Is Suicide Selfish or a Response to Intense Pain?

Do you think suicide is selfish? Me and my fiance have different view points he thinks suicide is a selfish thing especially if you have people that love you. But I believe it’s not a selfish thing as the emotional pain they are causing feels like physical pain as well as it can be challenging when you have so much emotions. What do you think?

I personally think it depends on the reasoning behind the act. For example, I wouldn’t consider it selfish if the person genuinely believed that the world would be better without them, but I would consider it selfish if it was done to avoid accountability.

The mind of such persons I would understand bc life can get too rough for some, however their minds are "altered". God will grant way more points for fighting the unbareable life and mindstate then to give up. Besides, if attempts happen that the person "could barely stop" then it is what it is. You end in the wheel of Samsara, choose a new incarnation, or get sucked into a new one to learn over from. Press start and progress through the game until end bosses are defeated. Do Ashtanga yoga like your life depends on it, there are other ways then suïcide and the buddhist tell us that will lead to more suffering and hell after. It is sin. May the best meet you 🙏🏾may god have mercy

@verin I think there’s an even bigger question underneath whether suicide is “selfish”: how much does a human being owe continued existence to the people who love them? From a wider perspective, being human has always involved suffering. We’ve gotten dramatically better at protecting ourselves from many of the physical threats that used to kill us, but that doesn’t mean the subjective experience of being human became easy. A huge amount of suffering is psychological, existential, relational, neurological, or some combination unique to the individual experiencing it. And that matters because every person is experiencing reality from inside their own particular body, brain, history, biology, circumstances, and consciousness. Nobody outside of them can completely know what being them feels like. So I’m uncomfortable saying someone is morally obligated to stay alive simply because other people love them. Love doesn’t create ownership over another person’s existence, and there’s something strange about calling someone selfish for wanting relief from unbearable suffering while never asking whether demanding that they continue suffering for us could also contain an element of selfishness. At the same time, I think there’s an important distinction between respecting someone’s autonomy philosophically and assuming that every desire to die represents completely free and settled agency. Extreme psychological pain can shrink someone’s perceived world until death looks like the only remaining option. Sometimes helping someone stay alive through that moment is actually protecting their future autonomy, because their relationship with life may look completely different when the crisis passes. So I don’t think suicide fits neatly into “selfish” or “not selfish.” I think it sits at the intersection of suffering, autonomy, attachment, responsibility, love, and the limits of our ability to know another person’s internal experience. And I think compassion is probably a much more useful lens than moral judgment.

I do think it’s selfish. i tried to commit 3 yrs ago and i regret it to this day. i realized that even though im going through something thats seems unbearable there is always someone who is going through more then you. its not fair to end your life trying to stop the pain knowing its js going to cause sm more for anyone thats not you

I think it depends on the intention and the impact of the suicide. I don’t think thats the same for everyone. Many who are suicidal genuinly believe everyone is better off without them. They feel like a burden so their intention is selfless.. that’s certainly how I felt. I was post natally depressed and felt because I was so down and out and my breast milk was rubbish and my partner was no longer interested in me that I was a burden to them… that I didn’t provide anything for anyone around me. So my intention was selfless… however I later learnt that your child is a lot more likely to be suicidal if the parent has died by suicide. Suicide actually has an impact on everyone… actually everyone around that person is more likely to die by suicide… So even though the intention is selfless the impact can actually be very negative but does that make it a selfish act if the intention was to relieve people of a burden and not add a burden to them? I suppose impact matters most but I think it just seems like a shame to villainise a person with he label of selfish when they were obviously massively struggling and whose intent was selfless.

@mystichalo867 beautifully said and wonderful perspective ❤️