A Different Perspective

I just stumbled across this site and skimmed some posts and comments and a lot of it seemed so familiar. The issues as well as the advice. Personally, I never found certain kinds of advice helpful but I will refrain from pointing out specific ones and instead just share my story and hope it will help people who are tired of the same old cliched phrases. If not… I think Doug Stanhope is absolutely right when he says (paraphrasing): “Life is like a movie. If it is shitty every step of the way, you shouldn’t blame somebody for walking out early.”

And I am going to post the gist of it first, for those of you who don’t care about the background (if you do, please read the section “My Personal Background” at the bottom first):

I had often contemplated suicide from about the age of 15 up to that point and I felt that this was the time to finally do it. But I suppose it is true that people who actually commit suicide don’t think. Because after preparation, I thought. And my thought was the following:

Finally, relief. But how will I feel relieved?

Yes, I would not feel this horrible pain any more. But I would not be able to feel anything any more. Which also means no relief. I tried to picture myself being dead. Not being able to feel, think or perceive anything. And I couldn’t help but think: What point is there in doing it if I won’t even feel relieved? If I won’t feel just “nothing” but I won’t feel at all? Hell, if I won’t even “be”?

This is by the way also no story of somebody “has survived and feels alright/good/happy now”. I am 28, have NO friends by now, my career is progressing awfully, can’t even afford to pay someone to listen to me, nothing I say means anything to anybody (about ten years ago I could at least inspire/help some people) and the last time a woman even so much as grazed me arm was FOUR years ago. And I was absolutely right about never meeting somebody like her again.
But since that night, the shittyness and beauty of life are constantly duking it out in my head and I have never contemplated committing suicide again – I’d rather feel pain than nothing at all. And if you really imagine it, maybe you’ll find that you do too.

===== My Personal Background =====

My teenage years weren’t exactly happy. I’ve gotten to know people who had it worse and if you read this, you may just have it worse but as someone I once admired put it: “Feeling shitty is relative, I suppose”. And if somebody says your problems aren’t a big deal or you should “just get over it”, even though you feel like shit, I would tell them to… well… I don’t want to “spout hate”, so let your imagination run wild.

Anyway. I barely had any friends, was fighting with both of my parents (which was new because my mother was the “good one” throughout my childhood. But during my teenage years, she became as much of a pain as my father always was. It was not just a rebellious teenager thing either, my mother said she regrets some of the things she said/did back then. But my parents are a whole topic in and of themselves. Let’s just say throughout my whole life they are/were mostly just financial support, not emotional), was an outsider and got frequently picked on at school, struggled to get through school too and girls had zero interest in me. And especially the last thing was what depressed me the most because it seems that my whole life, I just wanted to find someone I could love and who would love me back. The depression from the loneliness was so bad sometimes that random people asked me whether I was physically sick.

But the actual story begins a little after that. I had already dated a bit. It was still tough and I only had one girlfriend but at least I knew what it could feel like if someone loves you back. At the same time it was probably unfortunate that I did. Because I met this woman… I think it was about ten years ago, I was 20 and she was 24. She seemed very different from all other girls/women I talked to before (more mature and had great taste in everything), we hit it off very well immediately. I felt like she was the one I could share my life with. We initially got to know each other online and even before we exchanged pictures, we talked for hours on the phone and the harmony between us was just stunning to me. To then discover that she was also pretty hot was just too perfect (these days, I would see what followed coming). Shortly before we first met in person, she told me that I would be the most remarkable person she has ever talked to.

And then we met. To cut a slightly longer story short, we spent a whole night talking. I was falling in love with her very much when somewhere around 3 A.M., she said she thinks I am hot and that she masturbated thinking about me. And that she would love to have some “fun” with me. I believe she even flat-out said she wanted to have sex. Under any other circumstance, I would have felt incredibly lucky to be offered that from a woman that gorgeous. But I was falling in love with her. I wanted to hold her, caress her – not fuck her. But she just said that while she still thinks that I am an incredible person AND she finds me very attractive, “there’s something missing”.

Getting home, heartbroken, I thought to myself the same thing I have thought to myself for a long time: Life lived alone isn’t worth living. With the important difference that I thought I would never again meet somebody like her. After all, all the girls/women before her could not even hold a candle to her, so what were the chances of meeting another person like her AND who loved me back?
So I said to myself I might just as well end it now.