The Reasons I Fell For You

Important message/ Authors note

Hey guys, sorry it's been so long since I posted but a lot has happened as I will go on to explain bellow, this may be upsetting to a few so please don't complain that I didn't warn you.

'Suicide is selfish' how many times have you heard that phrase, I know I have heard it a good amount of times. Suicide could be seen as selfish in many ways, like what would it do to the people you left behind? What about the people that have to find you, or tidy up the mess you left behind? But what I don't get is surly if someone died suddenly from natural causes you would be just as upset?

One instance of this phrase being said, that has stuck out to me is when I was eating lunch with two of my friends the other day, one of them mentioned something about how someone jumped in front of the train her mother was on. The first thing I heard the other say was 'how selfish of that person.' For a while, I believed that until an event happend to me 2 weeks ago changed my feelings on the matter.

Just the weekend before this conversation my friend tried to kill herself, I had spent hours that night and the next day trying to contact her, I was scared. Not because I wanted anything to have happened, but because I was thinking how selfish it was for her to leave me at this moment in time after I had already lost 3 people and I couldn't bare to think of losing a fourth, also the fact I had my mock exam I had to revise for, I had homework, which all seem a little meaningless compared to what was happening at that moment in time.

After 20 hours of leaving a goodbye note she finally made contact with me, we had a long heart to heart, and found out how she was feeling. She felt like she was wasting the last year of her life as she isn't doing psychology next year, and the one topic she wanted to continue was being shut down, so she couldn't get into the university she wanted as she wouldn't be able to complete the A level for the course she needed. For her, her whole life was falling apart. She had already met her hero's so what was the point continuing for her?

That's when it hit me she wasn't the one being selfish it was me for wanting her to stay so I wasn't sad so I wasn't without my friend so I would pass my exams, not just because she wouldn't be around but for my own good. This was when I changed my mind, suicide isn't selfish, it's tragic. If it feels like that's the only answer for someone then something ,must be wrong with the way mental health is viewed. You can't simply call into work sick because you have clinical depression but somehow you can if you have cold. The current average waiting time for teenage therapy is 2-3 months to be evaluated never mind seeing someone on a regular basis, so how can it be seen as selfish when the government isn't trying to save people's lives? that's why I think suicide isn't selfish if it takes that long to see a professional for help.

Don't see suicide as selfish it is a last resort for someone who needs help but there isn't enough help out there to save them. I know in the case of my friend that there was just too much, the grades she was being expected to get, the subjects that her mother wanted her to do, lack of friends who actually cared about her. A lot of things pushed her to attempt what she did, but it isn't selfish. All I have to say is since when is grades more important than the mental health of your child? Instead of making the education system harder, we should be trying to make the health system better so there aren't any more tragedies.

So what do you think? Was it selfish what she did? Or was it just a last resort for a desperate person?