i’ve never heard someone think this way before, so it did shock me but idk how to feel about it. so, basically, he said that while the general belief seems to be (the stuff i’ve come across) that you should try to help a depressed person feel better and talk them out of (idk how much i can say) doing something bad to themselves if they’re considering it, that it’s actually selfish to do. he also said that people who feel/think this way are angels being called to heaven because they were too good for life on earth, and that you should respect a person’s wishes to die or a depressed person’s wish to not get better or else you’re a toxic and bad person.
i’m just curious because i don’t know if i can trust or agree with much of anything my ex says because of how he treated me and how he’d make fun of my mental health and make mean jokes/bully me for not wanting to talk to him because he’d ignore me and my anxiety, he’d just laugh at me when i said i was depressed or anxious.
You cannot determine whether an action is selfish without knowing the motivation behind it, so an absolute like “trying to prevent someone from committing suicide is selfish” is categorically false. I can imagine someone being motivated to keep someone else alive to exploit them or to avoid personal inconvenience, but I imagine genuine concern for another’s wellbeing is generally a much bigger motivation.
Also, I would not entertain the angels being called to heaven thing. I would be already wary for it glamorizing suicide, but it contradicts Christian teachings anyway. As far as I know, no branch of Christianity has dead human souls become angels. Angels would have either existed from before creation or else been one of God’s earlier creations before man in Genesis.
I don’t want to casually throw out advice without knowing more about the situation, but your ex seems to be very manipulative. I would distance yourself from him if possible.