General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "Cowardly, Selfish" [View all]mnhtnbb
(31,381 posts)and links to the guardian article.
I have a nephew who made a fb post yesterday--having been tempted to suicide in his teens--
and asserting that The Dead Poets' Society movie helped him to understand how
'selfish' suicide was. I did not know of his 'depression', although I've known
that his mother has been depressed for years and years. (My husband is a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst)
I had coffee this morning--pre-planned coincidentally--with a friend, a mom whose oldest son committed suicide 10 years ago
and my oldest son was asked to be an honorary pallbearer at his funeral.
I appeared in a 2 person play with a woman who later committed suicide. I had not known her very well, beyond
our professional interaction, but I did learn of the anger her brother had (who had cancer) and his accusations
of how 'selfish' she was.
So, we have had personal and professional experience with suicide in our house.
It makes me wonder whether the anger and sadness of loved ones--friends, family--left behind, does not
cause them to strike out with the judgment of "selfishness" applied to the act of suicide, because, indeed, they can
only think of what they are going through, rather than understand the unbearable pain of the person who decides to commit
suicide. Could the label of selfishness really be a case of projection?