On suicide and words and their emotional meaning

[sessifet]

Inbetween working faults and waiting for testing to finish, I've been reading this blog about the London Ambulance Service control room. I've been both amused, horrified and moved to tears while reading this.

This entry and its comments has made me think about words and how people use them and, in a way, the inadequacies of the English language. I've seen that the words (in any langauge) people use to describe suicide is (understandably) emotionally very charged and I'm not trying to diminish that. What vexes me is that my personal preference is...not possible to convey in English.

Now, I know I am slightly odd in that I will use words that to me have no emotional weight at all. When speaking in Dutch, I distinguish between 'egocentrisch' and 'egoistisch'. To me, the first is somewhat negatively charged but still on the neutral scale, while the second one is almost entirely neutral, possibly even completely objective. English does not have this distinction as far as I can determine. There's 'egocentric' (literal translation of the first Dutch phrase) and 'selfish' (most common translation of the second phrase). There's 'egoistic', which does convey a sense of neutrality, but it is not common usage at all and most people go 'bwuh?' when I use it.

Quick glossary for my brain:

Egocentrisch/Egocentric: person cannot conceive or has difficulty conceiving that the world is seperate from their own experience and (to a certain extent) that the word does not centre around them. This covers things from young children and teenagers to those in the autistic spectrum (please note: this does not make them automatically selfish!). Hell, it even covers most well-adjusted adults during times of stress and it definitely covers a lot of IT support ('how the hell can you not know that?!" right up until the moment they see the world from the user/first line/second line's perspective and go 'oh...that's how.'.) Even though it is technically a neutral term, it still has a lot of negative connotation for most people that I talk to.

Egoistisch/Egoistic: There's moral egoism (which I will pretty much always term as 'selfish') and technical egoism, and it's the second meaning I refer to when I use the word (either in Dutch or English). It is the neutral version of 'looking out for number one': the human tendency to self-preservation, be it mentally, physically, emotionally etc etc. It is running the hell away if you've just seen someone being stabbed or when you see a fight, for example. It's falling apart and curling up into a ball gibbering insanely when the world turns into a horrific place.

And then there's 'selfish'. In my experience and in my mind, 'selfish' has nothing but negative connotations. It is putting yourself above everyone else because you feel you deserve it. It is willingly depriving others of their chance at the same slice of cake because you are more entitled to it. It is 'mememe, what about me!' without regard for anyone else in this world.

Because 'selfish' has such an overwhelmingly negative connotation and 'egocentric' is also hardly a positive word, the English language overall does not appear to have a neutral and objective word to describe someone who's committed suicide. You will see comments saying that someone who commits suicide is 'egocentric' at best and 'selfish' at worse and it bloody well gets my goat. I was going to explain this in a reasoned and calm manner, but coincidentally, my friend's sister called me about an hour and a half ago while I was pondering and writing and it has just changed the whole thing.

So here goes:

Two years ago this Easter, my friend committed suicide only a few months after she was diagnosed with clinical depression. She got put on medication and seemed to be doing okay. She had a wonderful partner and a lovely child. She seemingly had everything to live for. Until she took their car to a secluded spot and put a bullet through her brain, that is. Why? None of us knew, even though there was a letter, and there were wild speculations and inappropriate remarks and hysterical laughter^*. As I said, my friend's sister called and mentioned that, while she was helping her sister's partner and child move, she found a few diaries.

Unfortunately, one of them confirmed what we already suspected. There was nothing concrete that 'flipped the switch', so to speak. It was not an overall feeling of crushing despair or anything like that. To my friend, everything was...grey. There was nothing. There was no end in sight, just an image of a never-ending vista of dullness and grey and pointlessness. No joy, no pain, no life. There was nothing. It was all futile and there was nothing she could do to change that. It would always be this way. She could not face that. Life is for the living and not for those who just mimic it, so she ended what she felt was not a real life anymore. Egocentric? Yes. Egoistic? Quite probably. Selfish? Fuck. No. Not ever.

Someone who commits suicide or tries to is not selfish. Ever. Do not use this phrase anywhere within hearing range as I will come down on you like a ton of bricks. I can deal with egocentric. I can definitely deal with egoistic. I can't deal with selfish. Say they were misguided, or blinded or that the balance of their mind was disturbed, but do not use selfish. Committing suicide is about as far from selfish as one could get. Ask anyone who has ever seriously tried it (yes, I am one of them) and they will tell you a story that has fuck-all to do with selfishness. They will tell you 'it all got too much' (egoistic or egocentric depending on the circumstances), 'no-one will miss me' (egocentric), 'it'll be better for them when I am gone' (see the first example), 'I just want the pain to end' (egoistic), 'they'll all be sorry when I am gone' (egocentric and egoistic).

With those who actually succeed, if you're lucky there's going to be some sort of explanation. My friend's family got one, of a sort. Sometimes, you don't even get that and your loved one appears to have just up and gone. Of course you're angry and upset and you can't believe they pulled this on you. Imagine how terrible it would be to have to deal with this anger and rage and pain and then have someone who has no idea as to what you're going through, or what went through your loved one's mind at the time, claim that they were 'selfish' and that they were a bad parent/child/partner.

So don't. Just...don't. If you find yourself with the urge to say/type 'they were selfish', please slap yourself until sense returns. If you decide against this course of action and mention that phrase in my vicinity, don't worry. I will happily slap you until you get some fucking sense and, since I am a very stubborn and determined person in some ways, it might take a long while.

^*I spoke to her partner and sister shortly after it happened. You know what they were angry about? The fact she took out their new car (one owner from new) and blew her brains out all over the upholstery. If that doesn't tell you how screwed up the human brain gets when confronted with sudden death, nothing does.

Comments

[miss-corinne.livejournal.com]

Great post! The main thing is perspective, I think. If you've never experienced any kind of mental break, I don't think you can get even half way to comprehending how swept away you are by it. People who say it is selfish attribute that person with a capability for rational thought they simply don't have at the time they do it. Selfishness, to me, is a rational reaction with a controllable thought process behind it. Suicide is not.

[sessifet25.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)

That was the other bit of it that was kicking around in my brain, but I couldn't get it down on paper, partly because it would then possibly lead ito another discussion on rationality and logic and all very meta, and partly because the topic got yanked sideways quite unexpectedly.

[martinoh.livejournal.com]

In general, this is probably true but there are exceptions; one would have to define suicide far more tightly than language or even the overtones of language do currently before one could say that it is an inherently irrational action.

Ultimately, it's a value judgement - the perceived costs versus the perceived benefits of sticking around - and hence, subjective. Yes, we can show how depression or other mental health issues can cause people to shift their valuations, but I would be hugely uncomfortable with an assertion that there can be no rational reason for suicide.

[sessifet25.livejournal.com]

See, this is where it becomes meta. What's rational? Are we using the word as the majority uses it? Or are we referring to personal rationality? Because I can see how someone can make a for them rational decision to commit suicide, but not for anyone else.

(I am leaving assisted suicide/death out of the equation, because that's a different kettle of fish to me.)

[swaldman.livejournal.com]

I think that most people, at some time in their lives, probably think rationally[1] that there is little reason to continue living, and/or that the world would be a better place without them. I think that most people, most of the time, have an irrational instinct for self-preservation that tides them through this, until their rational world view has room for them in it again. I think that some suicides are perhaps by people who at that time don't have that instinct to keep them going. I certainly wouldn't want to suggest, however, that that is always the case - it's just one possible mechanism that makes sense to me[2]. My point being that I agree with MartinOh. I think.

Back to your point... I guess that when people talk about how people who have taken their own life have been selfish, what they are saying is that the dead person has killed themselves even though it would cause other people suffering. The dead person has not put the happiness of others ahead their own wishes. I'm not sure whether or not this is the meaning of "selfish" that you were describing... my own thinking to this tends to be along the lines of,
(a) "You really have some major issues about your own self-importance if the worst thing about your friend being dead is that it has upset you.
(b) Even if the dead person performed a rational evaluation of his suffering before versus yours now... if he was suffering enough to kill himself, do you really think your suffering now is in the same order of magnitude? If he *wasn't* being rational about it, then IMHO the talk of selfishness breaks down there and then - IMHO selfishness implies some sort of weighing of one's benefit versus others' benefit, which is a rational act;
(c) Does it really matter now? There's little point in complaining to the dead.

Having said all this, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that some recently bereaved people are perhaps not entirely rational themselves...

Um. I hope that makes some sense, and isn't offensive to anybody. I'm posting this while tired, which I know I shouldn't...



[1] Rationally for them at the time. Personally I'm not sure that there is any other kind of "rational", but... yeah, that's a philosophical question and something of a derail.
[2] IANAExpert, IANAPsychologist, IANsomebody who has been directly exposed to attempted or successful suicide from either end. This is... just one mechanism that makes sense to me.

[sessifet25.livejournal.com]

I think my objection to the word 'selfish' boils down to the projected selfishness and in some ways egotistical views of the people using it in these circumstances. (Which you have nicely encompassed in your bullet points there, though I'm sure there's other things we will disagree on. :))

Having said all this, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that some recently bereaved people are perhaps not entirely rational themselves...

I will never attack or berate someone for ranting and raving or just plain believing their loved one was selfish or stupid or any such thing. Hell, I spent plenty of hours screaming at my dad for dying when I know he hadn't planned on it all, so you may be able to imagine how angry I was with my friend.

I'm sorry that wasn't clear from my post. I'm talking about those who are/were not affected by anything like this and (in my experience at least) quite often have never lost someone, be it through illness, old age, accident or suicide. They're bandying words about and assigning motivations and rational thought processes to someone incapable (for whatever reason) of them.

I hope this makes sense...

[swaldman.livejournal.com]

It does.

[martinoh.livejournal.com]

My brain isn't up to this discussion at the moment, which irks me somewhat. There's something that I'm still trying to say but I'm obviously not sure what... Apologies therefore, for the ramblings below:

Can a process of evaluation be objectively rational, even if it produces a result that we regard as inappropriate? I'm inclined to say yes; the process, even the decision is rational for a given value set. Can we say then that a particular value assessment is objectively wrong, given that it leads to an inappropriate outcome? Not really; we can say that it falls outside societal expectation and we can sometimes, maybe often, identify where values have been changed through mental health issues and do not reflect the normal judgement of an the individual concerned, but wrong in an absolute, concrete, universal sense? For me, not so much.

Social mores change with time and circumstance; suicide has, in various times and cultures been seen as either a legitimate (if extreme) expression of protest, an accepted (if unremarked) alternative to prolonged discomfort or a spiritual and temporal sin to be punished in this earthly plane by posthumous humiliation and confiscation of assets and more. It was illegal in the UK until around 50 years ago, but "the Gentleman's way out" was still widely regarded as a more acceptable option than accepting dishonour or financial ruin. Frankly, it's hard to see how trusting other people to identify universal truths isn't - well, irrational.

I accept your point about not wanting to include assisted dying in this debate, but the reason that we increasingly treat it differently is precisely because of the recognition that sometimes, taking one's own life is a reasonable and rational thing to do. There is an often told (if apocryphal) tale of a conversation between George Bernard Shaw and a young actress, where the playwright asked if she would go to bed with a young man who offered her a million pounds; she is supposed to have smiled and said that she might, if he was handsome enough. "How about for a tenner then?", asked Shaw, eliciting the outraged response, "What sort of girl do you think I am"? "Oh, we've established that", chuckled Shaw, "Now all we're discussing is the price". We're in a similar position once we concede that sometimes, suicide is rational. The value of one's own life is a matter of personal perception and is on a continuum; we can legislate to lend authority to the actions of some people over others but we cannot pretend a qualitative difference automatically exists between those who meet our arbitrary criteria, who we would commend for their honesty and realism and those who fall outside and we would reproach for the act.

The vast majority of suicides can probably be said to result from impaired judgement and be deemed objectively irrational. But, I would respectfully submit, not all.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Great post. I completely agree.

I hate it when people say suicide is selfish. One person even said in my hearing (typed in my reading actually, but that reads/sounds weird) that "suicide is the most selfish thing you can do" which is very WTFFFFFFFFF. Like "telling other people that they should go on living through what they have decided is hell-on-earth because you personally might be upset if they don't" isn't also something that is motivated by your personal desire for the world to be more how you want it?

It makes me so ANGRY. And then I can't coherently respond. And hey! You just coherently responded, with sense and big words and everything.

[sessifet25.livejournal.com]

Until it happens in 'real' life. Then I just go 'but...and...you. Grrr.' and start frothing at the mouth. I'm far more coherent in text. :)

[arkarian-kamui.livejournal.com]

Hear hear. Much agreement inthere.