# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/61 "2014-08-13T02:17:14Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Perhaps selfish is the wrong word. But these people are living very blinkered lives, where they indeed cannot see any of these other ends even if you were to try to point them out to them. You simply cannot know how the future might unfold, how your life could possibly be utterly transformed in an instant, unless you were to stick it out. Some people never get over their depression. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/62 "2014-08-13T02:17:43Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Actually, I was thinking of my first husband when I wrote that, but I grew up with an alcoholic father who was depressed (he was almost certainly bipolar, though undiagnosed). And one of my brothers struggles with intense depression at times. And I think all of my father’s brothers are alcoholics with a number of them diagnosed with depression or bipolar disorder. No quick suicides among them, but a ton of slow ones. And it always spills over to everyone around them. Sadly, many bi-polar people self medicate with alcohol which is a depressant itself so it temporarily blocks the pain but just makes things worse over time. Just makes an already vicious circle that much more vicious. (Been there, done that!) ---
**Author:** ![N.Sane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f19dbf/32.png) [@N.Sane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N.Sane)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/63 "2014-08-13T03:37:06Z")
I have no right to judge the amount of pain someone else is in. I’ve typed and erased three different paragraphs. I have lots of thoughts, but none coherent enough to make any sense. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/64 "2014-08-13T03:50:00Z")
No. You’re not entitled to force happiness on others. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/65 "2014-08-13T04:04:07Z")
> [@Antinor01](#): > > Sadly, many bi-polar people self medicate with alcohol which is a depressant itself so it temporarily blocks the pain but just makes things worse over time. Just makes an already vicious circle that much more vicious. (Been there, done that!) I wish you didn’t have any personal experience with it, from either side. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/66 "2014-08-13T05:19:24Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I wish you didn’t have any personal experience with it, from either side. Me too darlin’. But such is life. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/67 "2014-08-13T05:40:29Z")
I think the poll could do with more options. It _could_ hypothetically be selfish, if you want other people to be sad, and the method of suicide is jumping in front of a subway train etc. But a lot of the time, and in my own case when I attempted suicide, the suicider just wants to disappear and there’s no desire to hurt others, or make others reflect on their life. And I certainly wouldn’t agree with a broad definition of “selfish” where we say everything that is not altruistic is selfish (and even if I agreed, I could imagine an “altruistic suicide”, where you think others will be better off if you are not there). ---
**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 13, 2014, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/68 "2014-08-13T08:26:57Z")
Mijin, good point (second consecutive post I’ve said that). I don’t know if I want more options, but maybe a more detailed explanation of the premise. Something like what you wrote is just about right: “Given a suicide in which the person taking their life ‘just wants to disappear and there’s no desire to hurt others’” etc. > [@Jackmannii](#): > > .There _is_ a form of suicide that I’d view as unequivocally selfish - jumping out the window of a tall building and landing on a passerby, or deliberately crashing head-on into someone driving another car (it’s thought that [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990) may have represented the ultimate in suicidal selfishness). But that’s not “suicide”, it’s “murder-suicide”, a whole different thing. Murder is bad. Whether or not the murderer takes their own life in the process is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![sandra\_nz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@sandra\_nz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sandra_nz)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/69 "2014-08-13T08:53:57Z")
Mad equal selfish and sad equals not selfish? These poll choices don’t make sense to me. In answer to the actual question, yes I believe suicide is a selfish act. That doesn’t mean it’s not a tragic, awful, terrible act. But it is 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 13, 2014, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/70 "2014-08-13T09:33:55Z")
> [@sandra\_nz](#): > > Mad equal selfish and sad equals not selfish? These poll choices don’t make sense to me. The idea was that in one case, you are mad at the person for doing it (and probably also sad they are gone). In the other, you are just sad, not angry with them or holding anything against them. I just have not an iota of anger or resentment toward my dad for taking his own life, and I really have trouble even imagining how I could remotely feel that way. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/71 "2014-08-13T11:56:14Z")
To me it’s no more selfish than to fight for survival to the detriment of somebody else, if that makes any sense. It’s intensely personal like any kind of death so _can’t_ involve anybody else. When you make that first slice, tighten that rope, or stick a foot into the air you’ve already gone past thinking. You’re in “no-think”—just do. I think a lot of funny people use comedy to hold the pain at bay. In Robin Williams’ case a Facebook poster made a really insightful comment, I thought…He didn’t choose depression, therefore he didn’t choose suicide, either. Instead of putting suicide as cause of death on his death certificate they should write that he died of depression. ---
**Author:** ![StrangeBird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e480ec/32.png) [@StrangeBird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StrangeBird)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/72 "2014-08-13T12:14:00Z")
I haven’t lost anyone close to me, but I’ve spoken to a lot of suicidal people (due my work). Some people with depression believe that their loved ones will be better off without them (and this belief may well persist even if their loved ones are telling them they would not be). Someone who kills themselves while feeling this way isn’t selfish. ETA: I don’t view people who kill themselves for other reasons selfish, either, just wanted to highlight this belief which is common in suicidal people ---
**Author:** ![Sterling\_Archer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/73 "2014-08-13T13:21:04Z")
The poll options are terrible. How about, “I know someone who committed suicide, it was a selfish act, but I understand their pain and I have forgiven them.” Putting “I’m mad at them” in the 1st option is a poison pill. ---
**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 13, 2014, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/74 "2014-08-13T13:22:21Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > The idea was that in one case, you are mad at the person for doing it (and probably also sad they are gone). In the other, you are just sad, not angry with them or holding anything against them. > > I just have not an iota of anger or resentment toward my dad for taking his own life, and I really have trouble even imagining how I could remotely feel that way. Yet the whole tone of your posts are that if someone were to feel that suicide was a selfish act it is an insult to your father and your memory of him, even if they didn’t know him, you, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/75 "2014-08-13T14:30:25Z")
“Selfish” seems like perhaps too loaded a term for this purpose. As others have said, I think it’s a matter of recognizing the burden that one’s suicide may leave behind for others. Obviously, circumstances can vary, and I think that one’s feelings are likely to reflect a lifetime’s worth of interaction with that person. A terminal patient who makes his peace with the inevitable and says a loving goodbye to his family and friends is in a different position from someone who unexpectedly eats a gun in the garage and leaves his family a messy body and no answers, it seems to me. Similarly, I think the circumstances of depression and addiction can vary. I’ve lived with loved ones suffering from untreated versions of both. As a kid, it was confusing and often scary. As an adult, I can understand that these are diseases and sympathize with what they’re going through (and limit their spillover onto me), but I’m also angry that they have never even attempted to seek treatment or tried to recognize the effects of their conditions upon those who love them. Had they spent some time grappling with their illness and seeking some peace, it might be easier to feel differently and more peaceful toward them. Put another way, I could not be angry at a relative for dying of leukemia, but if that relative had chosen to treat that leukemia via homeopathy and faith, I could be angry at that decision. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/76 "2014-08-13T14:53:19Z")
I’m not ashamed of my opinion on this matter, but I don’t vote in public polls as a matter of principle. You might get more, and more honest, responses if you’d left it private. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/77 "2014-08-13T14:59:00Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Wanting someone to live in misery so you will not be hurt by their death is selfish. However suicide seems traumatic to survivors. The first statement presumes that a person with depressive illness is miserable _all the time._ This is not true in all cases. While there are some few unfortunates who truly do not experience any relief whatsoever there are other people who deal with depression long term who do experience good episodes as well as bad episodes. As I have stated before, I have a sister who suffered from depressive illness for 17 years before killing herself. That doesn’t mean she was in “misery” for every day of those 17 years. She wasn’t. That is, after all, why she fought it for 17 years, because there was hope for better and sometimes she even experienced it. When she did kill herself it was after a year of having very bad things happen to her that would have been traumatic and difficult for someone without mental illness to deal with, much less someone with chronic depression problems. It was still a permanent solution to temporary problems - the triggering events were ALL temporary and fixable. She would have had more good days ahead of her if she hadn’t killed herself. Maybe, if it had all happened 20 years later than it did some of the new pharmaceuticals we now take for granted would have helped her get through it. Maybe not. We’ll never know, will we? So no, I did not want my sister to “live in misery”. I wanted her to get better. We don’t fix cancer by killing the patient, and we shouldn’t consider suicide a “fix” for depression. Clinical depression is a long-term chronic disorder like, say, diabetes. When treatment is successful the disorder is minimally interfering with life and might appear, to an outsider, to be gone or “cured” but in reality it’s still there in there background and needs to be controlled. For depression that might be medication or talk therapy or avoiding certain types of situations or asking for extra help during particularly stressful life episodes or even, yes, being an inpatient. But if a depressed person kills him or herself it’s not a “choice”, it’s the disease winning. If someone dies of diabetes or heart disease do we call that a “choice”? Death by depression is death by disease, not by personal choice. Now for the second part - _yes, suicide is traumatic to the survivors_. Horribly so. Sure, say it’s selfish for others to ask someone to live in misery - it’s also effing selfish to impose pain on other people, even more so _life long_ pain, often with a side-helping of guilt to go along with it. That’s the survivor’s triad: anger, grief, and guilt. Forever. Saying survivors are selfish for feeling those emotions just diminishes _their_ feelings and says that _their_ feelings are irrelevant or not as important as someone else’s… and isn’t that what you’re claiming they’re doing to the suicide’s feelings? How bad is the survivor’s pain? One suicide has been known to trigger other suicides. That’s epic levels of pain. Of course, not every survivor feels that level of despair, but the fact some do should tell you something. This isn’t ordinary grief. I’ve lost quite a few people over my lifetime and the suicides _always_ hurt worst. **I don’t want it to be OK for depressed people to kill themselves, I want to be able to help them with _something_ so they no longer feel that level of despair.** ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/78 "2014-08-13T15:02:50Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Wanting someone to live in misery so you will not be hurt by their death is selfish. Exactly. Read Judy Collins’s excellent book about her son’s suicide “Sanity & Grace.” I prefer to remember how people lived, not how they died. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/79 "2014-08-13T15:10:23Z")
The question, as asked, cannot be answered. There are almost as many reasons behind suicide as there are attempts - some are selfish, some are selfless; some are rational, others are not; some are spiteful, others are well intended. In reality, the drivers behind a suicide attempt most likely include some combination of all of the above - sometimes even the combinations that seem mutually exclusive. There is a quote I like that I will paraphrase here: ““Be kind to people and don’t judge, for you do not know what demons they carry and what battles they are fighting. Should you ever have to face the demons they are battling, you may be crushed”. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389/80 "2014-08-13T15:13:04Z")
My grandmother committed suicide. She did it in part because her illness was taking over the entire family - all the money was going towards her treatment, the kids were burdened with her constant illness. (And it was depression, not terminal cancer). She killed herself to give her family a chance at a more normal life and so that they’d be able to have money for normal things. Now, she also did it because she had spent at least eight years in an endless spiral of depression - in and out of hospitals, receiving shock treatment, and medicated beyond reason with 1960s antidepressants. She was miserable and saw no end in sight, but she also recognized that she was not the only person affected by her illness. I’m a depressive as well (most women on that side of the family are) - I hide it pretty well. It doesn’t have too much impact on my family - and my medication is $4 a month - and works far better than what my grandmother took. For me, my illness has very little impact on my family - its a different equation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-suicide-selfish/695389.md?page=5)