Damn it, I was almost going put to "in before Swoly-D comes in and says something profoundly stupid" and I decided not to at the last second.
Dafuq. I swear that line wasn't in there when I first read your post. Clearly the spectre of Swoly's impending stupidity affected my reading ability.
I think those whining that it is always selfish are actually the ones being selfish. They want that person to stick around for them, the other person's own personal demons be damned.
What I find interesting is I read an article today where Robin Williams said he was not ever diagnosed with bi-polar disease in an interview and claimed he didn't have it. So, now I'm starting to wonder how so much other reading material claims he was when the man himself said he wasn't? No doubt he suffered from depression but that doesn't mean he was bi-polar in itself from what I know. But, it could also be he was misdiagnosed. It would seem to eliminate that he suffered from a chemical imbalance in the brain as that is what bi-polar disease is. Does it require a chemical imbalance to think dark thoughts and go to dark places? I would say no...it doesn't.
Sorry if I'm about the D&D this topic but here it goes. I have gone through depression. One of my best friends went through depression and killed himself. I still think he was a selfish coward for doing so. I love him, I miss him but I hate him. I hate what he put his friends and his family through financially, emotionally. I hate that I missed his call while I was working that day. I hate the questions he left unanswered. You know what suicide is like? It's like walking into your friends house and knocking over a glass bottle of booze and just saying, "oh well" while leaving and letting everyone else clean up the mess. If you have a problem with my view then so be it.
If you are or know somebody who is having thoughts of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. http://www.youmatter.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/about-us/you-matter/ Excellent way to put it, REEKO.
In this case, he provided well for his family (I presume), and he entertained millions while struggling with own personal issues. Your analogy doesn't seem to quite work in this case. Its more like a shared house which he bought and maintained, and then after many decades he decides to leave the house because he can't take it any more. What is more selfish -- demanding that an unhappy person continue to live with you even if he's miserable, or that person deciding he's had enough after many years?
Did I mention Robin Williams? Nope. Yeah he was rich so that helps but that's an exception to the rule. I never called him a coward and I don't call people who ask for DNRs cowards either. It's the young kids or adults with young children I think about and feel for most. I don't hate them, I feel bad for them. I had a second friend talk about maybe offing himself too a few years back when his GF dumped him. I told him point blank if he killed himself I wouldn't go to his funeral and thank God he's still around.
I'm sorry that this happened and I certainly can't tell you how to feel or pretend to understand you or your friend's depression. However, just like I can't pretend to understand your depression, you can't assume you completely understood your friend's depression no matter how close you were to him. Just because you overcame yours doesn't mean he could have as well. It's hard but I think it's important to be empathetic towards people who take their lives, no matter how selfish it may seem. Here's an interesting analogy that I have seen making the rounds: “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.” -David Foster Wallace
Everybody has people that care for them, love them, depend on them, etc. Most everyone has families and friends. When someone commits suicide, they are murdering someone's loved one. That could be considered selfish.
Good post, B-Bob. Repped. Mental health is serious -- just as serious as physical health. Unfortunately we still have a lot to learn regarding mental health (scientifically) and there are unfair social stigmas associated with mental health problems.
I've always felt that a person has to want to live for themselves first. If the person can't live or doesn't want to live for themselves first, then how does one expect them to live or want to live for other people? Yes, the rest are left behind to deal with the aftermath and get a very raw deal. But, if it's selfish to commit suicide, then isn't it also just as selfish to expect someone else not to commit suicide and stay alive only because it spares you and the other people close to him the aftermath? No one said life is fair in this regard and it obviously isn't. I just can't reconcile the part about expecting someone to stay alive for other people if the person can't find the reason or will to stay alive for one's own self. I'm not sure anyone can really explain that objectively when it is also so subjective. But, it's obviously way more deep than that. In the end, none of that is even crossing their mind imo if and when they are in an end state frame of mind and want to escape the perceived misery/pain. I'm sure they thought about how it would impact others when they were thinking rationally about it at some point in therapy or in deep thought. The problem is no one who is about to commit suicide can be accused of having rational thoughts at that time. In that regard, I believe that...at the very end when a person commits to this act...the person is truly in a "selfish" mindset that is not thinking about all the other stuff...only about escaping/ending their own suffering. I think the bottom line for Robin is, if he were being treated with meds that were working, then this wouldn't have happened. I struggle to understand how he just got out of a rehab facility in July where he supposely was there to work on himself a lot...and then is so unbalanced in August once returning home? You would think he would have been in a better place...not a worse one. Was this a total failure in his treatment? Did his medications change or were they pulled for some reason? Was he on meds at the time? Maybe these questions will be answered in time. I think a lot of the explanation can come from his viewpoints of himself he speaks of in interviews while filming "Insomnia" in Alaska in a small town...where he said he truly felt all alone and afraid inside...and turned to alcohol. I think his dark place was a place he was all alone and in fear. And, somehow he got back to that dark place the other day. Obviously, you can be alone and afraid inside...and still be around a lot of people not being physically alone or actually having anything to be afraid of. It's the inner workings of the mind...a strange and mysterious place.
Been thinking a lot about this type of thing lately and how it relates to I guess what you would call "free will." Can we ever truly distinguish between someone making a selfish/immoral decision as opposed to an action attributed to an unfortunate physical makeup of the brain or even the effect of external stimuli on a person throughout their life that they had no control over. When is a person really ever fully responsible for their own actions? I don't mean to get into amateur philosophy 101, but thinking about this makes my head hurt.
Committing suicide is a cowardly act? The Robin Williams suicide and any other suicide for that matter is a tragedy that leaves the surviving loved ones with years, if not a lifetime of trying to regain a "normal" life. I can't phantom what he or any other person who has taken their own life must of felt. Desperation, in my opinion, wouldn't adequately describe their frame of mind. The only thing that I'm sure of is that suicide is not a normal act of a rational human being! Killing yourself goes against perhaps the greatest basic human instinct, SELF PERSEVATION! Please do not misinterpret my post! I do not condone or accept suicide as a viable solution to dealing with ones problems! ....... ....... .......
It seems like out of all the diseases out there, depression is the one I seem to get internet ranted at the most, about things I need to be aware of.
Obviously, it is hard to conclude anything from this findings but there does not seem to be any correlation between poverty and suicidal tendencies - http://www.businessinsider.com/world-suicide-rate-map-2014-4
