Is suicide a selfish act

So many people left hurting and wishing they could have helped!

No, it is not a selfish act at all. I do speak from experience.

I suffer with severe recurrent depression. Currently I am well. When the depression is very deep, your mind has an altered state. The suffering is immense and difficult to describe to someone who has not experienced it. You are only existing and your brain is tortured. There aren't any positve thoughts.

You really do feel and BELIEVE (in this altered state of mind), that your family and friends would be better off without you. There can be immense guilt for what you are putting others through...no matter how many times they tell you it's ok. Sleep can be so disturbed, you can go 3 nights without any sleep at all and then when sleep does come, it may only be for a few hours.

There seems to be no way out. If you can imagine that you are burning alive, well severe depression can be a torturous as this.

I only ever believed that depressison was a feeling of being low and unmotivated....it can be so much more than that at its worst as I discovered when I first became unwell.

The thing to remember is that the mind is unstable and sees everything from a very distorted perspective and suicide does seem as though it's the only answer and perhaps the right thing to do for everyone concerned.

To anyone who has lost someone through suicide I would say, they were not being selfish but driven into taking their lives because of an illness which can be very debilitating.