Public suicide. Are they selfish?

[Tonester]

Nice controversial topic for you all.

Whilst on the train today, we moved only about 1 mile before coming to a standstill. I was already annoyed as the train was delayed due an express that was due before it was also delayed and passed through my station. Anyway, after about 10 minutes of not moving, the guard walks down the train to inform us there has been a fatality at the next station involving the aforementioned express train. 20 minutes passed and as the guard approached his cab (I was on the very back seat), he told me that if the express train wasn't delayed, it could have been us. I asked him if it was a "jumper". He said it was. Another half hour passes and the guard announced to us that the train is to move to the next station where we are to get off and go to the upper level to get a train to a different Birmingham station. At least my journey could continue. I overheard another passenger who was on her way to an interview, speak to her potential boss to explain the situation. Ten minutes later, the guard then announces that the emergency services have deemed the station unfit to allow passengers (I heard the trackside guy tell the guard that the jumper is at both ends of the station....nice!!). Anyway, the guard then announced that the train was returning to Sandwell where everyone is to alight and the staff will inform them of different journey options. For me, I just claimed my money back (I was only on my way to some job agencies), but the interview girl was obviously distraught, along with other passengers.

Anyway, long story, but it really pissed me off that this person chose to commit suicide in a way that affected a lot of people. Not only passengers on the route, but also people who were due to use the line later (the route was closed for ages) and the emergency services people that have to clean up and inform relatives/friends etc. I found their actions totally selfish as there are so many other ways to leave this mortal coil.

Another thing that came to mind was Bob. Being a train driver, I thought about the driver of the express who would seen the person's last second on this planet and the horror of him having to cope with that. I would like to hear your views Bob.

What are your views on such ways of commiting suicide? Selfish bastards, or people so desperate that they wouldn't have thought about how their actions have such a huge impact on others?

[Squidwards Testicles]

I think generally, people who are suicidal to the point of actually doing it are so absorbed in their own problems that they don't think of the consequences beyond the end result... do I guess by defenition that makes them selfish....

[Electric Warrior]

I think generally, people who are suicidal to the point of actually doing it are so absorbed in their own problems that they don't think of the consequences beyond the end result... do I guess by defenition that makes them selfish....

...... and it makes me wonder just how bad they were and just what it was that could drive them to take their own lives.   Maybe selfish, but they still have my sympathy.   As you say, when they are so wrapped up in there own nightmare world, thoughts of the consequences don't come into it.   Very sad whenever anyone is driven to take their own life, no matter what the inconvenience is to others.

I also fear for the sanity of anyone who has to witness the horror of someone dying in such a violent way, and they will probably need some long term counselling.  It can be a long time (even many years) later that the effects can cause problems, as in what has been diagnosed as PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)   At least now, there is more understanding of the problem.   Back in the first world war, they used to give a Courts Martial and have sufferers sentenced to be shot at dawn for cowardice due to it's effects,

Sorry for the rant, but I've lost a few friends to suicide, so it's a subject that's a bit close for me.

[Muz]

No I dont think they are selfish. People that end up in this state of mind, have gone beyond rationality, and cannot see beyond the blackest darkest and utterly horrendous, and utimately hopeless predicament they have found themselves in, for which they can see no way out, except to end it all, as it is the easiest option, to make it all go away.

There are those that attempt it, but will not carry it through, and who maybe have a history of some  instability, but then there are others, .. individuals of seemingly perfectly sound mind, who for some inexplicable (as would appear to those that know them) reason, they decide to end it all, and the decision to them is final. In such cases, a quick way out, I woud imagine is their priority, and a high speed train, ticks a lot of those boxes, other peoples feelings dont often come into it. Very sadly, this also applies to the loved ones they have left behind, who would have done anything to alleviate the situation, had they known about it, and cannot ever understand, why someone close would wish to take their own lives in this way.

Its difficult to understand the little self regard that these indiviuals must endure, my own thoughts are more of pity, and despair and sadness at the useless waste of life, .. that these people have got to this stage, where they feel that suicide and release from what ever has driven them there is their only option.

There is a bridge near to us that has 24 HR CCTV and specially adapted fencing to prevent 'jumpers', going over, who would land in the back gardens of the houses below, after a 200 foot drop ..  pretty horrendous for those living in the shadow, of what to them should just be a bridge, so I can understand the horror for a driver too, and the frustrations of passengers, but more than anything I am sympathetic to a suiciders' predicament, for as yet, I still cannot understand what makes people see death as a better option, than to have life, it must be a horrific sequence of events to endure, to give this end result.

[Photomanic]

Selfish yes but as said the victims are too rapped up in their own despair that they have no consideration.

Near to me, in fact only a mile or two from the clan meet is the infamous "Beachy Head" a 560 feet sheer drop onto rocks where literally thousands have chosen to end their lives.
On average there has been 50 suicides a year until they employed pastors to watch for likely jumpers, since then the suicide rate from there has halved.

A friend of mine is the local coastguard and he is the one who has to remove the remains of those who jumped, he is a happy soul until he tells me that someone has taken their son/daughter with them, now thats what I call selfish.

[Muz]

he is a happy soul until he tells me that someone has taken their son/daughter with them, now thats what I call selfish.

Yes you have a point there Tim.. those situations seem even more desperate ,.. the case of the father in Greece recently who threw his son over a balcony to his death, then jumped himself holding his daughter, springs to mind and all he suffered was two broken legs .. I had real mixed emotions about that one, he was one of those 'have a go but doesnt really want to do it types', but basically IMHO he murdered his son .. but I dont think thats how it was viewed ,.. as I think he was allowed some diminished responsibility verdict at the time ... which might be technically correct .. but horrific all the same

[ff_uk]

Four years ago my wife's aunty committed suicide in the fashion you describe. She had a history of manic depression and as such was suffering mental illness. On the day of her suicide the authorities had to shut most of the station which has a lot of platforms. Although a lot of people had their journeys disrupted I doubt that the rationale of her act even entered her head at the time.

As I mention above the act itself was selfish in respect of the trauma she left her family. Aside from the obvious feelings of grief and anger after such an event her close family were left with feelings of guilt and wondering if they could have prevented her suicide. However they could have not known as on that day she seemed upbeat and happier than she'd been for a while.

Committing suicide by jumping in front of trains seems to be a fairly common method of departing; people obviously perceive it as a fairly sure way to end it all with minimum planning and props. However if it doesn't work then boy are you in the shite.

I have attended to a lot of jumper incidents during my service in the brigade due to the fact that we have the only underground stn where the Piccadilly line trains go past next to the platform without stopping. Out of the 15+ incidents I have attended three of those (all women strangely enough) survived the impact. Two of those died upon release and one survived. However all these people suddenly realised that maybe they did like life and none of the three told us to f - off and let them die.

I echo the feelings of the other posts in that I sympathise with these people but feel more compassion for the relations left behind by these sad souls.

PS.. Something I forgot, make sure you buy a ticket if you want to check out this way. I don’t know if this is true of all train operators but LUL check to see that you have a valid ticket for your journey to the pearly gates. If not you are deemed to be trespassing and as such are leaving your family unable to seek any recourse and they may also be sued for your actions. Compassionate eh?

[WeeWilly]

Wow!  What a topic.  Yes, I do think that such an act is selfish in an "if I'm ready to die, you lot can all go to h.ll!" kind of way.  You know, rather like Samson's pulling down the pillars of the temple!  In truth  I cannot fathom the suicidal mind, but it is clear to each of us that when we die the universe ends.  Thus a person committing suicide has ceased (reasonably maybe?) to give a flying f... about anyone or anything else (after all, for him we die when he dies), and, as others have mentioned here, this is selfishness of an order that is hard to top!

Odd, even as I write this, I recall a statistic that stated that women were far more likely than men to commit suicide in a clean and tidy way (such as slitted wrists in a bath of water) - where the researcher opined that this was because the women were more likely than men to want to minimize the clean-up work for those left behind!   Apparently, women pretty-well never blow their own heads off with a gun, but men seem to have no such reluctance! 

So what do I know? 

[Muz]

In truth  I cannot fathom the suicidal mind, but it is clear to each of us that when we die the universe ends. 

I cannot either .. but I do understand that people become so debased .. without enough 'ground anchors' that they get driven to unreasonable thoughts .. however this must be compounded time and time again by something from which they have no release hence their spiral downwards

What was your point in the second bit willy ?

[Mr Useless]

I have encountered several of these incidents from time to time from depressed people to drugged up idiots.
         In my list of fun things, collecting and bagging up recognisable parts of human is rather a long way down, If the people who stand in front of a train saw what would happen to them next I doubt they would actually do it. The impact on the friends and family is devastating and will not go away for years unlike the impact on the person.
         I know of a few Drivers who never drive again after such incidents effctively another totally inocent life ruined.
         It is very hard to grasp how low a person could become to contemplate this, I woner if this is a reflection on societys increasingly insular attitude and a general dismantling of the states support for the vunerable.

To suggest they are selfish assumes they are thinking in a reasoned manner this is obviously not the case so i must conclude they are not selfish but in need of help

wow I sound like a social worker

         Christmas time usually provides the highest incidence of this, oh goody goody here we come !!!!!


 

 

[WeeWilly]

Hi Muz...

The point of the second bit was that, after arguing so fervently (maybe?) about the selfishness of committing suicide in public, it is an interesting contrast that women (rather than men) tend to kill themselves in a way that minizes the clean-up problems for those left behind (ie, the least selfish approach).  However, I agree that this probably does not belong in a discussion on whether public suicides are or are not selfish. I was merely musing....

[JinglyOnE]

I just found this interesting article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8456816.stm

[rulaman]

I just found this interesting article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8456816.stm

This is the way my Grandma killed herself when my father was 13 years old. A very sensitive theme is this..., and I have still not found the answer if such persons are selfish...
The only thing I know is that my father and his sister had to identify her, because his father couldn't do it. This all destroyed his childhood, and he therefore destroyed my childhood and my mother's life. Two generations suffering from this action until today, although this happened about 55 years ago.
But I still feel that I don't have the right to judge about her and what she did, because I know that such a person must have experienced a nightmare before doing this.
I really can't answer this...

[Warrior_Saladin]

Its the conclusion one comes to in the end

Is life worth it?
What is the point to life?
Would it be better if there was no life?

Public or Private Suicude.. its the route theyve chosen to the easiest?/comfortable?/make ppl think?