Thoughts on Suicide

[GunZet]

Why is this not letting me post my damn comment, hold up, testing.

Edit: What a shame, anyways.

[jubeh]

I asked before but only got kind of a joke answer but I want to know how people really feel.

It was stated many times that suicide is inherently selfish but what about people with no ties to anybody? Then does it simply become a choice to shed your mortal coil or is it still sinister? What if, in an outrageous scenario, somebody was hated by all the world?

[Inksprout]

In the first case, where someone has no ties to anyone, I guess you could see it as selfish in that they would be depriving the world of what ever potential they have has an individual to make things better. For example if someone is a genius with the potential to make important discoveries in science (or they may have already made important discoveries which they haven't revealed) you could definitely see it as selfish if they kill themselves instead of staying alive and working on research 'for the greater good'.

As for someone who is universally hated there are a few ways of looking at it, if they are just hated by everyone for being a really bad person then I guess it would be somewhat altrusitic of them to kill themselves. This brings up another interesting question though: Is it still selfish if you kill yourself if, because of a mental health problem, you think everyone hates you?

However if you are a person that everyone hates, but you have an important job you are doing, one that helps people, then it would still be selfish to kill yourself, since you would be trying to escape from hatred at the cost of the important work you are doing. Kind of like in Batman when people think he is a criminal. Even though people dislike him and think he is a criminal he still fights crime instead of giving up on being Batman.

[Outcast]

Yeah that's fine. Rather depressing, but fine.

[Alexander_Hamilton]

I'm really not comfortable with the whole 'suicide is selfish' narrative. The people who are considering suicide generally do so because they hate themselves and their life. The absolute worse thing you can do to someone in that position is shame them more. "Oh, you're considering suicide because you hate yourself? Wow, you're so weak and selfish."

I think it's safe to say that most people who commit suicide don't WANT to commit suicide, really. They have problems in their life and in how their mind works which makes them feel that suicide is the only option. If they had the choice between fixing issues in their life and themselves or suicide, the vast majority would choose the former.

I don't see committing suicide as a moral issue in the sense of it having an effect on others.

[Inksprout]

Yeah I have to agree with you, I really have trouble with the notion of it being selfish, as I tried to explain earlier in the thread.

[ClockHand]

I'm really not comfortable with the whole 'suicide is selfish' narrative. The people who are considering suicide generally do so because they hate themselves and their life. The absolute worse thing you can do to someone in that position is shame them more. "Oh, you're considering suicide because you hate yourself? Wow, you're so weak and selfish."

I think it's safe to say that most people who commit suicide don't WANT to commit suicide, really. They have problems in their life and in how their mind works which makes them feel that suicide is the only option. If they had the choice between fixing issues in their life and themselves or suicide, the vast majority would choose the former.

I don't see committing suicide as a moral issue in the sense of it having an effect on others.

You know about people who think like: "why no one loves MY?", "MY life sucks" or "Why things have to be like this for MY?"? Obviously, we can't go and tell people "Oh you selfish bastard who only think about yourself", even more because we are not different from them we all have very egomaniac thoughts about ourselves, but the thing is, for some reason suicide is an ego attitude that over come the it and the super ego on an inaccurate image of own self worth (again, MY MY MY value), it basically challenges those for the sake of what the ego wants or its own value, and to be honest, is kinda the ultimate selfish thing as it overcome the super ego for a false ego that its unworthy under the values placed by the super ego and finally making believe the persona that his/her value is equal or better dead.

But ya, not all the suicide cases are the same and is not fault of the person to have depression. It's like blaming someone with cancer for having cancer, its just being an asshole. But there is a relationship between Ego, It and Super Ego (I know the names changed, but I don't know them on English) and in some cases, which are many, its the ego who take the decision here, reason why suicide has been determinate as a egocentric attitude. Some authors talk about false ego, the deployment, and other stuffs, but sadly I haven't read enough of this, so someone who knows this subject better could say something.

[Demonfyre]

I think it's safe to say that most people who commit suicide don't WANT to commit suicide, really. They have problems in their life and in how their mind works which makes them feel that suicide is the only option. If they had the choice between fixing issues in their life and themselves or suicide, the vast majority would choose the former.

I would just like to throw in that if someone is wanting to commit suicide they usually go ahead and do so, rarely would you find a suicidal person who doesn't want to truely kill themselves (yes there are doubts but in the end they generally have made up their mind). Usually you find that If someone is suicidal but doesn't want commit the act that they tend to express this through self harm and means such as that in the hopes that the problem will resolve or by chance someone will notice and they won't have to end their life. Other than that I agree with the rest of what you wrote.

@Clock - You raise some interesting points there I must say

[TheVermillionFox]

While no one I know well has committed suicide, I feel it's kind of a selfish thing to do for the most part. It often causes much distress and suffering for people who deeply cared about and loved that person. Although sometimes the person might kill themselves because they think no one cares about them. It's hard to say anything about it in a general manner since there is so many different situations wherein someone might do this.

My thoughts exactly.

[Delphinus]

If you don't have the choice whether you live or die, what meaning do your other choices have?