Sometimes I have my doubts about people’s methods. Once in awhile someone will post that they plan to die by dehydration and/or starvation. More frequently we read about someone’s plan to randomly gobble handsful of whatever med’s they might find in their bathroom cabinets. We here empathize with others’ ups and downs. We know what it’s like to get carried away. I’m proud to see the support shared here and sometimes we need to gently write “that’s not going to work” in the best ways we can.
I was pretty sure that I wanted to die at age 13. 41 now, life has been eh so so. I don’t feel angry or bitter and I don’t think it was a “big mistake” to doubt myself and fight 28 years. But let me be clear: at 13 I was correct. People will continue to insist that others’ wishes are ridiculous, right on until the end of time.
Other times us old geezers will write that teenages are “too young, got yer whole life ahead of you” that kinda bullshit. We know that the Earth has really gone to shit on our watch. We’re scrambling to find our nearest exit. We see that younger folks have caught on and by golly they’re finding the exits more quickly.
Oh shit they’re supposed to believe in Santa Claus. They got these touchscreen phones now. Together they figured out that we fucked everything up. To teenagers it’s so obvious they won’t bother to argue. They are quietly sneaking away in an epidemic exodus. Damn the teens are supposed to be “our future,” we must’ve really dropped the ball. The Boomers are gonna give us hell. Oh wait damn the Boomers are killing themselves faster than the teens. There’s another story damn the kids are catching on too she was 8 years old this time..
It’s yet another unintended consequence, another specific problem that’s growing unchecked and it’s terrifying. Denial rescues us again: we dismiss younger people’s efficiency as something to be ignored altogther or misjudged as juvenile. Self loathing is ubiquitous it’s something we can step outside and directly observe in others in any 5 minutes of people-watching. Self loathing is more than “just a theory.” Middle aged folks like myself are also susceptable to self loathing. What’s up with that?
You’ve heard about it before. People postpone their dreams, put ’em up on the shelf. In our minds this begins to feel like procrastination. To silence the nagging voice we’ll tell ourselves that the dream SHOULD stay on the shelf. Denial swoops in to rescue us. “The dream is silly and foolish, we were delusional. And other young people are too.” Denial is projected upon others.
I like to be supportive, and not criticize others. But there’s been a lot of FUD about methods and “concerns” about botched suicide attempts that land us in a brain-damaged vegetative state. I believe that anyone anywhere any-age can decide for themselves when they’ve had enough. But I also think potential brain-damage is an acid test: if being a vegetable until someone unplugs us is so-much-more unsavory than our current life then maybe we should rethink things.
In other words, if being a vegetable seems like an unacceptable step downward then things aren’t bad enough yet.
27 comments
You have hit the bullseye. But society will never accept this. After all what are we but beliefs and norms set by people long ago. If the Bible, the Quran etc had not condemned suicide then people would be flocking by the thousands committing suicide and society would have worshipped them as martyrs. Heck there would be suicide stores, a 1 day suicide hotel and resort to die in the most peaceful way… But thats not the way things are… And the worst part is its the people we leave behind, who will have to suffer the humiliation and agony of our death.
I cant imagine 28 years living like this. I know for a fact ill always loathe myself for not going through with the suicide when I had the chance.. Every year I seem to just get weaker and hate myself even more…
I agree that there is a fate worse than death, or whatever a person’s present circumstance might be. That would be paralysis or a permanent vegetative state.
Did you ever see ‘Million Dollar Baby’? It’s about this woman boxer who becomes paralyzed from the neck down. She asks her trainer, (played by Clint Eastwood), to deliver her from an unpalatable existence. That would be a tough prospect – for both of them.
I dunno. What’s my point? I guess things could always get worse. I like your posts, by the way.
Maybe you feel your 13-year-old self was correct… I feel like my 14-year-old self was correct too. But that doesn’t mean ALL teenagers are. As a general rule I don’t think it’s possible to determine right/wrong until a bit later in life. At least 25, if not older. So… one could say that your 13-year-old & my 14-year-old selves WERE wrong, because we didn’t actually know what was coming (even if we guessed right?).
…I wonder if that makes any sort of sense.
I like your take on the vegetative state thing. My life isn’t bad enough where being in such a state would be better, therefore, I shouldn’t kill myself.
@SadBk
What do you mean by “I don’t think it’s possible to determine right/wrong until a bit later in life. At least 25..”?
Are you saying that you think that people under that age can’t determine right FROM wrong or are you saying something else?
Just curious. I didn’t really understand what you said…
@noonoo12 (nice to see you around again, btw!) I was referring to what coitus said about being “correct,” wanting to die at age 13. I definitely think teenagers know right FROM wrong. I think the experts claim kids don’t really grasp the concept of right and wrong until age 7 or 8? That seems a bit old to me, to not have a basic concept of it. Unless maybe right/wrong before then is all about doing things that either please or don’t please your caregivers. (and of course, mileage will vary on everyone’s definitions of what is right and what is wrong, but that’s another whole topic)
@SadBk
Nice to be back…sort of.
I understood that. Thanks for the clarification. 🙂
But why don’t you think teenagers would be right about wanting to kill themselves?
I know about the hormones and all that shit, but I mean about the ones who honestly have nothing to live for.
@SadBk – I can’t most of what you wrote. But you clearly got my main point. You recognize an acid test when you see one, and you applied it to your current situation:
“My life isn’t bad enough where being in such a [vegetative] state would be better, therefore, I shouldn’t [try to] kill myself.”
MmmmWaaah beautiful I couldn’t have put it better myself. 🙂 Conversely, people like myself in the other camp would feel something like:
“My life is so bad already, that being in a vegetative state would be better. Therefore, it’s probably okay to try to kill myself.”
@noonoo12 Yeah, hormones and “all that shit” — that should be taken into consideration. Even early 20s are a turbulent time and still formative years full of change. The ones who supposedly have nothing to live for MAY have something to live for later — if they haven’t lived on their own yet, they don’t know what life can be like after escaping a bad family situation, or if they haven’t graduated, they don’t know what life after school will be like. Some kids will go on to live decent, meaningful lives.
I’m not saying that kids’ pain shouldn’t be taken seriously, though. I hope it doesn’t come across that way.
I’m also kind of a hypocrite now :\ And I realize people could say the same thing about anyone of any age, that we don’t know what’s coming… I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m not a do-gooder, I’m not gonna try to talk anyone out of it, but I can’t condone anyone else taking their own life anymore, and that’s changed since I first came across this site. So, much as I say I’m “not dead but not alive”… I’m not static either. Things can change.
Apologies if this isn’t making any sense, I guess I’m feeling babbly but not particularly eloquent. (except when am I ever eloquent, bah)
@coitus I know I kinda skipped over a big hunk of your post too. Okay, at least we agree on the one thing 🙂
@SadBk
What if the mere memory of it proves to be too much for them?
Things can always change. What’s to say it will change for the better?
To me, the key word there was “some”. “Some” may not be a big enough percentage (sounds like less than half to me?) to make staying alive reasonable.
Nah I understood all of that. It was good. 🙂
@noonoo12 That’s true, things can get worse, of course. But fucked-up kids have way more potential to create meaningful lives for themselves than old fuck-ups like me do. To be “glass half empty,” yes, some will go on and NOT do that too. And no one is going to go on to live a life free of pain. In a perfect world, kids would have loving parents who teach them the tools to deal with pain, and provide support for them… teach them how to create support systems of their own to help get them through the tough times… but well know this world is far from perfect :\ Some will figure things out without the help of their family. There’s so many factors at play… genetics, culture, experience… Two kids growing up in the same environment can turn out very differently. Some abused kids grow up to become abusers themselves… but some don’t, some break the cycle. What determines this? (being rhetorical here as there is no easy answer) I think I’m getting off topic again. Whatevs.
“Some” may not be enough to give you or anyone else hope… not like I have statistics to pull out of my ass on all this. I don’t agree with The World on some aspects of suicide, but I do find it tragic when a young person’s life is lost, whether by suicide or other causes.
*we all know
Jeez, can’t type.
Anyhow… have a good evening, y’all. I’m going to go see my favorite little 3-year-old friend — she loves life more than anyone I know 🙂
@noonoo12 what happened to all your posts? I liked them you should post a new one. Anyway I hope you’re recovering well.
@SadBk
The younger you are, the more potential – that’s why I think so many people feel it’s more of a loss to lose a child than an elderly person. The child still has potential, while the elder was all burnt out.
And I don’t know any parents who are like that?
I can’t really find what I’m trying to say. I don’t know why I reply at such stupid hours but I’ll forget otherwise.
For me, some is not enough. I don’t like uncertainty. I’m more the glass half empty kind of person.
Hope you had a good night. 🙂
@coitus
I deleted them.
And I don’t think I have anything left worth talking about.
But thanks. 🙂
I still have a massive headache. Is that normal?
Are you doing well? I don’t know if that’s rhetorical seeing as you’re already practicing dying.
No it’s not normal to have a lot of headaches. It’s also abnormal to have lengthy headaches that last more than one day. Chronic frequent lengthy or intense headaches are abnormal and can be serious, they should be reported to a physician as soon as possible.
Most people will get to their doctor quickly. Treatment for headaches is hit or miss and can take weeks or months. Sometimes the cure could be as simple as drinking more water, other times changes in someone’s allergies could be the root cause so you’re gradually managing your headaches in different ways over the years as your allergies change. A recent change in diet or prescriptions or weather/pollens there are so many possible causes so the earlier you seek help, the better.
I get migraines sometimes. Quick things that work for me are 1.) drink lots of water and a little caffeine 2.) take a Claritan in the morning and a Benedryl at bedtime because my migraines are usually allergy related 3.) sometimes I’m sleeping too much so ill need to force myself to sit up and stay awake 4.) two minutes of exercise can kill a headache for me I do a minute of push-ups then a minute of sit-ups 5.) pain relievers Advil or Alleve work for me but I only take these once a week or less because my stomach in particular is really getting tired of life altogether. Aspirin and Tylenol have never worked at relieving any sort of pain for me I don’t know why.
I don’t know girl I’m kinda at the end of my rope. It’s strange like I’ve been here a long time and I’ve been tired a long time. I felt less suicidal in the winter. Lately my moods have been going up and down from morning to night. But they’re flattening out to this inverted plateau that’s low enough where it seems okay to depart. It’s been scary I’ve been looking for any little sparkle to pique my interest in life but maybe my mind has had enough suffering too. Thank God for even wear of our individual organs. 😉
@coitus
I think I’ve been having them for about 7 months. The counselor woman told me it’s “all in my head”? Well thank you lady, I could’ve told you that. I’ve changed nothing in my diet in these past 7 months, only recently have I been eating less, but I was binge eating before, so this is an improvement.
I drink lots of water, I drink tea, I’m no longer allowed around any form of medication, so Paracetamol, Claritan, Benedryl is all out of the window. I have difficulty sleeping, maybe that’s the cause? I do lunges and sit ups most days for about 5 minutes each. Pain relievers have kind of lost their effect with me. I doubt my substance abuse has done anything to help that. Haha.
What do you mean your “stomach in particular is getting tired of life”? It’s not functioning properly?
What had been different in the winter? Is there no way to regain that?
Are you in the stages (if that’s the right word?) of “My life is so bad already, that being in a vegetative state would be better. Therefore, it’s probably okay to try to kill myself.†?
Or are you intent on achieving that sparkle? 😉
I think it’d be weird if you weren’t on this site anymore.
You’re actually part of the reason I come on it. As horrible as it may sound.
They ran a bunch of tests on me and found that some of my headaches are “tension headaches.” For me that was helpful. Most of mine are from allergies to pollens or foods. As I asked around it seems that the older crowds are basically suffering more chronic and severe headaches.
But people get their own systems of treatment and root-cause detection going so that was interesting. People sort of keep it all under their hats too, I ask ’em and there’s tons of wisdom but I guess people will tend not to usually complain openly about headaches.
Yeah I dunno somehow I got the impression that I’m upsetting you, since I guess I’m getting close to the edge. I might as well try to take an organized look at my situation, so I’ve posted “Burdens, Loneliness and Capability” for myself and others to find ourselves in a Venn diagram. I’m guess I’m on the dangerous side of the Veggie acid test. There’s another acid test that I haven’t shared yet basically: I know I won’t “know” I’m dead (because I’ll be dead) but I still want to die.
Should’ve been obvious but it’s a little spooky to think that somewhere on my way to oblivion that I’ll lose all my senses before I “arrive.” Therefore “success” does not include any recognition that we succeded, we may have failed and be a veggie or severely retarded. To fully accept this I think is another acid test. But it’s hard to describe, you know?
@coitus
I think I’ll ask to go to the doctor – sounds like it helped you and I’d rather not have a headache as one of the last sensations I feel before I kill myself.
What I do to try to help is kind of stupid but it can help. I squeeze my head while holding my breath. When I finally gasp for air, sometimes they dissipate. Most of the time it doesn’t work, but when it does, the relief is just wonderful. As if a giant weight had been lifted off my skull.
I don’t know which kind of people you talk to, but the ones I do, ALWAYS, without fail, complain about every little thing. And their “wisdom” is usually just – take an aspirin.
It’s more irritation if I’m honest. And, don’t take this the wrong way, but jealously. You’re getting your shit together and I’m stuck in the same place. I am glad (as glad as one can be when you hear someone is finally near getting rid of all their troubles and pain) that you are near your goal, just a little bit mystified. It gives me a sort of empty feeling to think about someone who had killed themselves. But it’s different now because I have had the chance to talk to them before they do it. Just makes me think is all.
I think you should also post that second test – could help some people.
But I’ll take a look at the other one too. 🙂
I guess people don’t really think about that part. I myself only really think about the pain I’m going to be relieved of and the burdens and the like. Not how I’ll be nothing afterwards. I know it’ll happen, but it’s easier for me to just look it over. It’s not a big detail for me. I’m already essentially a vegetable. I don’t do anything constructive and I hold just about the same amount of knowledge as one. Haha.
I’ve never really thought about the “in between” – you know, the space/time between the next step. Whatever it may be.
You got me thinking coitus. 😉
This SP site is so nice because of people like you noonoo12. And the others that have commented. It’s a tight spot to be in. If I had a previous life then I think it was as a WW2 soldier in European theater. Oddly I feel familiar with a lot of the scenes and situations that are portrayed in the old news reels and whatnot.
Sometimes I feel like I have my back against the wall in a black and white world but with many of you to my left and to my right. Some of us are smoking our last cigarette. Some are cracking jokes. Some are insulting the firing line that’s taking aim at us, some are praying and saying goodbyes.
I’m the guy smoking the cigarette. Ah the camraderie death can bring.
@coitus
Thanks, but people are much different in reality than online. I’m sure you already know that though. Yeah it is unusual to become acquainted with people who are planning to kill themselves. Flawed in a way. It’s interesting that you’d associate with that. I kind of see you as (don’t take this the wrong way) a gruff, weathered man. Fucked up sort of. But that scenario fits it. Haha. Stupid but that’s the way I picture you. 🙂
What are you doing in the black and white world?
@calimike I’m smoking too. I think you’re the one shaking your fist at soldiers on the firing line. Your smoke is bouncing in the corner of your lip as you’re muttering insults at them too. Fuckers.
@noonoo12 Oh I love some of the color photos that come out now and then. Plus the occasional color motion film clips toward the end of the war. Time.com has 19 here but only 2 make my hair stand on end, #4:
http://life.time.com/history/adolf-hitler-at-50-color-photos-from-a-despots-birthday-april-1939/#4
and #6 the others don’t do anything for me.
http://life.time.com/history/adolf-hitler-at-50-color-photos-from-a-despots-birthday-april-1939/#6
@coitus
Why those pictures in particular?
Good question (I don’t really know) it doesn’t happen for footage early in WW2 and it doesn’t happen for anything in the Pacific theater. Saving Private Ryan and the Brothers in Arms series are very similar casted by the same people. There are a few scenes in a few episodes of Brothers in Arms that it happens for me, one in Saving Private Ryan when they reach Pvt. Ryan’s unit at the front.
What I really meant, is that although I’m agnostic I have a soft spot for reincarnation. I’m not a firm believer, but these feelings of having been places in a prior life well I don’t know if it makes sense to deny that I get ’em. If reincarnation happens then it could still be very turbulent and confusing to die, so maybe we’ll still not know we’re dead.
Or if I get reincarnated into a different species, like a robin then maybe being a robin would keep me from knowing I’d died. This test is going to be more difficult to describe if I post it. Maybe you should give it a go?
@coitus
I’ve never seen the Brothers in Arms series. Haven’t even heard of it if I’m honest. But I did like Saving Private Ryan. I liked Matt Damon’s character and how he didn’t want to leave his friends behind. I’m a sucker for shit like that. 🙂
I can understand that. Almost like deja vu? But not.
I quite like the idea of reincarnation. It’s a chance to rebuild and become something completely different. Although you most likely wouldn’t know that you’d even had a past life just as we are now. It’s a comforting thought. Confusing, yes. But liberating also.
I think it’d be quite peaceful to reincarnate as a rabbit. Not that that is relevant in any way.
Yeah right, haha. I’m shit at writing and trying to describe things to people. I think that’s more your field. Why would it be more difficult to describe if you posted it?
Reincarnation would be a curious event. There are cases of people who have memories of other lives, times, and places. I remember watching a documentary from the 70s about it in which people described there old homes. Some of the people had never left there original country yet were astonishingly accurate. There was another case I had seen o. The web about two painters. They both happened to kill themselves coincidently but what was quite odd was they drew virtually the exact same paintings despite being born in different times and the one not having seen the others work…supposedly at least. If reincarnation were true it would bring up a whole mess a questions. I think there simply has to be something else at work there.
I totally agree. There’s stuff that the dominant culture pushes on us (like Christianity) that I would put in a box marked “probably a bunch of crap.”
Then there’s stuff that maybe no one can totally explain, but I’d put into a box called “probably true.” The dominant culture will always be putting the Gilligan and Gomer Pyle’s up there, pretending THEY believe in the “probably true’s,” to shame us away.
I have a lot of probably true’s. Good accounts of UFOs and ESP like “Phoenix Lights” and psychic spies incline me to put them in the probably true’s. Reincarnation (at least for some) is a probably true. Reincarnation is the only probably true that Ive any direct feeling with, albeit weak and vague feelings.
I also think that dying and falling into eternal oblivion is (for some) a probably true. It would be a lot easier to post “We probably won’t know we’re dead” if everyone firmly believed in eternal oblivion.
Everyone knows what a vegetative state is. We can compare being to vegetable to whatever we are now. Some of us will simply shrug and say “Eh being a vegetable is actually better than what I am now.” But whether we’ll be self aware and/or know we’re dead is cloudy because not everyone believes eternal oblivion is a probably true.
@noonoo12 a rabbit is a good one. I lived in Edmonton (Canada) for a couple years. They have these giant rabbits you’d hafta look twice they sorta pass for medium sized dogs when their ears are tucked down. They don’t cause trouble so people let ’em roam and they’re everywhere. They are amazing, fat and round in October then fast and skinny in May. Yeah being a rabbit would be nice. 🙂