I’m 35. Work as a mental health professional. It’s strange but all these years suicide was never something I ever contemplated in the slightest. I’ve never really been depressed. I don’t think I’m clinically depressed at the moment. Maybe burnt out and not in the best mood but by no means depressed.
Over the last few months I’ve realized that the decisions that I made to move to a new country have come with with a rash of problems that while not catastrophic have caused incredible stress, heartache, homesickness and problems advancing my career. I’m getting a feeling that some of these problems may well have permanent or at least have long term consequences. For the moment Im stuck here and cant move. I’m single and my family does not live here but I’ve got a fair few close friends here. My closest friends though are still in Europe.
The problems I having with distance, homesickness, hating where I am, hating the stickiness of my career while friends are advancing theirs have made me feel quite desperate.
I seem to find solace in looking up suicide methods – in a sense this is so weird because working in mental health the shoe has been on the other foot for so long. I’ve got a deeper understanding for people’s pain – although I can’t say that this is a good thing for me.
It seems comforting that if things get too hard I could off myself. I’m thinking hanging or an overdose would be the most convenient for me. helium hood seems too cumbersome. I really don’t know if I’ll ever have the courage to do it and I know I’ll plunge my friends and famy into a world of utter pain. I’m strangely equanamous about it though. We’ll have to see what happens when I really fall off the deep end. At the moment it seems like I’m getting some solace in planning and ruminating about suicide.
Has anyone found that planning suicide actually helped ease the pressure and allowed them to cope? Funny thing is I’m fluctuating wildly between suicidal thoughts and wanting to spiritually transcend what I’m going through – ego death.
I don’t know what I’m saying. On the face of it my life is not so terrible. On the other hand I feel a sense of impending doom and a feeling that things are irretrievably fucked up. I blew it and just have to live with it.
I also think off the zillion other radical things I could do instead of killing myself. I could give it 5 years and do it on my 40th birthday. Or get up to any number of other crazy things eg: become a buddhist monk. After all what do I have to lose if my only other option is to kill myself? I have the energy and am able bodied. In my case ( not judging anyone else here who may have serious life problems and chronic depression ) Suicide seems like a laudable and cowardly response to stuckness, loss of status and humiliation.
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I’ve found comfort in researching and planning suicide. Cutting helps a little too but nothing to me is quite like the feeling I get from planning. Nothing is quite like cutting either. I don’t know why but when I look down at my ‘battle scars’ (what my friend called my cuts) I’m like, proud. I don’t want to die as bad anymore but I still find comfort in planning and reading about it and reading peoples stories.
I do not think that suicide as an option is a cowards act or response to a situation that hurts more than is human. There are a whole heap of different things you could do though.
My number one on the list is to just drop everything, leave – take whatever money you have and hit the road and travel the world. Just keep moving, keep experiencing and maybe things will get better. My least suicidal days are when I am on the move (I feel no happiness and I am not enjoying myself, but I am trying not to die at that moment).
I have tried an overdose 5 times and despite copious amounts of sleeping pills, anti vomit pills and alcohol I have survived (ok twice I was saved in hospital, but still). I spend huge amounts of time figuring out the next method and I know what that will be and it will work. The helium hood I have read many peoples take on, especially on this website and honestly, it seems a very cumbersome and weird way to do it. There are simpler, easier and quicker ways. Finding a dead body has not got to be fun, but one with a hood and tubes and gas tanks, just too surreal for my liking.
I think what I am trying to say is, if you can see past your pain, then do whatever you can to just get out of the situation, buy some time traveling and pick life up in a few years if you are still alive. That is what I would really like to do, but I feel stuck. I am trying to work past that stuck feeling, because I know if I could get past that, I would just leave, just literally appoint an estate agent to sell my apartment and leave and never get in touch with anybody here ever again.
Same here, though the comfort of planning the suicide fades when the plan is complete! I know how to do it, have read Final Exit twice and know how best to achieve it without making a mess for others or risk failure and ending up a vegetable that is even more of a burden than a suicide. If you have not read the book, do. Although it is meant for people facing terminal, illness, not depression, to me depression IS a terminal illness. What else do you call something that takes over your life and makes you want to die?? DUH! Anyway – I totally sympathize with finding benefit in planning. It is another way, sometimes seems the only way, to grab the steering wheel and take control of a ghastly situation. I can’t stop the self loathing, the ennui, the anger, I HAVE TRIED. So what can I do? Well, it WILL stop when my heart stops beating. So that is a measure of control, a feeling of control, illusion or not, it does help releive some of the horror.
Thanks guys. Dawn i feel for your pain. Well its interesting to know that planning works for others too. Everlasting, what are the simpler ways you speak of? Yes adventuring and doing things apart from planning is probably the way to go for me. I think planning will get old after a while. Partial Suspension hanging seems to be the way to go.
I have a therapist who I confide in. Not to the extent where I discuss planning in detail cause then she’d be forced to report me. I want to see how else I can channel or transcend my pain in creative ways.
Themaskoftom I have read the final exit book and the peaceful pill book but it seemed like the setup required was way more tricky then I’d anticipated.
Thanks. I’ve come up with a plan that seemed to work for me and was pretty simple. I had a date set too but a different plan got in the way. A person who wanted to take me out after school for a day. She’s the only person I didn’t want to let down so I decided to wait and hang out with her that day later in the week. That was a few weeks ago. Tho a lot has been happening lately- too much. And I’m more stressed out than ever. I’m going to try to leave. My friends mom already said I could stay with them untill school ends. I just have to figure out how to get past my grandparents but I need to get out of this house. It’s a cage and it’s he’ll. I’m just trying not to kill myself before summer. Spending the summer with my mom.
Dawn – could I ask you how old you are and why you want to kill yourself?
I’m 15 and honestly I can’t think of anything at the moment. Maybe it’s just because I don’t want everyone else to see… Maybe if we emailed I could tell you some of the reasons
15, wow thats young. But hey at 35 many would comsider me to be in my prime. Sure email me on zapdingbat@gmail.com