Suicide isn’t selfish.
The statement that suicide is an act of selfishness is shortsighted and incorrect. Suicide is an act of pain. The victim feels excruciating emotional pain (sometimes caused or accompanied by physical pain), and disperses that pain onto all who know and care about them (who then pass it on further through empathetic interactions with others). This is seen as a selfish act because it causes pain to others, however it does not create pleasure for the victim. Theft is selfish because it causes pain to another so as to create pleasure for the self. However, suicide does not create pleasure for the victim. It is not an act of selfishness, it is an act of truth and understanding. When the victim feels absolutely terrible and wants to commit suicide, it’s because they want those who care about them to empathize and understand them. If others just go about their daily lives, the are shutting out the real existence of the victim in favor of a false memory and idea of who they are. The act of suicide breaks that illusion and forces them see the victim’s existence as it truly is. If those around them really care about the victim, then they should gladly have their misconception corrected, even if the process is horrifyingly painful. Suicide is an act of sharing, a display of the victim for others to learn from. The only selfish part of suicide is the abandonment of responsibilities, but in a functional society it should be easy enough to shift responsibilities to others if they are really that important. When people call suicide selfish, they are the ones being selfish because they are refusing to understand the victim, or trying to convince those who know the victim to refuse understanding. Calling it selfish means the same thing as “that person wasn’t worth knowing the truth about and it would be better if they just never existed.” It trivializes their pain.