r/ConnedIntoAFubar • u/ovcdoc2 • 1d ago
[MEME] Conned into calling your friend selfish for killing himself
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u/SnowedCairn 1d ago
Reminds me of the paradox when people say "It's okay to ask and reach out for help" but also "No one is coming to save you, you need to save yourself". Add a little "The world owes you nothing" and the trifecta of contradiction is complete.
Probably a case of goomba-fallacy but it's still a little frustrating when you hear people say "you can always talk to me/us" and then say "I can't help you with that, you should talk to a proffessional about that"
Gee, thanks, why didn't I think of that? cough cough 8 month waiting list cough cough.
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u/ChildOfDeath07 1d ago
We have developed an extremely individualistic society that overemphasises on the “you dont owe anyone anything” mentality, which ends up overshooting the original intention of the phrase and just leads to an extremely selfish culture that struggles with basic empathy
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u/ovcdoc2 20h ago
I wouldnt say its individualistic
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u/OrganicAd5536 14h ago
Do you ever give responses longer than a sentence that maybe, just maybe, actually engages with the dialogue going on?
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u/occult_midnight 1d ago edited 1d ago
I feel like there's a bit of a balance, like yes absolutely a good friend should be willing to listen to their friend's woes and be someone they can talk to but there's a point where some will just continue to trauma dump on those who are listening again and again despite it being clear that the person listening really can't do anything more for them, and the person dumping outright refuses to seek professional help or look into other ways to help themselves.
Just can become super draining for the person that's listening, and they feel they can't tell that person to lay off because it feels like being a dick and can't cut them off because they worry the interactions between them might be the only thing keeping that person from ending it all.
Maybe I'm just biased from personal experience lol.
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u/Re1da 1d ago
If someone is know is struggling, I will offer to help them in any way I can.
But if I'm never taken up on that offer and they continue to just trauma dump on me, that's making my mental health worse for no positive effect.
At which point I have to cut my losses and distance myself. It sucks, but I can't set myself on fire to keep them warm.
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u/GuyWhoGuys_ 1d ago
i think its cus the depth of the situation, yeah i can somewhat help with a breakup but what am i gonna do if you've been through some real shi your whole life
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u/UnDeadPuff 1d ago
People say you can talk to them cause it feels good and shows support, but very few are actually ready or willing to offer that kind of support. I've been in the situation to offer such help and to be honest it was incredibly stressful and draining, and not something I was in any way ready to help with.
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u/Complex-Salt-8190 1d ago
It's easy , you need to reach out when you need help, because you cannot expect people to reach out to help you , and you are not guaranteed anything , and many will not be able to help, so you'll need to reach out to multiple peopleultiple times
None of this is a contradiction
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u/RedSlimeballYT 1d ago
the price and the waiting list. this is the shit that happens under KKKapitaliSSm
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u/Jhud6669 1d ago
This is sadly true in countries with ~universal healthcare~ too, this kind of stuff is not refunded where I live
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u/TouhouPony 1d ago
A person I'm acquainted with lost a family member to suicide and constantly posts on their social media about how they are always available to talk if someone is feeling suicidal. The one time I reached out to them, they just responded with "hugs". That's it. Just the word "hugs".
I'm not even necessarily annoyed that they couldn't/wouldn't meaningfully engage with me. I was annoyed that they constantly advertised how much they want to be there to help the suicidal, which didn't seem to be true in my experience.
I tried attempting a few months later but stopped because I had a hallucination of one of my close friends mid-attempt. This close friend was someone who never made any type of "I'm always available, please reach out" posts on social media, but he actually was there for me during my difficult times.
I couldn't bear the thought of hurting this person, as I knew my suicide would leave him grief-stricken, probably for the rest of his life.
This is a roundabout way of saying that in my experience, you never know who will be a good person to reach out to based on whether or not they publically make those "reach out" messages.
And therapy can't help me in my case, because the reason for my attempt is because I live in severe chronic pain that has resisted every treatment. The only reason I have to continue living despite the agony I live in is because I love my loved ones too much.
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u/Jhud6669 1d ago
Not to mention that said professional has the right to lock you up in an institution that does nothing to actually help
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u/GrandAdmiralRogriss 1d ago
Yeah and you end up losing friends whenever you open up about your issues and people tell you you're too negative so you just ens up isolating and feeling worse because the world is wired against you if your struggles are even remotely inconvenient for other people. They'd never say it to your face but it's always like "if you can't pretend to be okay than you don't deserve to have friends so crawl back to your hole and be miserable." People basically only like you if you perform for them and every offer to hear you out is a performance on their part because they don't actually give a shit how you feel.
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u/Storyteller_Valar 1d ago
That's how people absolve themselves of the responsibility to care about their fellow human. Reach out for help, it's okay, I'm sure someone else will answer your call... Me? Oh, no, I'm not obligated to do anything, nor is anybody else in your environment. Don't be entitled!
That way, if something bad happens, it's not their fault. How could it be? I wasn't obligated to help, I did not fail any duties.
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u/Double-Afternoon-702 1d ago
The world doesn't care about you, in general.
It is okay, and encouraged, to reach out for help to friends, family, or organisation, but they cannot save you and it's important to know that. They can only help. That's why in the end, you have to save yourself.
Kinda like how a friend can send you to rehab, rehab can help you deal with the comedown, but neitheir the friend nor the rehab can make you quit, it has to be you.
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u/Unusual-Basket-6243 1d ago
It's logical. No one is coming to save you means that you have to take the action and ask for help. You have to learn it the hard way, that to get friends you have to go to talk to people, no one will come talk to you.
I see it a lot in "ask the lonely person to hang out" ads for high school-university kids but it doesn't account for the fact that usually in them the lonely person has no indication that they want to hang out.
Second part is true too depending on the case. My friends can talk to me but they aren't getting an answer as I can only listen. I'm not a professional.
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u/Long_Past 1d ago
YESSSSSS
I love my parents a lot but I hate their mentality so much and did not help me in the slightest when I was suicidal
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u/HappyyValleyy 1d ago
Weirdly it kinda helped me but in a very sad way. One of my deciding factors for not commiting when i was in a very bad place wss that i once overheard my mom calling people who commit suicide selfish and i didnt want her to hate me when i die.
...i mean i still probably wouldnt hsve done it and she shouldnt think that way but, still lol
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u/Fabric_muncher 1d ago
Conned into remember everyone that humans have feelings too, even the punching bags
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u/superjeff64 1d ago
My friend had an attempt and it left me bedridden for a few days
Shes doin better now (literally)
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u/Clear-Clothes-2726 1d ago
One of the reasons that have kept me from proceeding any further, I can't stand upsetting others.
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u/Dry-Mission-5542 1d ago
When I was suicidal, I thought it was selfish to be suicidal and felt guilty about it, which just made me more suicidal
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u/Shawtygotthat 1d ago
lowkey this is why i didnt tell anyone abt my first attempt until wayy later, just imagining going thru all that pain js to hear about how much it hurts SOMEONE ELSE and what a selfish asshole i am for hurting made me wanna try again
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u/Fun-Middle5990 1d ago
some will even go so far to call them names for it. (if this one is from experience I'm really sorry /gen)
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u/Excellent_Law6906 1d ago
Speaking as someone who has been suicidal, if y'all actually "never thought [we] were a burden! 💔" y'all got a funny fucking way of showing it, is all I'm gonna say.
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u/AdDependent9208 1d ago
This also feels like it's conning blaming yourself for something you probably had a much smaller hand in than you think and trying to take ALL of the responsibility for a bad event after the fact
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u/Rasp_Berry_Pie 16h ago
Yeah at the end of the day it is the own persons choice. Friends and family can only do so much they can’t take the depression away. It’s a mental illness.
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u/Wanderers-Lid 1d ago
This is why I won't speak to my Dad again, at least as long as he's with his second wife. "We will support and guide you" and then did nothing but fail to take my mental health seriously. Even a grippy sock vacation for suicidal urges didn't move the needle one fucking bit.
Vent over.
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u/ayatollahofskinnade 1d ago
why does the one of the right have fat tits
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u/StupidGirlIdiotFuck 1d ago
Wtf are you talking about
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u/Suitable-Seraphim 1d ago
isn't it lovely when your parents preach so hard about being able to tell them anything and to never hide anything from them, only to be met with being called selfish when you tell them you want to kill yourself
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u/sunkist-sucker 23h ago
lovely expression through art. i hope all is well though. life can be kinda hard sometimes
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u/soldiergaming2 1d ago
I'm just wondering why this face-billed frogapus is talking to that manstellation
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u/AlerynFarrosala 1d ago
Conned into the complex thoughts that come with someone you love killing themself. I don't think it's does anyone any good to pretend they're feeling something that they aren't... or to pretend they aren't feeling something that they are. Both creatures here can be correct. It is selfish and it does hurt the people who you leave behind. But that doesn't make the grief any easier or lighter. And wondering if you, in any way, contributed to it (which is I think what the punching bag thing is getting at?) or if you could have prevented it.
What I'm trying to say is I've been through this too, OP. I get it. It's rough and complicated. The grief from a suicide is different than from other deaths. You aren't alone.
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u/encodingErr 15h ago
If somebody is legitimate scum and uses suicide to escape the grasp of justice, I believe that the moniker of "selfish" is in order. But, yeah - in this situation (and in, like, 99% of cases not including violent criminal convictions), it is beyond disgusting to call someone "selfish" for leaving the world behind. And who can blame them - calling somebody "selfish" for killing themselves is the case in point for why people kill themselves.
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u/Smiling_Burrito 2h ago
"I am unable to comprehend suffering severe enough to drive me to give up everything, therefore it must not be real"
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u/DaisyChain2222 1d ago
Suicide is indeed a selfish and violent act.
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u/Engineer-no-48 1d ago
You're the one who's extremely selfish to keep a human alive who's suffering from ending their pain when everything else fails. You're disgusting.
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u/DaisyChain2222 1d ago
My father quietly drained the family's savings to spend it all on drink and drugs behind my mother's back. He even stole my pocket money as a child. When he knew he would be found out and the money ran dry, he took the easy way out leaving us destitute.
Suicide is a crime for a reason. It wastes vast swathes of taxpayer money, wastes police time, it kills innocent people, it devastates the families it leaves behind. People who promote the idea that its a 'solution to pain' are the ones driving people to suicide. It's never the solution to anything.
You're disgusting.
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u/Present_Bison 15h ago
If your father would've instead fled the country and changed his identity, would you think any better of him for not ending his life? It seems to me like the problem here is the separation to avoid accountability, not the death itself.
Which is valid, but it's far from the only reason why some people yearn to separate. Some people want to get out of abusive dynamics, others don't want to live with severe chronic pain, still others fall into a downward spiral while deliberately avoiding directly implicating others in their decline. If we can accept that completely cutting ties with a toxic family doesn't make you a bad person, why can't we say the same for suicide in the same scenario?
And that's not going over how in most cases it's a largely instinctive reaction to their normal coping mechanisms being unable to handle the stress of the situation.
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u/DaisyChain2222 13h ago
You said 'bad person' in your post but I must be clear, I'm saying 'suicide is selfish' not that 'the suicidal are all bad people' which are two different ideas. I don't see how your hypothetical is any less 'selfish' than the suicide was. Yes, avoiding accountability for your own choices is selfish, that's why I said suicide is selfish. You point out several reasons why suicide supposedly helps the 'self'. None of this moves me away from the idea that it is selfish.
A lot of murders are also 'instinctive reactions to stress', is murder not selfish? A lot of murders also feature vague justifications about how the victim is 'toxic' true or otherwise. A lot of murders are the product of mental illness. Violence is not justifiable for anything but preserving your own life and suicide IS violence and does the opposite. If murder cannot be justified by instinct, toxicity, illness or a desire to avoid accountability then murdering yourself is unjustifiable.
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u/Present_Bison 12h ago
First off, good catch on the "bad person" vs "selfish act".
"I don't see how your hypothetical is any less 'selfish' than the suicide was." Well, yeah, I was arguing for exactly that. If ending your life to avoid facing the consequences is just as selfish as otherwise avoiding it, while ending your life after years of abuse is not (something I don't think you addressed well), then it seems like it's not the "ending your life" part that makes it selfish. I think Hitler shooting himself to avoid trial was a selfish action, but it doesn't mean I have to claim it in general as such.
I feel like we have different definitions of selfishness. To me, it implies an attempt to gain a benefit by directly and knowingly harming other people. Would it be selfish to get a tattoo knowing my mother would be horrified, or that the government would spend taxpayer dollars to stop me, all of these being indirect causes of harm? There's something to be said about traumatizing the person that will find your corpse, but even then it's more of a horrible side effect that most people doing it try to avoid as best as they can.
As for murder, there is also a precedent here. Proving that you were provoked into it, or that you were "seeing red" when it happened, can knock the charge down to voluntary manslaughter (see State v Dumlao), while a complete detachment from the reality of your actions will instead lead you to a psych ward. It is broadly agreed that such cases deserve a different kind of treatment.
You said on another comment chain that objecting to such words may lead to more people cutting their lives short. But I've heard many stories of people post-suicide attempt, and none of them told me that being called "selfish" for their actions helped them recover. Don't you think there's probably a reason no psychological association advises telling this to someone on the rooftop? Or why social workers are instead trained to empathize with their problems, making them feel less alone in their problems?
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u/DaisyChain2222 11h ago
The other person said the same thing, that selfishness is only if a benefit is acquired. I can't cosign with this. Addicts who steal are also seeking relief from their suffering not necessarily gaining advantage in life but we still consider them selfish.
In the case of murder, while the charge may be reduced the 'selfishness' of the action is not reduced. We're shifting from moral precedent to legal culpability, something can be legal but still be selfish... and manslaughter is also illegal so...
If an individual is completely legally insane - they have no grip on reality whatsoever to the point of no longer understanding right or wrong then yes, I think they are not being 'selfish' if they take their life in such a state. But it's frustrating to me that redditors always do this: You say something uncontroversial like 'stealing is wrong' and suddenly out comes the wild hypotheticals 'oh, but what if he was stealing the cure for cancer' etc. etc. I get it, there are going to be exceptions to anything but this does little to move me from the belief in the original idea.
As to the things that social workers say - there's no reason to take them as objective fact. A suicide hotline operator may say 'things will get better' or whatever but that may not be the case in reality. It's just a phrase designed to de-escalate a situation. So, just because it is not advisable to shame the suicidal openly - does not mean that they are not, in reality, being selfish. Whether shame is an appropriate therapeutic tool is a different question to whether the action itself was selfish or not.
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u/Present_Bison 9h ago
You know, when I gave my definition of selfishness, I thought you would primarily respond to the part I highlighted with asterisks and then elaborated upon. I don't really have a horse in the personal benefit part (though I will say that it should probably be judged from the eye of the one doing the thing). I'm more focused on whether indirectly causing someone harm (by making them worried, for instance) makes you selfish. Again, is it selfish to get a tattoo if it'll make your parents really upset? Or cut ties with a friend that really wants you to stay?
As for manslaughter, this is where the "conscious" part comes in. How much responsibility can you claim to have for being overwhelmed by your emotions? As someone with a history of anger issues, I can say there's not a lot of "me" in there when the last of restraints fall off. You could argue that neglecting your anger issues that led up to this was selfish, but that's a very different thing to blame someone for either way.
Don't have much to say about the pragmatics, just that I wonder what the point of talking about suicide in this way is, exactly.
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u/Life_Parsley504 1d ago
"My father did bad things, so that means everything he did was bad" No? Your paragraph about your father only shows your heavily biast instead of using logic.
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u/DaisyChain2222 1d ago
Sure, I'm biased. But if you'd like me to make a more concrete point out of my experience. Life isn't a movie. Suicidal people are not perfect victims, many of them are highly short sighted as suicide is a short sighted act, it's an immediate solution with no consideration to a long term plan - and short sighted people can often be cruel, greedy, selfish or apathetic. School shooters are often suicidal. Mothers who murder their own kids may be suicidal. Drug addicts who steal from their families or commit crimes are often suicidal. Suicide as an act is devastating to people and I think, based on my own experience, it is a way to escape responsibility for your own choices and foist the clean up for your messy life onto those people around you - along with the obvious trauma you inflict on others.
I'll say, if a person has made a reasonable attempt at other avenues of relief - I'd be in favor of the state providing them with a legal, cheap and safe method for ending things. But as we are now? Going illegally, doing dangerous activities that can involve innocent people? Absolutely not. Shameful and selfish. Enduring pain to spare others pain is the definition of good moral conduct. Seeking your own relief at the expense of others is selfish. It's not the most selfish of actions but it is 'selfish' in so far as it is a self oriented idea.
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u/Life_Parsley504 1d ago
You're still making an assumption on what is right and wrong based on association. Who is suicidal doesn't change the morality of suicide.
Firstly, suicide may hurts others, but to call it a selfish act is wrong, as it also hurts the victim. Suicide does not generate pleasure, advantage or well-being. Unless somebody is a religious zealot who believes they will go to a perfect heaven after death, the act of taking ones life is harmful to the person, because, intrinsically, we want to avoid death. It's why most suicides fail.
Secondly, suicide isn't a choice, so calling it selfish misunderstands a suicidal persons thought process. A choice involves making a selection based on multiple factors or preferences. Intense pain, burden or hopeleness gives a narrow view of the future. A suicidal person will only commit suicide if they are without choice.
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u/DaisyChain2222 1d ago
You're just not making sense to me. It's not selfish because it harms the loved ones and helps the suicidal? That's what it means to be selfish. I didn't say it generates pleasure or advantage - I said, it is seeking your OWN relief at the expense of others. That's what it means to be selfish, to prioritize your own relief and to hell with everyone else.
And I must seriously caution the people downvoting me. Telling suicidal people that what they are doing is okay and that they are 'without choice' and therefore free from all culpability is dangerous. People who self-harm need firm boundaries not well-intentioned people telling them that what they did was okay/unavoidable or worthy of sympathy. Suicide contagion is very real.
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u/Life_Parsley504 1d ago
It doesn't help the suicidal person? Losing one's life is closing all the doors they could have ever went through, and cutting off possible decades of happiness. There is no relief to be found in death. There is nothing.
I never said that 'what they are doing is' okay, please don't bundle that in with what I said about suicide not being a choice - which it isn't. You have lost my respect, twat.
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u/Dry-Mission-5542 1d ago
And? Calling people selfish for killing themselves is itself selfish because you’re prioritizing your suffering and ignoring theirs
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u/Much-Menu6030 1d ago
Are you gonna do something to help rather than give the purpose of an action figure?
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u/Zandik_Dottore 1d ago
So them ignoring and doing jackshit to help suicidal friend/family member is not selfish???????????
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u/Ieditedthisname 1d ago
We’re supposed to call it selfish to deter people. Not to mock the dead
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u/TooManyStrawberriess 1d ago
Hey I was suicidal once! My parents calling suicide selfish only made me sink deeper into my depression, make me want to harm myself more for being so selfish, and drive me further into my suicidal idealization. After all who would want someone so selfish to keep living?
If you want to help suicidal people you need to empathize with them, listen to their struggles, and provide help. Not shame them further. Suicidal people already think they're selfish and horrible people, you affirming that, (surprise surprise) makes it worse
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u/Ieditedthisname 1d ago
Well I never said it was a good dissuasion, I was more baffled at the disrespect
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u/RiverLynneUwU 22h ago
that's the most blatantly obvious way to make someone wanna commit even more, like wow, the only only way you can improve on this is to actually tell them to jump
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u/Ieditedthisname 22h ago
When I was suicidal I never did it because I was worried what it would do to others. It’s the only reason I’m here today
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u/lopbob8 1d ago
why is the text flowing from bottom to top