I think most people have some idea of a ‘worthwhile life’. Maybe it involves being in love. Raising a family. Or close friends. Fulfilling work. Expressing yourself creatively. Or just enjoying yourself – sex, drugs, rock & roll (or whatever else floats your boat.)
But for some of us, those meaningful things seem out of reach, or we’re prevented from enjoying them by obstacles. Perhaps we believe ourselves incapable (or undeserving) of love or friendship. Unable to connect with others. Or we’re crippled by extreme social anxiety, and unable to function. Weighed down by feelings of loss or loneliness. Maybe we suffer from chronic pain and disability, and are unable to enjoy the good things around us.
My question is – at what point is it sensible to give up on our hopes and dreams, and take that leap into the dark. When is it a rational, logical decision to end your life, rather than a desperate cry of despair? At what point does the suffering and hopelessness outweigh those ideas of a worthwhile life?
Is life worth living at any cost, even in excruciating pain, with no hope of relief? If you’re elderly and chronically ill, is it sensible to endure your suffering, simply to live for a while longer? Is it always worth clinging on for the sake of relatives who care for you? Or are you one of the many who believe that suicide is a fundamentally immoral act, which would condemn you to some kind of punishment in an afterlife?
What if you’re so morally corrupted that you no longer believe you can ever face yourself in the mirror again, let alone be accepted by others? Should monsters continue on, in loneliness and longing, on the edges of life, once they have recognised their true nature? Should someone live on with their self-disgust and self-hatred until the bitter end?
I know there are lots of troubled young people on this site, many of whom may escape from their despair when they escape their troubled circumstances. But for those of us a little more entrenched in our ways, with less possibility before us – when is it smart to throw in the towel?
In short: at what point (if ever) is suicide a good choice? I’d really like some input on this, as it’s on my mind most of the time. I suffer, I see no way of relieving my suffering, and I wonder whether it’s sensible to continue to do so, for hopes that experience and logic tell me are delusional. I think if I could settle it in my mind, it would be easier to endure.
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I know how I’ve come to the conclusion that suicide is my only way out of this, but that doesn’t mean that the threshhold that you can take isn’t more than mine. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t more worth it than I am. It doesn’t mean that all that you don’t have more people that care about you than I do. As you’ve stated, the reasons we’ve found ourselves here are as different as we are, but so are our tolerances and strengths, so are the worlds we cling so desperately to and sometimes find nothing there…
I know my reasons, and, for me, I know I don’t deserve anything good in my life. I can’t bear to give up on my hopes and dreams, but they have always given up on me and I just can’t take it anymore. I’m not worth it, and have been shown so over and over again, so I am giving up on me, just as my hopes and dreams have always done.
If I felt I had a chance, it would be worth it to try, but after I was the happiest I’ve ever felt and it was all torn away, I just don’t see any chance anymore. I knew I didn’t have a chance before that and tried anyway. It’s taught me it’s time to give up.
And though I believe that I’m not worth saving, I know that everyone else here is, you included, so I’m just trying to help lift up a few others before the fall that I don’t get back up from.
I guess we endure what we have the will to. But should we? Is it good for us to? Is it ‘worthwhile’?
Being trapped between feeling unable to give up your hopes and feeling unable to take anymore is pretty miserable. I’d like to find some kind of rational resolution to that in my mind – to either peacefully give up the ghost, or go on living with real conviction.
I’m pretty sure most people would agree I deserve nothing good from life if they knew what I’d done. But that doesn’t stop me wanting it. Is it rational for someone utterly undeserving of happiness to give up on it’s pursuit? Should self-aware bad people just end it all?
I don’t think I’ve ever been really happy as an adult – just trying to hide from my fears with varying levels of success. It’s hard for me to imagine despair from having lost something, rather than from believing that you could never have it in the first place. From where I am, if I was shown that happiness was possible for me, even if I lost it, that would appear hopeful. But I guess feelings of loss/grief don’t work like that. Your mind attatches happiness to the individual circumstance that was lost, rather than the possible similar opportunities available to you.
I am around 50. What you said about any hope being delusional really hit home with me. After literally years of thought, I feel certain that suicide is the most rational course of action for me. If I was younger, perhaps I would feel differently. But to continue to suffer with no realistic hope of anything changing is irrational behavior. If I could just find the will to pull the trigger.
I think it comes down to our own perception of what makes life tolerable or unbearable. But that too can be influenced by being enlightened by others. I’ve been rethinking my situation lately with the amount of people who have told me that if they were a fat, ugly, pathetic cock-less freak like me that they would have killed themselves years ago. Maybe I have been underestimating people’s ability to put themselves in my shoes and imagine what it would be like to live my life.
Maybe people do realize what quality of life a hideously ugly, disgustingly fat, cock-less freak like me would have to endure. Maybe their advice is what I should be considering. I think that the difference is that these normal people have experienced normal lives and relationships and find it difficult to imagine going through life alone and never having their own family, never experiencing love, affection or companionship or never experiencing most things in life that they take for granted.
I, on the other hand have never experienced any of these things and although I have been suffering severe depression all of my adult life and that I hate myself and my life, I have no real concept of what life could be like or how happy or content I could be if I were not a fat, ugly, cock-less freak. So it is very likely that the only reason that I am still alive is because I have no real concept of how happy other peoples lives are and no concept of how truly pathetic and intolerable my existence really is.
I think that makes me feel even more depressed. I have no idea how happy and fulfilling life is for normal people so I am blindly plodding along tolerating a life so pathetically intolerable that normal people can not entertain the idea of living this way and would instantly choose suicide rather than having to live my life. I guess the saying “Ignorance is bliss,” is correct in my case. If I knew better, then I’d know that, I’d be better off dead.
If you are feeling that you don’t deserve to live because you have done bad things, you should consider the fact that you realize what you did was bad and you are feeling remorse simply by questioning you worthiness to exist. This acceptance and remorse indicates that you are far from a totally bad person who does not deserve to live. We all make mistakes in life and acceptance of being human and making mistakes but feeling remorse for those mistakes makes you a decent human who does deserve to live.
Anyone who tells you that is an asshole. Remember that.
I think I do have a real concept of other people’s happiness, and what it might be like if I was not as I was – which hurts. But if your experience of life is tolerable, then that’s enough in itself. I don’t think you can be wrong in your actual experience. Those who might choose suicide rather than live your life would be acting out of a sense of loss of what they once had, not some objective assessment of your life’s actual value.
My experience of life often feels intolerable – but I wonder if there’s some way to sensibly weigh that experience against other factors.
I don’t think realizing that what you’ve done (and the parts of you that want to act like that) is bad is the same as remorse. I feel sorry for myself that I’m this screwed up person, rather than sorry for what I’ve done. Even if I determine that I don’t deserve to exist, that doesn’t mean I’m going to do the world a favour and remove myself from it. My reasons for suicide would likely be as selfish as any other act. I wouldn’t claim to be a completely bad person – only one rotten at the core. There’s plenty of aspects of my personality that can be benevolent and altruistic. But the central psychology behind it is pretty awful. I don’t think it’s a mistake if it reflects a core part of your enduring personality, Even if I don’t deserve to die (which many would disagree with), I certainly don’t deserve to be happy. And yet still I hope.
Suicide is a good choice when your pain supercedes your worry of hurting those around you. When the pain threshold gets too great to bear. Suicide isn’t selfish. I think it can be another form of self care. Just like anything else sometimes you gotta put yourself first; you’re going to die at one point. People will have to deal with the loss at one point or another. It’s not their timeline to choose.
I guess in that case it’ll just happen when it happens. Either a point will come when my negative experiences overwhelm my desire to protect my relatives. Or it won’t, and I’ll just keep enduring that pain until they die first (could be another 25 years). Which is kind of bleak. At the moment, my mind constantly flicks between ‘I’ve got to find a way to stop this’, and ‘no, I don’t want to do that to them.’
yeah man. common inner conflict of the pain is too intense and i must live to overcome this battle. much of my conflict now isnt even about them but just me wanting to set an example of someone that can overcome tremendous adversity
I think the only time it’s rational is when intractable health issues are involved – just being blunt. I suppose it depends on how you define rationality. My main problem with it is the subjective nature of personal perspective. We’re all delusional. Healthy people no less than anyone else. People define the way they see the world by what they’ve learned of it, and that definition can be turned upside down at the drop of a hat, by the most seemingly insignificant events. That’s all me thinking thoughts and words and ideas, though. The reality is a much more complicated mess.
I concede that any personal perspective is going to be subjective. But I’d want to hang on to the idea that there are more and less optimal ways to react to that perspective. Otherwise what basis can you have for saying some people are mentally healthy and some not? If it’s all the same, what basis can you have for making any decision?
While a person’s worldview can be turned upside down at any point, there are also consistent trends in the way most people think about the world, that seem to hold true most of the time.
I guess what I’m saying is that probability is preferable to randomness.
Well, for me, the idea that perspective is subjective doesn’t mean either side is relative to the other – it means the results of a given perspective are the important part. We live in an objective world – a lot of things aren’t so totally subjective as one’s internal mental state, but that state changes and is very malleable. And to me, that seems to imply that coping in general has more to do with altering perspective than it has to do with altering circumstances. The circumstances change after one’s perspective changes. Otherwise, you end up with depressed/anxious/miserable people moving from one set of circumstances to the other with their depression/anxiety/misery in tow, and that effectively solves nothing. If that were the only option, then suicide would always be rational. The fact that the very idea of suicide baffles a lot of people tells me that the way I interpret my circumstances might be a bigger part of the problem. Frankly, I’d like to be one of those people who can’t understand it. I wish everyone could be one of those people.
I suppose you’re right. If your perspective changes – or rather your experience of your perspective – then I guess the problem is solved. If your experience of your perspective is ‘I’m loving my life, it’s great’, then even if your circumstances might seem unpromising to others, you’re happy.
But the question then becomes how to change the way you experience your perspective. So that you’re happy without needing the acceptance of others, friends, romance, etc. So you don’t experience constant symptoms of anxiety, or don’t view those symptoms as anything alarming. So that you’re happy with your chronic pain and discomfort. And you don’t feel loss.
While it can certainly adapt rapidly, I just don’t think the human mind is that malleable, despite the attempts of psychology and psychiatry to make it so. If you detatch perspective completely from circumstance I think you’d end up with some kind of zombie, unreactive and unrelenting in it’s optimism. If no circumstance is viewed as preferable, but merely a matter of perspective, then life loses meaning.