Well, with any chance that you didn't really kill yourself and you really do come back to take a look, I replied to you post here: http://dollars-bbs.org/personal/res/1344781425.html

Hope you're still alive. Because suicide is not only selfish but it's just plain dumb.

I really dislike the words 'suicide is selfish'. What, its selfish because it'll hurt the people who care about them? It's selfish to ask someone to live for you, and suffer for you when even though people say they 'care' about you, they don't suffer for you, they don't live simply so you won't grieve and cry. Suicide is a choice and no one has the right to look down on choices. Don't dishonor the deaths caused by suicide, asking a depressed suicidal person to live just so they won't have to feel pain is cruel.

>>4 No, suicide really is selfish. Everybody who cares gets ditched as if they weren't worth a single goddamn thing to you.

I respect the choice. That doesn't change that it's a stupid choice. I would never stop someone from committing suicide, but you have to think realistically. By committing suicide, you're putting everybody who gives a damn through the same pain you went through. You're taking the easy way out. You're giving up completely.

You're treating your family and friends like pets that you can't take care of anymore because you don't feel good, so you just walk away. That's bullshit. Abandoning the few people who give a fuck is just wrong.

I have other arguments, but I have made them elsewhere on the site, and I don't feel like repeating myself.

>>6 No one likes a troll.

By committing suicide you're putting people through the same pain you went through? ..yeah right. grieving for someone you cared about is painful, i know that but suffering to the point of committing suicide is a whole new level. Some people are beaten at home, raped, bullied, harassed on a daily basis, boxed in and having to endure every single minute of life. Sometimes life is just more cruel to these people. People who suicide are not treating their family and friends like pets and they don't throw it away that easily. it takes pain and suffering to drive someone to suicide, no one just has a happy life and all of a sudden decides oh suicide sounds fun, who gives a crap if it makes my family and friends sad.

Since when did caring about someone give you the right to ask them to live for you just so you won't have to experience the pain of grieving? Like a best friend asking you to endure having your mother and father beat you every night, or a mother begging you not to die so you have to deal with people writing go die freak on your desk or making you feel like the loneliest person on the planet.

What easy way out? A decision to give up life, to give up hope, to give up your future and to give up your family and friends or lover, give up everything thats ever made you happy is the easy way out? No I think people asking a suicidal person to live is the easy way out, for those people who 'care' asking them to live is the easier choice, so they won't have to suffer the death of someone they 'care' about. I only believe that someone who both cares about you and asks you to live should be also someone willing to go through the same suffering you're living through for you.

>>8 Oh really? So I guess the number of parents who commit suicide after their children do has absolutely nothing to do with it? CLEARLY, the person who committed suicide was going through SO much worse than the people who had to find out they did. Nobody has the right to say that either party went through worse. Only each person can judge their own pain. By selfishly deciding that their own pain was worse, someone who commits suicide is ignorant to the feeling of others.

Grieving isn't the only pain. Everybody who has ever been with them has to wonder, "Was that my fault?" And in most cases, it isn't their fault. You may be able to put the fault on one or two people, but not everybody, but everybody is going to think that way. Did they do enough? Was it their fault? All of the guilt tears away at the family and friends of the victims.

Not only that, but what about the parents? If someone asks how their child died, what are they supposed to say? When a parent says that their child committed suicide, everybody says that it was their fault, whether it was or wasn't. They have to be judged and tortured--just as their child was before they committed suicide.

Grief is far from the only pain that a suicide victim's family and friends have to go through. They are tortured for the rest of their lives by yes, grief, but also guilt, regret, others' gossip and others' misunderstandings.

I know it takes pain and suffering to drive someone to suicide, but there is ALWAYS somebody who cares. Even if it's somebody who you barely know, there is someone who cares. A lot of suicidal people take those people for granted. A lot of suicidal people think that everyone is after them, that everyone hates them. In reality, that is often not true. It is all based on the victim's perspective when, in reality, those other people may not be as bad as they think.

Suicide is selfish. "Since when did caring about someone give you the right to ask them to live for you just so you won't have to experience the pain of grieving?" First of all, life will always get better in some way. Second, It is BECAUSE YOU CARE ABOUT THEM and BECAUSE THEY CARE ABOUT YOU that you shouldn't do it. They're not asking you to not do it - but you should care enough about them back to not do so. If you're willing to put your family or friends or anyone who cares about you through that, then you obviously do not give a fuck about them or what happens to them.

Committing suicide is the equivalent of stabbing a knife through the heart of everybody who gives a damn repeatedly for the rest of their lives. It is the equivalent of being a mass murderer, in my opinion, because you are so caught up in your own emotions that you can't spare an ounce of heart for everyone who you're going to hurt. Similar logic is behind it, even if you're emotionally hurting others rather than physically.

I do not believe that suicide is an easy choice, which is why I would never stop someone from doing it. However, they're still complete assholes. I'm not saying that they easily chose to do it without considering the consequences to others - I'm saying that they considered the consequences, understood the pain everyone would go through, and then selfishly decided that their pain was worth and went through with it anyway.

It's not their place to make the decision of whose pain is worse than whose, nor is it ours. It is not the victim's place to compare their pain to that of the future victims', but they need to understand that there is always a possibility of their own being minuscule compared to it.

But we're generalizing aren't we? Every suicidal person has their own situation and reasons to drive them to suicide. Yes, I understand that you're right. People left behind after this person suicides must suffer more then just grief, but I still wonder, does that make it okay to ask someone else to live? Either way, one of them suffers. I can't speak for many people and even I know I'm quite cynical and bitter and maybe close minded when it comes to this subject but if there are people who don't deserve to feel that guilt and believe its their fault, if a suicidal person actually had people like that, I can't help but wonder even if they didn't add to the suffering, did they try to take away some of that suffering? Its like silent bystanders, don't do anything but guilty all the same. Yes I know, I'm very very close minded like this but I can't help but feel that way. I've talked countless people out of suicide and been close to suicide myself. Its not just suicide that drives people to guilt and regret. Simply dying does that. For example if someone dies of a disease, some people may feel its their fault, what if they had been able to take them to a better hospital, what if they had more money and been able to give them the treatment then needed? People are always dying, not just from suicide and people are always blaming themselves for it. In that case, its not like you can say dying is selfish. Perhaps its the choice you make, you willingly die and thats what people call selfish..but regardless anyone who cares about the one who died will always find a reason to blame themselves.

There is no right or wrong, and I understand now that I shouldn't have said the one who suicides suffer more then those left behind but the family and friends don't suffer more then the one who suicides either. I just feel its wrong to call someone selfish simply because they made the choice to die.

>>10 I'm not saying to ask someone to live. In the end, it's their choice. But they're still selfish assholes. You're still making other people cry so you can get away from your own pain. That line in itself, no matter how many other arguments can be made about all the other things that happen around it, says it all.

No matter how you look at that sentence, it's selfish, and that is how it works. No matter what drove them to it, and no matter how few others care, it doesn't change that they'll be dead and free while the few or numerous others who cared are left to mourn. They chose lessening their pain over another's.

And yes, no matter how a person dies, there is sometimes guilt and grief. But it is that much worse when someone chooses to kill themselves. If they die from disease, most people don't say, "Maybe it was my fault?" Once or twice, perhaps, but usually, the others will reassure them that it wasn't their fault, and few if not none would accuse them of it. However, when someone commits suicide, many around them is become victims of harsh ridicule.

It's not a question of if they poisoned them or if they ignored the symptoms - it's a question of whether they harassed, abused, raped, etc. that suicide victim, and people's imaginations can go way out there, especially after someone takes their own life.

In some situations, I admit, making the choice to die isn't selfish. If it's a kill-or-be-killed situation where you know you're the one in the wrong, choosing not to kill wouldn't be a selfish decision, in my opinion. Like a robber having an epiphany when the owner of the house points a gun at their head - choosing to not shoot their own gun and perhaps get shot instead isn't selfish. Even if you'll hurt your family, they wouldn't have to hear that you were in jail for murder and robbery, and it's not like you shot yourself with your own gun.

There are certain other situations where sacrificing yourself isn't selfish at all.

However, I believe that choosing to jump off a bridge after a few hard years of being abused or ridiculed to escape the pain is very selfish, because you're not helping anyone other than yourself by choosing death there.

Ah. There's a key paragraph that didn't make it on the front of the post :L

And Kuro, I'm not trying to force you to change your opinion. I'm just reinforcing my own so you can see where I'm coming from and so I can see where you're getting your own opinions.

I know where you're coming from too. My opinions come from my own experiences with suicidal people and suicide and the people around. You are right, that sentence is selfish no matter how you read it but it still pains me that even though someone chose to lessen their suffering by adding to someone elses, they still did suffer, they suffered a lot and people call them selfish for it. I feel as if most people immediately think when suicide is mentioned 'selfish'. I don't like it that people judge one person just because of that one choice, I don't like how people immediately call them selfish without knowing how much pain and suffering they went through. To me, when someone calls a suicidal person selfish, its like calling a single mother a slut. Judgement passed because of one choice, just one. I would never ask anyone to suffer for me but if people cared so much about someone that when they commit suicide, they take on so much suffering because of it, would anyone willingly go through that for the suicidal person?
'You're still making other people cry so you can get away from your own pain.' thats true. but wanting a suicidal person to live, asking them to live is also 'Making them cry so you won't have to deal with what comes after they die' no?

>>14 For the 183956th time, I'm not asking them to not live. It is entirely their choice. It is their position to either accept a short while of pain while they wait for life to get better or kill themselves and let those who care about them suffer for the rest of their lives.

It's also a matter of time. Life will always get better. It may take time, but it will eventually. Then it will go bad, and then good, and them bad, repeat, repeat worse, repeat better, et cetera. Everybody goes through this. We all have and/or all will go through times where we feel like a bullet through our heart or our skulls cracked on the concrete could save us from whatever we're going through. But does everybody commit suicide? No, because they give life a chance to get better. Sometimes, life is just too hard, and I respect their choice to kill themselves and get it all over with. It's their body, and they can do what they want with it. But I still feel they're not entirely right and that those who keep living are strongest.

Some memories can't be erased, but you can grow from them and learn from them. When you kill yourself, you give up "time" and the chance for things to get better for you and your family. Meanwhile, the memory and fact of your loved one killing themselves can't go away, and it and much talk is sparked every time it is brought up.

"To me, when someone calls a suicidal person selfish, its like calling a single mother a slut."

Suicide is selfish, a slut is a sleaze, a single mother is a woman who had an asshole boyfriend. Being a single mother has nothing to do with being a slut; all it means is that you were in a relationship with someone, got pregnant, didn't want an abortion, and your boyfriend left you because he's an idiot who doesn't want to take responsibility for his actions. Only really religious people and women who are insecure about their marriages think that single mothers are sluts, because a slut has an entirely different definition. There is nearly no argument outside of religion that can honestly call every single mother a slut.

But suicidal people all share the same last actions; even if their lives had circumstances, they end up at the same place, while single mothers are entirely different depending on their circumstances and rarely end up in the same boat. You may not have been selfish about a single other thing in your life, but that doesn't change that your final action was :I You could have been the sweetest person on Earth, but choosing yourself over several other people is selfish.

If you intend to keep using the, 'Making them cry so you won't have to deal with what comes after they die' argument, then let's put it in a broader perspective: if someone commits suicide, one person is escaping from pain and putting many others in pain. If they don't commit suicide, one person is in pain for a while before it best better and the others are not in that pain. Thinking realistically, the proper, moralistic decision would be to have one person be in pain for a little while. It's the same as the train track question: A train is coming full speed, and you're in a magical position where you can change the track its on. A group of people are on the left track, which its headed towards, and one person is on the other track. Do you change the destination to the track with the one person so less people are killed? Most people will say yes (it's a survey that was done recently). Now, let's say that you're the one stuck on the other track. Do you sacrifice yourself by changing its destination to your track so that the five or six others aren't hurt?

If you choose to not change it, then you're considered selfish, because you let the others be hurt. If you reverse that logic and apply it here, then you get the same thing - you're choose to escape from the pain while putting others in it.

"To me, when someone callsa suicidal person selfish, its like calling a single mother a slut." Actually I like this... that's a pretty good perspective because I also think that suicide has nothing to do with being selfish. When you're in that mind state, it's likebeing controlled by your dark emotion and nothing but your loneliness exists. As if wool is pulled over your eyes and you can't help but see things wrongly until the stage passes and you can see and feel and sense clearly again.

>>15 I think that the train track scenario you talked about is very interesting. To choose several lives over one life or choose one life over several. Its a scenario written about over and over again in books and movies and anime etc. I don't believe suicide is exactly right, but maybe I'm just naive and I want a magical right solution to everything but there is no right when it comes to something like this. Logically, yes i can completely understand what you are talking about and I can agree with it. But mentally, if my friend committed suicide no matter how much pain and guilt and hurtful rumors I had to live through, I would not want anyone to insult her by calling her selfish. Even more so if they never knew her. Of course I do not encourage suicide nor do I want anyone to go through what it feels like for someone close to you to commit suicide. But people are always hurt, like you say, no body lives life without getting hurt of having the ups and downs. People get hurt through life, suicide is something else that causes hurt to other people. No body lives without hurting someone else, a suicidal person is no more selfish then the next person who makes a choice knowing they hurt someone else. And many many people make those choices.

>>18 If you have an emotional perspective, then you're completely right. I just prefer to have a broader perspective over things like these. For your stance, though, your opinion is right. I wouldn't want someone calling my friend selfish, either, but that wouldn't change much for me.