do you think people who kill them selves are selfish?

Question

some one i know said they wanted to die and told me how they wanted to die i wanted to know other peoples views on this

just to let everyone know i am not planning on killing myself it was a question i wanted to ask after i heard something

Answer 1

no. they are sick mentally (i'm not saying that to be mean) when people want to kill themselves it's because they feel as though everyone around them would be better off with out them. or either they feel so alone and lost that death is a better option to them than to continue living another day. i have a friend who's brother killed himself because he felt so alone and depressed and felt like he was a burden on his family and friends (it was written in the suicide note) that's basically the feeling people have when they take their life or want to take their life. if they share thoughts of suicide with you then usually it's a cry for help and to know that someone cares. all though just letting them know you care isn't enough because they will still go back to the same thinking they had before. they really need professional help from a doctor. i can't imagine what it must feel like to feel that helpless and hopeless.

Answer 2

I always thought this was a interesting quote....

"Life is like a movie, if you've sat through more than half of it and its sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. None should blame you for walking out early." - Doug Stanhope

I don't think people who want to kill themselves are selfish. I think that's a really bad way of looking at it. So JUST because of your family, your friends, people who they "care about" are going to be in pain, you have to live through your pain yourself? They need to live on so that you won't be sad? Now I think THAT's selfish

I think it's horrible when people say that people who suicide are wusses, and people who just arn't strong enough. How do you know that? Have you lived their life? Most people who suicide arn't just looking for attention, they're people truely miserable people who cannot cope with their life.

Suicide is a very very hard thing to do. Survival is a natural instinct. It's unfair to say that they're weak and selfish. It's rather sad. I think selfish or not, the only important thing is preventing suicide, and trying to help them make the right choice.

Answer 3

Depression is a mental illness, you can't help feeling that way. Are people with scizophrenia (sp) selfish for being that way? I'm sure they would rather not be like that, they don't kill themselves for fun. If they did do it for fun then yet again, they have another mental illness. Just like cancer or a heart attack , it's an illness. Depression runs in families, how can you be selfish for having those genetics. My mother and grandmother had depression, I had post natal depression and I sure as hell didn't want it. Yeah it hurts people around them but you have no idea what pain they go through until you actually walk in their shoes. In places such as Sweden and Norway the suicide rate is high because it is dark alot of the time. Things influence your mood and I'm afraid it's down to your dna not selfishness. x

Answer 4

I think you should seriously sit down with this person and find out why they think life is not worth living.....
I don't think people who succeed in killing themselves are selfish these are people who could have been living with serious depression or personal issues that we can't even come to understand. At the point of committing the act they may have had a quick second thought of "what if". We cannot know what there mindset was at that moment therefore I don't think anyone should be quick to criticize a person as selfish for ending their life.

Answer 5

My experience of suicidal people leads me to think that on the whole, if someone is going into detail on why/how they want to kill themselves, they're probably not going to do so in the near future and it's a 'cry for help'

The few who actually succeed seem to do it with little planning and little or no thought for the consequences. A small amount of these people are victims of 'deliberate self harm' gone wrong, or a misjudged cry for help.

I think it's unfair to call these people selfish as, by definition, if you're in the state of mind to end your own life, then your thought processes aren't normal and can't really be judged against normal values.

You do need to discern however between genuine cases and emotional manipulation - threats of suicide if you end a relationship etc for example.

Answer 6

I think they must be messed up and lonely - there must be a better way than to kill yourself. I think that people who kill themselves are those who haven't been able to get the professional help they require. They could be perceived as selfish, but I think they get into such a bad state mentally, that they cannot see any way out. It is sad and tragic for this to happen - but sometimes the signals are not there with suicidal people, until it is too late. It is far too simple to say that people who commit suicide are selfish - it is too complex an issue.

Answer 7

I want to die, but then I think of how it would affect my family. I would cause great greif on my parents. On my brother and sister, what kind of example would I be setting if I gave up on life? How traumatic would that be for them to experience? I don't think my friends would care too much... I mean, they might be like "Daamn, I can't believe he did that!" but they'd go on with their lives. I'm sure my cousins would be greatly saddened, and I'm sure I would cause great pain on my girlfriend.

In my situation, I have no real reason, except that I can't stand life, and I can't stand the way people around me are. But I stick it through, because I also think that giving up is the easy way out, and I refuse to go that route. It's an obstacle in life, and all I need to do is over come the pressure. Not to mention all the great things about life that I would be missing out on. Life is not perfect, but it's not 100% bad. There are great things, and I live for those rare moments when I'm happy. I would rather be unhappy 90% of my life if it means I have the chance to experience happiness for 10% of life.

Answer 8

I know it seems selfish because all they can think about in that moment is a way out for them. I think they are so far from rational at that point they have to be excused for that. When people get angry about another persons death it is hard not to accuse them of the ultimate act of selfishness but it passes.

Answer 9

They are selfish in that they don't think of how their death will affect those who care about them, but on the other hand people who are suffering from depression have a serious illness that interferes with the way they see the world and makes it virtually impossible to be anything other than selfish.

Answer 10

No. They cannot handle stress as well as some people can because, lets face it, everybody is different. If someone is attempting to kill themselves, it is not a light, self-centered situation.

Edit: Okay, I need to make an addition going out to those who think suicidal people are cowards. Have you no sensitivity, for God's sake? I've attempted suicide three times now, and during those times, it deeply hurt me to think about my family and how they would feel. Yet I couldn't stop because I had no control over what my mind was doing.
Yeah, basically, it's a little like being crazy. A man who calls another man a coward, however, is only trying to hide his own cowardice.