Is Suicide selfish?
 

So in light of the current storyline in coronation street, it’s got me thinking what everyone’s opinions on the subject are, Do you feel that Suicide is a selfish thing to do?

No.

No.

It depends honestly, a really tricky question

No, nobody can ever imagine just what a person is going through mentally to get to that stage of taking their own life.

I've struggled with severe anxiety and depression in the past and that was intensely awful, horrible, life-ruining stuff (I didn't leave my house/garden for over 12 months because of it, seriously)... But even I never got to the point where I didn't want to go on anymore. To be at that point and to be in such a state of mind is pretty much incomparable to anything.

I used to think it was....like taking the easy way out and leaving loved ones to deal with it. It used to make me angry when I heard of people doing it.

But then I really thought about it and how absolutely bleak someone must feel for that to be the only way they can see to end the desperation they are feeling. To feel your only option is to do that, is absolutely heartbreaking. They will not be thinking of others because their depression is all consuming.

I suppose, yes, but not intentionally.

In that, due to the mental illness, the depression etc, the person committing suicide feels they are a burden and the world would be better without them. So, in that sense no, because they aren't thinking rationally.

No - although I think it’s good that Coronation Street showed Beth and Kate expressing this view tonight as it shows a variety of responses/perspectives.

Not intentionally but it can be depending on the circumstances.

For example, someone who jumps in front of a train traumatising people in the process is a selfish way to go (but I don't blame the person for this). That driver will be scarred for life.

But I find it difficult to get into that mind frame so I would never call them selfish, per se.

In some way yes, and in some way no. Depends what angle you look at it from.

My best mate took his own life and sometimes I'm angry at him for the pain he put us through, but I also think how scared he must have been to do somthing like that.

One thing that annoys me in this day and age is that male mental health is still a taboo. You’d think by now that it would no longer be such a taboo

Not intentionally, I wouldn’t say selfish, but it definitely is inconsiderate especially when a loved one walks in on a relative hanging from the air. You wouldn’t get over that sort of thing and it could cause that person to take their own life.

I agree with this,you have to be in a dark place to go through with it.

It’s a mental health issue so I say no.

I agree with this too.

Depression is a brain malfunction. It's not choice. Real depression, not feeling gloomy. Sadly we are miles a from being able to tell which is which

From personal experience I can say that suicidal person think they're doing everybody (and themselves) a favour by "catching a bus" (killing themselves).
I can only talk about suicide caused by depression. Severe depression feels like living in unbearable anguish, feeling almost physical pain of living in hopeless despair. And like with any unbearable pain, sooner or later, you'd anything to make it stop.
Sadly, treatment options are far from perfect and being in treatment on nhs, for example, can actually make you worse iykwim. So at the end of the day is all about personal strength and will to survive, both of which can and do get exhausted sooner or later.

No.
The anguish and loneliness you must feel to want to take your own life must be horrendous.

I know exactly what you mean, I've been there. :(

Totally agree with you though.

A sensitive issue. To jump in front of a train or car and leave some innocent person traumatised for the rest of their life is unfair, selfish even...but the state of their mind is only to end their life because they are in a dark place and desperate...therefore it's harsh to call them selfish...BUT to end your life in such a way when it has an impact on innocent people is equally unfair.
If you are in that dark place and you feel there is no other option then there are ways to do it without damaging or impacting others. Having said that family and friends will be impacted hugely. I speak from personal experience and a very recent one. Mental illness is a tough one...because I don't think we ever think that someone we think we know so well would ever make that ultimate sacrifice and only when it happens, family and friends feel guilty of not doing more. It's all too vicious and tragic.

a 21 year old hanged himself because his girlfriend cheated on him and was found by his brother

A 23 year old guy blew his head off with his dads shot gun and was found by his mum in the shed he showed no signs of depression.

Another guy hanged himself from the loft hatch because he had split from his girlfriend who he had a child with, found by his mum who could not lift him down, all people I know.

These cases above are selfish acts in my eyes.

Nobody ever really, to the "outside world", shows signs of depression.

Some of the happiest, funniest, most jovial people you know who seem to not have a care in the world could have severe depression and you wouldn't know it.

To an outsider those appear to be the reasons, but they could simply have been "triggers" in a long life of severe depression.

Lots of people with depression put on an act, like putting on a pair shoes each day.

A saying that as always stayed with me is, when you have tryed everything the last thing you try is again.

How do you think one guys parents feels that it was the dads gun he used and the mother finding him after hearing the gun shot opening the door and seeing that, he said good morning to his younger brother as he passed him on the stairs.

I totally get your point, but when someone is absolutely ravaged with depression they (or should I say their illness) don't take other people into consideration and all they want is a release and the pain they're feeling to stop, physical and mental pain. Agony, if you will.

I've suffered (and will do throughout my life on and off) with mild depression and severe anxiety, and that "MILD" depression was unbearable, so to have a severe case and get to the point of wanting to end your life, is unimaginable. Incomparable to anything else. Like what I feel/felt was agonising enough, so I have nothing but total sympathy for those with severe cases.

I think depression in itself needs more understanding so that people will see that people with depression who do sadly kill themselves are not acting in a selfish way, it's an abnormality of the brain that absolutely engulfs a person.