I’ve been thinking about suicide for the last 15 years and at times, the only thing stopping me from doing it was fear of pain and surviving with brain damage (I could only kill myself with a gun or possibly hanging if I could figure out how to get partial suspension hanging right). But I realize that there are things that could make my life better and stop me from considering the suicide route, if only temporarily.
For me, it would have to be forging a deep important commitment to someone or something. I would have to learn to forget or not think about all the terrible things that are in my memory that constantly torture me. I still have hope that I can make this happen, but I’m still clutching the suicide option closely in case I need it down the road.
So, what would have to change for you all to make you step away from the ledge? Do you think you can still make it happen?
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Electric Shock Treatment or Lobotomy. Or…the realization that life isn’t all that serious…Ya know, we live….we die. The space in between is such a fleeting instant how can we take it so damn seriously. Good stuff happens, bad stuff happens, nothing happens all in a finger snap of time, then we die. Then if we suicide we get to die early. So, we cut out 20, 30, 40 years out of infinity..OUT OF INFINITE TIMELESSNESS. Think about that for a second. Life’s a joke, so ya might as well laugh.
I used to be nihilistic about life and at times I’ve considered suicide just out of believing that my existing is basically pointless in the grand scheme of things.
Nowadays, I’m not so nihilistic and I don’t think about it anymore. It doesn’t bother me if my life is just pointless atoms crashing into each other in a cosmic blink of an eye. The only thing I care about now is whether I WANT to live or not. I have concluded that I can accept nihilistic beliefs so long as I have the desire to live.
I’m in chronic pain that won’t ever get better. Due to the government regulations there has been a cut back on the meds I’d been taking for 15 years. So now I have to make do with lower quality meds while my pain level stays the same. I don’t want to live like this. Sometimes when the pain is bad I bite down on a cloth to stop from screaming. As i never know when it will get bad, and the pain drops me to my knees instantly, I rarely go out. I can’t do alot of the things I use too. Not a great quality of life.
There’s more reasons but that’s the big one for me. So for me to decide to stay I’d need my pain to stop. But isn’t that true for most of us? Whether its physical, mental, or emotion… Or all of those. We all just want the hurt to stop. And if we can’t find a way to make that happen then our thoughts turn to suicide.
Amen – the doctors are so gun-shy now that they make patients sign contracts under the threat of losing their services if they don’t tow the line. Unfortunately, my pain doesn’t respect rules or boundaries so when it gets out of control I can no longer maintain my livelihood or function to any degree.
The system doesn’t give a shit about that. Maybe if I could walk on the beach again or go to the park with friends or my dog I’d think less about putting a bullet in my head.
This is a great question.
But absolutely nothing would change my suicidal thoughts because unfortunately it’s just a bizarre obsession I have. It only worsens when things aren’t working out for me. I could have my “ideal” life and still think about suicide.
I can sort of relate to this. I was relatively happy has a teenager and into my early 20’s, despite my terrible memories and experiences, but even then I still thought about suicide a lot. Even if everything works out for me and I get what I want and need, I’d still keep my handgun around and maybe buy a shotgun, even though they would literally serve no purpose other than to use in committing suicide. I have very strong beliefs about the morality and legal status of euthanasia and assisted suicide and those will definitely never leave me.
I would have to get over my social anxiety. And I would have to somehow feel okay about still being here.
For me… The thing that keeps me from trying suicide again is my little one… I try … Each day is hard, but I don’t my little to grow feeling lost and alone because I am not there…
I feel lost and alone a lot because I feel as if I have no one so I keep going to spare those same feelings for some one else to feel.. But don’t get me wrong, every day is a struggle…. All I can do is try
You’re a good person.
Thank you…
Literally everything in my life would have to change 180 degrees.
All it takes is for me to come out of a depressed phase and into a mixed or manic phase. Then with little warning back I come to the brink..
A time machine.
What would you be able to do with a time machine that would make you happy? I can see it would be really interesting though..
Yea, a time machine sounds like a great idea.
I agree. I could fix everything with a time machine, as long as the butterfly effect doesn’t F me.. All I’d have to do is save him… Just one simple act…. And my life would be peachy again.
what do with out one i’m saying we all would go back but we can not
The possibilities are endless with a time machine. Just knowing what you know now. Would change a lot, no?
If you mean as in I could go back in time and live my life again knowing what I know now – then I wouldn’t want to, living my life once was waay enough.. my issues are unfortunately down to mental illness. I honestly dont see how I could change anything.
No actually, scratch that – it would be good to go back in time to give me aged 14 the money for a private psychiatrist and tell him to do a specific diagnostic interview for bipolar and borderline pd instead of waiting 10 years for the NHS to get round to it. And tell me to lay off the hard drugs, they didn’t help one bit. But – if at age 14 I met some guy saying he was me from the future telling me all that – i would probably tell him to fuck off..
You’ve made some valid points.
If I really had a time machine, I’d stop my parents from creating me, but I guess that’s like suicide anyway.
But short of erasing myself from history, I’d tell younger me that the adults in her life are all assholes and she shouldn’t take any of them as a model for how to live life or how to interact with this world. I’d show her the mess of a human being that came out of her trajectory and hopefully it would be enough to make her reconsider her decisions in life and school and relationships.
I never really step away, but I backed away and sometimes forgot I was near a ledge when things were good with my ex. Having someone that committed to me and being that committed to her made the abject hopelessness that has gotten to me again to this point something of a memory. The feelings would return but I could withstand them by talking. I’d look over the ledge, but would look back and could never hurt her like that.
I was more confident and the social anxiety became more of a social awkwardness that I didn’t really care about because I had all I needed at home. The depression never goes away but it’s more manageable. In a nutshell, having someone in my life like that brought me back from being on the edge and anchored me to the surface keeping me unable to fall over it.
Maybe you all think that’s stupid but it’s the only time in my life I wasn’t in the red and while close friends can turn me away from the ledge, their tethers aren’t strong enough. It’s like the stronger the bond, the stronger the tether.
I wish I could anchor myself to the earth just for myself, but I can’t. I’m not worth it. Perhaps all the bullying I endured has made me feel so worthless that I need someone to go so far as to dedicate their life to me so that I feel that am worth it. The reason it is specifically that I believe is because my mother’s constant worrying and clinging while I was growing up – not that I blame her. There’s other reasons too as there as the feelings began before I started getting bullied but haven’t figured out what it is yet…maybe it’s just inherent in me – I don’t know.
I feel the same way. Only reciprocated love and commitment is going to save me.
For awhile, I was totally happy with pursuing goals like mastery of music and career and education. I think I’d still need these things to some extent, but they are no longer sufficient for me by themselves.
Same thing. Work still serves as a distraction and I still have my work ethic but I take no joy in music (or other hobbies) anymore.
I wish I could be birthed with better genes, so I could be light skinned and attractive.
I’m sure you’re gorgeous. <3
I’d have to wake up from my horrible, nightmare riddled coma, to find that my husband is alive and well.
I don’t think I’m in a coma, though, and I think he really is dead.
Though sometimes in my most suicidal and morbid moments I wonder, maybe I AM in a coma (cuz I’m losing touch with reality since he passed, kinda like glitches in the matrix, that make me question whether I’m living in a real world or a fabricated facsimile of one) and if I kill myself in my subconscious, that that will be what makes me wake up.
If only, if only…
I’m still not sure that all of this “reality” exists and whether everything I see, hear, do, experience etc… is merely my own conscious’ projection putting my soul through a test of some sort.
I know what you mean. I struggle with the concept of “reality” on a daily basis. I don’t know if I’m in shock still, but I don’t feel things anymore. It’s like, I feel everything through a thick haze. Even when I sliced my arms open, I barely felt it, and then I tranced out, like I wasn’t even there and it didn’t really happen. I didn’t feel any pain until hours later.
But maybe it isn’t his death… I’ve never had the best grip on reality to begin with.. Maybe I’m just losing my mind. I don’t know, and I’m not even sure if I really care. I just don’t know what to believe anymore.
During the absolute saddest and lowest point of my life, when I was just counting down the days of the handgun waiting period waiting to die, I was constantly praying that waking life was just a dream. A crazy inversion happened where I kept dreaming about the life that I needed and was taken away and I woke up every day and immediately began crying when I realized that it was all a dream and my waking life was the real one.
I still fall into this mode of wishful thinking where I imagine that this is all a dream and that I’m going to wake up soon and everything will be OK.
Sounds like PTSD (not a Dr here). I experienced the same after my mother suicided near 20 years ago. It’s a hellacious journey to endure the loss of a loved one. If I read correctly, you or your husband are/were 29. So young to die and so young to be a widow.
I want to die a lot of the time, too. I keep going even though I fear my lack of sleep is going to do me in anyway. I hope it gets better for you. For me.
I meant to comment to EvilKitten, but maybe I put my previous comment in the wrong place? Hmm.
I hear you, 45caliber. Maybe we’re all in a fucked up (pardon my language) coma, but able to communicate with each other… Or perhaps none of us really exists at all.. I have trouble with reality. Apparently a lot of trouble, haha.
For my apartment to quit smelling like cow poop or my nasty upstairs neighbor, for the bugs (I swear I could open a museum of entomology/ I might as well be living outside) to disappear, and I’d like to be able to sleep like a normal person.
I will add that I don’t necessarily want to die as much as I want my problems to be fixed so I can go on to the things I want to do: Have a baby, own a home, draw, and be in a mutually fulfilling relationship with a good man. But it always feels like so much is in the way. Maybe I’m just in my own way.
One thing that keeps me going is developing some spiritual tools (I got an image of wizardas and wands) but really.
I spent the good part of my twenties picking apart AA (staying sober in general) and religion. Then I went to rehab. AA is fine. A religious practice (if you are already not a nut) can be something deeply profound while providing guidance. Of course there is a way to make a mockery of everything.
Praying/meditating keeps me going. Hate to say it. I would have sooner died than to admitt how much better I feel after each, though I still resist a spiritual practice like crazy because I am neurotic and stubborn.
I don’t even know why I am depressed most of the time. I don’t know why I am sad. I don’t know why I can’t get over my fear of disappointment. I would need to find evidence of possible happiness or find someone who has the promise to make me happy, but everyone says depression never really goes away, even with the right medication. I am only 15 years old and do not want to live the rest of my life feeling like this.