What Suicide Is Not

Suicide is many things. It is taboo. People seem to not want to talk about it. When they do, they downplay it; try to make it into something it is not. It is heartbreaking. My own heart breaks knowing that people feel the same pain that I have. 

The one thing suicide is not, though? 

Selfish.

I know I have written about this before, many months ago. But I feel like I need to address the ignorant statement again.

Suicide is not a selfish act. Selfish directly translates in English to: (of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.

Now, for those of who think suicide is selfish, your first argument is almost always that the person feeling that way never thinks about the people around them; that they don't consider what it would do to the people left behind. Let me be the millionth person to tell you that you are completely and utterly wrong. 

The first thing someone in that position thinks of is the people around them. In the years that I spent having suicidal ideations, I constantly thought about the people who loved me. I wondered what their life would be like without me. Of course, I always thought their life would be ten times better off without me. 

Someone considering suicide almost always considers the feelings and emotions that their loved ones will feel once they are gone. I can personally tell you that part of us does feel bad, because hearing stories of people losing loved ones is heartbreaking. Mental illness is the problem, and suicide is the result. Mental illness convinces you that the people left behind would be better off without you, therefore justifying the actions you're about to take. Therefore, the person is not concerned with their own personal profit or pleasure because they are doing it for the sake of other people, in their minds.

Now, you're probably going to argue that mental illness means that the person is not in their right mind. And you're right, mental illness does not make things rational; mental illness itself is not rational. Suicide is not rational, that's already been determined. But that does not make it selfish.

Even though the person's thought process, mood, and judgement are greatly affected by their mental illness, saying that someone with mental illness is engaging in a selfish act such as suicide is cruel. It invalidates the person engaging in those behaviors as soon as the words leave your mouth. 

If I'm being completely honest and have to call anyone out for being selfish, it is the person speaking the ignorant statement that suicide is selfish.

Let me tell you why.

Let's go back to the argument of the people left behind. Maybe you're one of those people left behind, or someone who was almost left behind.

Suicide is not about you. The people left behind have the tendency to make the situation revolve around them. "But what about the rest of us? How could they be so selfish as to leave us behind? How could they not think about the pain they have caused us?"

WHAT ABOUT THE UNBEARABLE PAIN THE PERSON FELT SO INTENSELY THAT THEY FELT THEIR ONLY WAY OUT WAS TO TAKE THEIR OWN LIFE?!
 

This isn't about you, folks. This has never been about you. This is about the person no longer with us. This is about the people who have survived their suicide attempts. This is about the people who felt such intense, unbearable, and excruciating pain that they felt they needed to end their own lives in order to end the pain. They saw no other way out, including you.

You could not have saved them. People believe that if they would have said something different - done something different - that they could have saved the person. 99.9% of the time, those people are wrong. People with mental illness are going to do what their mental illness causes them to do. Sure, you think that they can choose to believe you, but let me be the first to tell you that mental illness doesn't let them do that. Mental illness doesn't report to anyone. You doing or saying something different isn't going to suddenly make the person feel loved. They struggled with feeling unloved for however long they dealt with mental illness, and that's not going to change just because you tell them how much you love them once you find out suicide is their proposed plan. 

Sure, the person is putting their pain before the people around them. But when the person is gone, the people left behind put their pain before the person who died by suicide. 

I could go around and around in circles with some people because some don't see eye to eye with me. And that's fine. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and I respect the opinions of those around me. But I will never in my lifetime believe that suicide is selfish. Not because I'm not willing to admit that I partook in selfish behaviors, but because the people who have been in my shoes and those that are currently in my shoes are not being selfish. 

Suicide is not about anyone other than the person who felt enough pain that they must do something so heartbreaking.

If you or someone you know needs support right now, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or text START to 741-741

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