’t all alike. People who jump in front of trucks or trains, and force someone else to like with horrific memories are wrong, IMO. Find a different method. But I also think laws that forbid doctor-assisted suicides for terminally ill people in pain are wrong too. I can’t answer the poll, because I feel one way about some of the suicides I’ve known, and another way about others. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/33 "2014-08-12T21:01:37Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > There already is an option that is compatible with your feeling. Unless you are not _sad_ that she died? 😕 > > **Omar** , your objection seems very nitpicky. I misread the options; I thought both 1 & 2 described the voter as “mad.” My fault. That said… When my firstborn son died 18 years ago, I went through a long period of melancholia. I thought about killing myself more than once, but among the things that stopped me was that I didn’t want to fuck up my baby sister’s school year by making her grieve. Since it was my non-selfishness that kept me from killing myself, in that sense I will acknowledge that suicide is selfish. But depression hurts. Long term clinical depression really, really hurts. For someone to be so ill that it overcomes the natural instinct towards self-preservation, the pain must be intolerable. I won’t call that selfish; I’ll call it tragic and sad. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/34 "2014-08-12T21:08:43Z")
Agreed. **Rivkah** , you make some points that are well worth considering. My father hiked deep into the woods and hung himself when my sister and I were teenagers. He had resigned his tenured position as a professor to pursue a log cabin building business that went under. My mother has said that he felt like a financial burden on the family. So I’m sad to not have him in my life, for his grandkids to never have the chance to meet him; but most of all, I am sad for _him_. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/35 "2014-08-12T21:10:30Z")
I voted with the fourth option - never lost anyone, but not willing to call it selfish. However, I think we have to look at the context a little bit. If we’re the Donner party and you commit suicide to make sure everyone else doesn’t starve because of you, then that’s the least selfish act possible. If you kill yourself just to avoid a difficult situation, that is quite selfish. Many suicides are attention-seeking (these often fail, but not always) and in that sense, it is maybe not exactly selfish, but certainly self-focused. There are better ways to get attention and better ways to make your problems known if you stop to consider how your actions affect the people around you. In between those two examples lies a lot of gray area. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/36 "2014-08-12T21:17:29Z")
It certainly CAN be, but suicide is not axiomatically selfish. ---
**Author:** ![AnaMen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@AnaMen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnaMen)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/37 "2014-08-12T21:20:25Z")
It’s selfish under most circumstances, but a person has the right to be selfish. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/38 "2014-08-12T21:21:17Z")
I suppose when people kill family members or schoolmates, then kill themselves to avoid capture, that’s a different kettle of fish. I guess the further refined version of my position is that in the full context of someone’s life, if they were a kind and generous person, you shouldn’t change your opinion about them because they took their own life. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/39 "2014-08-12T21:23:46Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Depression is a disease. Sometimes a terminal one. I don’t think someone is selfish for dying of leukemia. I don’t think Robin Williams was selfish for not surviving his illness, either. But it’s not that simple though, in fact I think viewing it as a disease just like leukemia is counterproductive (at least in a lot of cases IMO). It kind of suggests that it can only tackled by trained medical professionals with drugs and whatever you do to help yourself can at best only have a marginal effect. I think depression is in fact the other way round, drugs and trained medical professionals can help, but in a limited way - ultimately only the sufferer can “cure” themselves. I say this from experience - one of the most unhelpful things that people ever did to me was to treat as some sort of quasi-physical condition (to be clear that isn’t to deny the physiological element), it just helped to feed the depressive illusion of helplessness. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/40 "2014-08-12T21:30:44Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I guess the further refined version of my position is that in the full context of someone’s life, if they were a kind and generous person, you shouldn’t change your opinion about them because they took their own life. For me the label of selfish is not on the person, but on the act, albeit their final act. Which is why when my aunt killed herself, I consider her action selfish, but I’m not nor was I mad at her. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389.md?page=3)