# Suicide =\\= Selfishness **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 22, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-selfishness/669466 "2013-09-22T21:02:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 5
**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:** [September 26, 2013, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-selfishness/669466/81 "2013-09-26T10:22:29Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > You speak in a lot of absolutes. Is there no room for grey? Yes. I have repeatedly stated that there are _rare instances_ where suicide might be justified. So no, my position is not absolute. That doesn’t alter my position that the vast majority of suicides are needless, pointless, and wrong. In other words, I strongly disagree with the title of this thread. Yes, suicide IS selfishness. > [@](#): > > For instance, would you consider a terminal illness as a good reason? I have already stated that that is a situation where suicide might be justified. > [@](#): > > If no, why is life sacred above all else? It’s not. That doesn’t mean I agree with wasting life. Or giving up on people who might get better because it’s easier than doing the hard work of helping them. > [@](#): > > If yes, why do you think depression can’t be considered “terminal”? Is there a “line”? Suicide is proof depression can be terminal, I just don’t see suicide as inevitable when someone is diagnosed with depression. You don’t park someone in hospice until treatment fails and all alternatives are exhausted. > [@](#): > > I’m just wondering if this has cemented your views of the topic to a rigid “no” or if there is more nuance to your views on the subject of suicide in general. I have stated multiple times that my view is not absolute, even if it is closer to that than many here. ---
**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:** [September 26, 2013, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-selfishness/669466/82 "2013-09-26T10:37:57Z")
> [@Tequila\_Party](#): > > You have no way of knowing that they will, but I guess you’re ok with gambling _their_ life on it. Well, gee … I guess I believe my sister when she makes a statement about herself, or not believe her. I’m sure that if she had ever stated “I want to kill myself” (which, by the way she never did, she never made threats or “gestures”, she just went and did it) you would have castigated me for disbelieving her, yet I am supposed to doubt those times when she said “today I am happy” or “today I feel good”. Why believe only the negative and never the positive? > [@](#): > > Jesus. Maybe she didn’t want to face a lifetime of up and down. Jesus, maybe I didn’t want to see what horrible effect her self murder had on our parents and _their_ lifetime of guilt and sorrow and suffering. She’s been gone almost as long as she was alive at this point, another few years and our father will have lived with that heartache longer than her lifetime. All life has ups and downs. I suppose inability to cope with that is a defining feature of certain mental illnesses. It’s not the the non-depressed are deliriously happy all the time, it’s that when bad shit happens we don’t view death as the solution. > [@](#): > > There are also a lot of people who don’t succeed that lie about being happy they didn’t. They are also plenty of people who are sorry as hell that they failed and live a life of regret that they didn’t try again. Then they die a natural death to make everyone else happy, like you. My sister’s mental illness made no one happy. We were well aware of her suffering. I will say one thing about my sister - she didn’t put us through a merry-go-round of suicide _attempts_, which would have been a different slice of hell. > [@](#): > > My grandmother sought treatment all of her goddam life. None of it did her a damn bit of good. That was your grandmother. Guess what? My sister wasn’t her. Treatment DID help my sister, just not all the time. She cycled in and out of that depressive state so she did have good times as well as bad. Different people are different, big shocking news that. > [@](#): > > So whenever I hear people bleating on that all it takes is therapy or medication or what the fuck ever, I know that they have no fucking clue what their talking about. Just like not every cancer is cured, neither is every mental illness. I never said all its takes is treatment, I’ve even stated that there probably are some very unfortunate people for whom nothing ever works… I’m not, however, convinced all alternatives were exhausted in the case of my sister. > [@](#): > > Your _grown_ sister?? Yeah I’m not believing that. More supposed justification to fuel decades long anger. Yeah, people are amazingly cruel. Yes, people DID call my parents and tell them how terrible they were. You know why? Those friends of hers were angry as hell and since my sister was no longer around to yell at they lashed out at her family. Grief makes people do shit like that. I know you want a world where people just pity the suicide and then go on with their lives but that’s not the reality. The survivors are _angry_, horribly, horribly angry and they lash out. They want to find fault, find a reason, find a justification other than that suicide gave up trying to live in this world. Some of them carry an inner burden of guilt, feeling that if they had only done something different they might have saved that person. Other people wound those around them. Your disbelief does not make that cruelty untrue. ---
**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:** [September 26, 2013, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-selfishness/669466/83 "2013-09-26T11:12:14Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > Here is an exercise that may help you understand. Arrange the following options in order of desirability. The problem with your exercise is that we don’t get to choose to have a happy-go-lucky life. Not everyone has a productive existence, not everyone feels great every day, and virtually everyone experiences problems that they can’t manage/fix/make go away. The big difference is that most of us find a way to cope with the suck side of living. > [@](#): > > I will say this for your sister. She had the courage that I lack. Either that, or you have a greater ability to cope with life, or you have never sunk quite so far into the pit as she did. > [@Valteron](#): > > When you get right down to it, Broomstick, I am the one who honours and respects your sister, even though I never knew her. I realize she faced a difficult situation and I respect her right to make the choice she made. You never knew my sister, and you certainly aren’t privy to what went on in her head. I don’t respect the choice she made because of the horrible pain and suffering it caused and continues to cause. I don’t believe one person’s pain gives that person the right to inflict suffering on others. Granted she didn’t kill anyone, but she caused at least as much pain and suffering as if she had shot every one of us in the leg. Or don’t you think the mental pain of the survivors is as real as the mental pain of the suicide? > [@](#): > > She was obviously very unhappy and convinced it would never get better, and I would never be so arrogant as to decide for another person how bad their suffering is or whether or not they have reason to hope for an improvement. I respect her enough to assume that she analysed her options rationally before doing what she did. Horseshit. She wasn’t thinking rationally at all. You see, one difference between you and me is that I am willing to allow that there are _some_ exceptions to the general rule, that is, there are possible circumstances where suicide is justified. You, however, are not willing to allow exceptions. You don’t want to admit the possibility that some suicides are pointless and wrong. > [@](#): > > Instead of respecting her choice, you come on here and bitch (as you apparently have done for the past quarter-century) about all the pain she caused YOU and your family. I don’t respect her choice because I think it was **wrong**. And yes I bitch about all the pain she caused _because it hurts_ and NOTHING will ever make it go away. The one thing that I want, the one thing that would relieve some of that pain is for me is for my sister to come to me and say “I’m sorry for hurting you” and that will _never ever happen_. > [@](#): > > Does the fact that she found peace give you no comfort at all? She found death, not peace. No, it gives me no comfort at all. ---
**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:** [September 26, 2013, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-selfishness/669466/84 "2013-09-26T11:23:17Z")
> [@lorene](#): > > So there were multiple people who called multiple times in the middle of the night to accuse your parents of this? I can see one very distraught person calling with “why didn’t you do more?” But your post makes it sound as if it were several different people with an agenda to taunt your parents—is that accurate? Yes. It was bad enough that my parents reported to the police and were able to obtain phone numbers (this was before caller ID was ubiquitous). Keep in mind, it was well known that our mother was recovering from heart surgery at the time. Not so well known mother also had depression issues all her adult life and, needless to say, was also in a precarious mental state. These individuals were basically calling a frail, ill old woman who had just had one of her children die in the middle of the night and screaming at her, accusing her of driving her daughter to kill herself. Dad changed the phone number and set up an answering machine to screen their calls. And he was investigating legal action for awhile. I know people don’t want to believe that sort of things happens, but if you’re willing to believe in a world where people want to die, why is it inconceivable that angry people wouldn’t harass someone in the middle of the night? It’s just one more example of how suicide causes pain. Look, if you want to kill yourself there isn’t anything I can do to stop you. But don’t do it with the illusion things will get “better” or that you can do it without causing pain to anyone else. You WILL cause horrible suffering around that hole you leave in the world. If your pain is so very great you think your desires are still justified well, again, there isn’t anything I can do to stop you but I’m not going to say “oh, that person is at peace now”. You’re not at peace, you’re dead. You’re no longer anything at all. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of hurt in the real world and I’ll be concentrating on helping the people still walking and breathing. ---
**Author:** ![Tequila\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a6a055/32.png) [@Tequila\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tequila_Party)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-selfishness/669466/85 "2013-09-26T17:29:12Z")
Too wedded to anger and delusion = not worth my time. ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-selfishness/669466/86 "2013-09-26T17:55:12Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > _it hurts_ and NOTHING will ever make it go away. Convincing yourself of this is a good way to ensure it. > [@](#): > > The one thing that I want, the one thing that would relieve some of that pain is for me is for my sister to come to me and say “I’m sorry for hurting you” and that will _never ever happen_. And setting an impossible condition for getting over it is another way to ensure you won’t. Honestly, good luck, but if you’re depending on someone else’s remorse for relieving your pain, you’re screwed. Especially if the person is dead. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-selfishness/669466/87 "2013-09-26T18:24:03Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > T > The one thing that I want, the one thing that would relieve some of that pain is for me is for my sister to come to me and say “I’m sorry for hurting you” and that will _never ever happen_. I understand how you’re feeling better than you might realize and the only piece of advice I can give you is that it might be time to forgive your sister and set yourself free. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that what happened didn’t hurt you tremendously and seems wrong. It a recognition that it happened, the past won’t change and you can release the hold the other person has over your own psyche. By forgiving her, you might find that you will ease your own pain. Pain and righteous anger can feel good- it’s real and intense and familiar. But ultimately it will burn you up with its intensity. Try to find a way to forgive and let some of the pain and anger go. ---
**Author:** ![Uber\_the\_Goober](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/58956e/32.png) [@Uber\_the\_Goober](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uber_the_Goober)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-selfishness/669466/88 "2013-09-26T19:37:51Z")
**Broomstick** , you’re putting a lot into this thread. I’m not faulting you for your passion/drive/emotions, I’m just having a hard time parsing out where the line is between you justifying your own feelings, and delegitimizing the feelings that other people use to guide their decisions. Can you see why it might be difficult for the participants in this thread to engage you on an even footing? A lot of nuance is lost when the medium of communication is strictly text - so I’m sure you’re not trying to come off this way, but reading through this, I’ve said to myself on more than one occasion - “ **Broomstick** , you need to hop on yourself and ride away”. Maybe take a few minutes/hours/days to breath and let the resurgent emotions surrounding your sisters death to calm down? In between all the defensive posturing, emotive language, and multi-quoting (like a bawss) there’s a very good point to be made/received. It’s just not getting through the way you’re intending I don’t think. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-selfishness/669466/89 "2013-09-27T03:01:35Z")
For what it’s worth, **Broomstick** , I really am sorry for the depth of the pain that _all_ of your family suffered. I wonder why we persist in trying to determine whether or not suicide is selfish. A lot of things we do in life are selfish. What we’re debating more in this thread is whether suicide is ever justified and, beyond that, who gets to determine the answer to that. Something can be both justified and selfish, right? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-selfishness/669466.md?page=4)