Is this selfish?

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My friend recently posted this on facebook:

"If u r gonna be selfish enough to commit suicide by train, please do it on a line we're not using to get to work - sincerely all the late folks riding the Shonan-Shinjuku line this morning."

Now I never understood these types of people. This just justifies the suicide I feel. Him saying this obviously tells me that he values getting to work on time even above the life of his fellow man. If I were in his situation, I would calmly call up my work and politely let them know that I will be late for work due to the situation instead of complain at a dead man who has decided to completely destroy himself. I can understand he is frustrated and wants to keep his job, but it just seems a little disrespectful to the dead and to the people living on the edge as well! How dare you kill yourself and make me late for work! What happened to a little goddamn sympathy for an individual who is no longer living like you are?

Oh, but cmon, if there is anything selfish about suicide it is doing it by train.

Most people are selfish, that's just the way it is. It's a cold world.

I can totally understand suicide as being selfish in that you are not thinking about the emotional damage you will leave with all your loved ones, but its not like people committing suicide are thinking about whether or not they are going to make people late for work and if some people cared a little more about the lives of others, they would realize that these people are lost and don't actually mean to come off as selfish. You can say that suicide is selfish...I would say it is mostly selfless. You are basically deciding to lose yourself forever. People can complain about all suicides if you are looking for reasons to complain.

THIS MAKES ME SO MAD TOO.

One of my old friends was homeless. Another girl took her in to live with her; bought her food, bedding, etc. One night, the one very generous girl was about to commit suicide. Her roommate looked at me and goes, "I can't believe she would make me go through this. I can't deal with her crap right now when I have my own problems". SHE LITERALLY SAID THAT RIGHT AFTER THE SUICIDAL GIRL GAVE HER OVER A THOUSAND DOLLARS WORTH OF STUFF FOR FREE. WHAT A SELFISH.... i shouldn't say the word.

Shonan-Shinjuku... your friend works in Japan?

There have been many times in my life when I thought about doing suicide, and sometimes planned it. One thing that never changed, though, was that I wanted to do it with the least inconvenience to others, so I would use pills. There is no way to avoid all inconvenience to others if you kill yourself, but at least minimize it as much as possible. If you want to harm yourself, that's your business, but you don't have the right to mess up other people's lives in the process.

Regarding train suicides, there is always the risk of causing a derailment, and possibly loss of other people's lives, or injuries to them. Again, you don't have the right to injure or kill other people, so if you do kill yourself, minimize the effects on other people.

Although there are people I have wanted to get back at for doing wrongs to me, I have never wanted to "go out in a blaze of glory, taking them with me". The last people I'd want to go anywhere with, including into death, are enemies. And I certainly don't want to hurt strangers who have never done anything to me, so stick with pills or some other simple way, that won't injure or kill other people, if you are determined to go through with suicide. Do try to get help first.

Many people find help in therapy. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. They were unable to do a thing to help solve the problems that have caused my lifelong chronic depression. I did manage to find some coping methods on my own, and finally am living alone, instead of with family members. Life with NT family members was too stressful for me. They kept wanting and expecting me to be "normal", and couldn't handle that I wasn't, and felt that I should be doing something to become normal. They were naturally upset by my not "cooperating". As an Aspy, I am unable to be "normal", and was stressed out and upset by their unrealistic expectations, and their treatment of me, because I couldn't meet those expectations. Living alone is much better for me, and helped reduce my chronic stress and chronic depression. I also get along better with my relatives now that we don't live together any more.

As far as being selfish for not wanting a suicidal person to disrupt one's life,--we all have problems, and those disruptions add to the stress of other people's lives. That makes them sound selfish, even if they don't mean it that way.

Remember, we are all:

A Different Drummer

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
However measured or far away.

--Henry David Thoreau

Quite honeslty, if everyone were as understanding and empathetic as they claim to be there would be a whoel lot more suicides in the world. I truly believe that people insolate themselves and only live in very superficial ways with the majority of the rest of the world. They keep to themselves and their own circle of family and friends and reserve all of ther empathy, compassion and selflessness for them.

It's a bleak picture but I have found more support for the supposition than not.

All this really does is illustrate how a truly suicidal person is completely outside the understanding of a normal person.

I've been to the edge of that cliff. It's almost a form of psychosis. I remember standing on train tracks. It never even occurred to me that there were people on the train. It was just a big mechanical squishing machine.

Clearly, I didn't stay on those tracks long enough to introduce myself to the machine. And in the 35 years since I've never been in that place again.

In lucid moments, further back from that precipice, the selfishness of suicide is easier to see. But trust me. when you are that close, your state of mind does not correlate to the typical flows of daily life. Deep, suicidal depression has no analog to the normal thoughts flowing through a normal person. It is just as foreign and inexplicable to them as autism.

Suicide happens for two reason, as best as I can tell. One is you are so angry and bitter about your pain that you don't care who you hurt. The other is that the pain is so deep and profound that you can no longer see that others will be hurt by your actions. Some suicides are vile, vengeful acts of willful destruction. Others are simply people so totally lost in their tangled minds that they lose sight of what they are giving up and what they are leaving behind.

Yes I think it's selfish. If someone is going to kill themselves, please don't do it where it may involve other people deaths or other peoples lives.

Even if no one else died, the train driver will still have to live with the fact he hit someone even though it wasn't his fault and may need therapy for it. I will never understand those feelings people get when they hit someone when they were not at fault.

Yes I have been suicidal before and have also wanted to jump out in the middle of the road in front of a car where they wouldn't have enough room to slam on their breaks to prevent hitting me. I admit that would have been very selfish of me if I actually did it. Back then I didn't understand what it can do to the driver because it wouldn't have been their fault so why would it effect them?

I think the person who also posted the comment was selfish too because he didn't think of other peoples on any trains because he said to please not do it on the line he has to cross to get to work.

Wow, that person on Facebook was a jerk. He/she really was being disrespectful to the dead. It's a sad world we live in where jobs are more important than human life.

I think when people make insensitive comments like that, it's because they are emotionally detached from the situation and think of the person as being inferior to justify their frustration at the situation. People are too desensitized these days.

But on the other hand, it is quite rude and selfish of someone to publicly commit suicide for no good reason. They're causing unnecessary emotional scarring to anyone that witnesses the carnage. When I was a child, and thought about suicide, my idea was to simply tie a bag over my head and lay in bed. Not jump in front of moving vehicles.