Suicide is a last resort. It is not a selfish act designed to inflict guilt or punishment upon others. It is not a selfish act in the way that I have seen it talked about online many times.
I don’t know how many times I have seen people write things similar to “They were so selfish. Didn’t they think about the effect this would have on their loved ones? How could they just think of themselves and no one else?”
This is about as backwards of a statement as I have even seen about any topic. It completely lacks any understanding of what goes on in the mind of a suicidal person. Clearly the people writing statements such as these have never had a conversation with a suicidal person and obviously have never suffered from severe depression themselves.
It bothers me that the people that are making these statements, as if they are bringing enlightenment to suicidal people. They seem like they are trying to bring comfort to the survivors of suicide. They have never been the survivor of a suicide and do not know how the loved ones feel.
Should they be making statements about the situation in a judgemental way? Will this make the survivors of their loved one’s suicide feel better?
No, let’s consider the sources of these words that the people so felt they had to post on the internet for all to see. All of the people that I have seen write words like these had nothing to do with suicide or depression. They have never had a loved one commit suicide. They have never taken the time to listen to and comfort a suicidal friend.
They are detached from suicide and depression all together.
Then why? Why do they feel the need to post their opinions about suicide at all?
It makes them look good. It makes them look sane. It makes them look like they have it all together for their friends to see.
It is the act of pointing a finger at someone else and thus showing how much better they are than the others. They are so much better than “those people” who are so selfish as to commit suicide and “do that” to their poor loved ones.
These people do not have any sympathy for the loved ones either.
Tell me ….what comfort is it to a loved one to read the following…”I can’t believe that person was so self centered. They never considered the feelings of the family. They did not care what their actions would do to the lives of their family.”
Would that be comforting to you, if your sister had just killed themselves? Would those words make you feel better…vindicated…able to place the blame on you son…who had just hung himself in your home?
NO.
These people are posting these words, as if they know more than the suicide victim, in order to comfort the family. They are not posting them in order to keep other suicidal people from committing suicide.
Tell me..
If you were suicidal, would these words make you not want to commit suicide?….”People who commit suicide are selfish. They should think about their families and what impact their death would have on their family”
Why?
Why would these words not keep you from going through with it? More importantly….why would these words make you feel more certain that suicide was the right decision?
Because while these people are writing “Think about what your death will do to your loved ones”
...the suicidal person is thinking “My loved ones are suffering because of me. My loved ones would be better off without me.”
You see?
The suicidal person has lost any feelings of worthiness and value. While these people are writing “It is so selfish to take your own life and cause suffering to your loved ones” ….they are also being very arrogant.
Their arrogance is in the
Your family will suffer so terribly without you in their lives”
These people are sure that their own loved ones and family would suffer terribly without the presence of their amazing person in the lives of the family.
They are essentially talking about themselves and how valuable they are. In saying that “I would never commit suicide. I would not do that to my loved ones”….they are advertising how great they are and how much of a loss the world as we know it, would have, if they were to no longer be in it.
They are using the suffering of some person who was on the evening news, in order to make themselves look good on facebook.
So, I see no compassion, nor wisdom in these posts on facebook by people who have never been any closer to suicide or depression than watching in on the evening news.
They have no business posting their opinions about how the family must feel….they have no idea.
They have no business posting comments on facebook about how the suicide victim felt….again they have no idea.
The suicide victim was not thinking of hurting the family. On the contrary, in their mind they were a burden, an inconvenience, a problem, a curse, ,,,not worthy of having been born.
You cannot make comments about how selfish the suicidal victim was, when you have no idea what was going on in their head…for a long….long ..time, before the suicide.
There are many thoughts that go through the mind of the suicidal person. These thoughts go through their mind , on a regular basis, for a long, long time. Most suicide victims have thought about suicide and tried to talk themselves out of it for months or years.
Imagine having this voice in your head… “Everyone would be better off without you. You are not wanted. You are a burden. You should not have been born”
… this voice playing in your head… for years…..
If you cannot imagine this or relate to this, then you cannot speak for the intentions of the people who commit suicide
You battle against it, but it just keeps talking to you. Eventually people give in to the voice. They believe that the world will not miss them, mourn them,,and in fact will be better without them.
The people that are calling suicide a selfish act have no idea what they are talking about.
They do not know the suffering of feeling like you are worthless, a burden, in the way. They do not know what it is like to carry toxic shame from physical or sexual abuse from their childhood.
They do not know what some people have to carry as a constant burden on their soul. People carry memories about all kind of abuse from their childhoods. They go to therapy to try to get rid of their demons.
The demons follow them and sometimes therapy is not enough. You cannot speak about how someone feels and that they were selfish, when they ended their lived in order to silence the voices, turn off the movies playing in their heads ,,,of horrors that most people will never ever know.
The judgemental people about suicide, cannot speak for people who have endured horrors that are unspeakable. They do not know what kind of abuse was occurring in the home of the suicide victim. How can you know whether or not the “Poor family” of the victim was abusing them behind closed doors. How do you know?
When you see the report if suicide on the tv, there are so many things about the family that you will never know. Why do these people assume the person’s family would miss them? How do you know?
All families do not love their children or teeangers. All families do not love their adult children. All husbands do not love their wives. Some of them subject their wives to all manner of mental torment and sometimes physical abuse.
You cannot judge someone that you do not know about their suicide. You do not know if it is a loss for their family. Maybe they were escaping their family in the only way they knew how.
Maybe they really felt that their mental illness was a burden on the family and that they were doing their family a favor by making this decision.
Every person is an individual. We all have unique ways of looking at things. Each suicide victim has their own story and voices playing in their heads.
Unless you know what the reality was of the individual person….Unless you know and can relate to the mental torment they had suffered…and for how long they had been suffering…..
Unless you are really aware of of how the person was treated by their family…what kind of abuse they had endured during their childhood…and what monsters were following them in the shadows of their nightmares…..
then please keep your judgement of individual people , who you do not understand, yourselves,
please keep general sweeping comments like “all people who commit suicide are selfish” to yourselves and do not post them where suicidal people can see them
People who commit suicide think about it for a long…long …time
They consider themselves a possible suicide victim long before they do anything about it.
They are reading your words….and thinking that they are now selfish to be considering suicide…on top of all the other pain that they are carrying…here is one more thing to carry…
how do we know that this is not “one more thing” too many?
GentleKindness 