Gail Porter says her suicide attempt was selfish

The blurb on the back of Gail Porter's new autobiographical survival story, Laid Bare: My Story of Love, Fame and Survival, frustrates me.

Suffering from bipolar disroder, anorexia and alopecia, Gail sadly overdosed, putting herself in hospital. However even though her actions were almost certainly due to her mental health problems, Gail describes her actions as selfish in a quote on the back cover of the book:

The horrible reality of what I had done, the incredible relief that I was alive and the intense guilt of how selfishly I had behaved [struck me].

Her remark is damaging. I haven't read the book so it may be that the circumstances surrounding her specific overdose were such that it was a selfish action but given her self-disclosed health problems, it seems unlikely. To anyone who, like me, hasn't read the book but unlike me, doesn't realise that suicide is not inherently selfish, that statement could propagate the idea that it is.

I've had numerous arguments about this and it's always the people who've never suffered from a mental health problem who are quick to judge those who have. Suicidal behaviour and deliberate self-harm are symptoms of an illness, just like fitting is a symptom of epilepsy, coughing is a symptom of pneumonia and death can be a consequence of cancer. Whilst people with bipolar disorder can do things to help control it, sometimes the mood swings are so intense that they simply can't be contained.

Added to which, depression usually involves a sense of despair and intense self-loathing, which means that a suicidal person usually believes that their loved ones would be better off without them. Therefore taking an overdose is not a selfish gesture in the eyes of the victim, but a selfless one.

Somebody who feels so low that he or she wants to end their life deserves our sympathy and protection not contempt. Whilst almost dying may have been the wakeup call that Gail needed, she should have been more careful with her choice of words.