For the past 6 months I’ve been suicidal, and since perhaps, 3-4 years back I’ve always thought my death would be by suicide, sooner or later. In august last year, I began studying at uni, to become a nurse. I’ve never had many friends – or rather, I can only recall 2 good friends in my entire life, and I lost them both. So I’ve been lonely, for most part of my life. I was bullied extensively at school, I don’t know when it began – perhaps even at kindergarten. I honesly don’t really remember much of my life, I don’t want to remember. I wasn’t exactly abused at home – my parents tried their best I’m sure, but it ended up a mess anyway. Of what I can recall, mental health problems and economical problems were… Common, to say the least, in my childhood household. So to sum things up – from an early age I had a bad life, both at home and at school. It was as if my life was tailored to develop some serious mental disorder.
And it did. When I started studying at the university, I thought… here’s my chance, my fresh start, now things will finally begin to get better! I’ll get friends, I’ll study to become something I want…
But it obviously didn’t turn out so fantastic. I suppose I made some friends, I wasn’t bullied or completely alone by any means… But it still felt like I was a bit of an extra. I always felt like I was left behind, like I wasn’t invited to all the parties and social events, and so on… Maybe some of that was just my mental issues speaking, but to a certain degree there was probably some truth in all that aswell. I wasn’t popular, of course there were social events I wasn’t invited to… But I blew everything out of proportion, and I slowly began to develop a serious depression.
I’ve probably been depressed to various degrees before, for many, many years I don’t remember anything other than being this cold, sad, cynical and angry guy who just never talked to anybody. Thinking about how I would kill myself in a distant future… and so on. Perhaps if I had gotten help at that stage, things would never have gone this far. But this time, 6 months ago – I began to think about killing myself not in the distant future – but right there and then. I felt like, no matter how many “fresh starts” I have, I would still end up being alone. I felt like my family is all shit, and there’s noone else who likes me either. The things I did everyday just felt worthless, so why continue living. For several months, suicidal thoughts haunted me every single day. Skipping forward, I ended up being hospitalized not once, but 3 times in the past 3 months. Once in november, once in december, and once in febuary this year. I got a therapist after around 2 months of waiting time, at a specialized clinic, but I ended up quitting. She didn’t help me, she rather made things worse – atleast it felt like so. It felt like she judged me for cutting, and like she had a tendency of getting into blown out arguments with me.
As of now… I have a doctor hanging over me. She called me probably… 4-5 times last week, eager to do a interview that will finally put the diagnosis on paper. She is certain that I have borderline personality disorder, but the god damn system requires interviews and whatnot. Sure, I see the point in having to do interviews and so on… But the issue is, it takes forever for doctors/psychologists/clinicians to do these things. It takes forever until I can even begin the actual treatment for whatever it is I am suffering of. If I had begun DBT a month ago, I would probably not be at this point right now. But now… Now I don’t know anymore.
The rules of this board forbid me from mentioning specific methods, but… I tried killing myself last week, but I could not fulfill it. I didn’t have the comittment to overpower the panic, adrenaline rush, and the survival instincts that control you when you are standing on the brink of death. So for a moment, I thought I would live on. But my suicidal self had a backup plan, which is yet to come into motion. It’s hard to talk about it without mentioning specifics, but it feels like a method that I would be able to go through with. It’s actually quite a surprise that I’m still alive. If things out of my control had not ended up like they did, I would probably have killed myself yesterday. But perhaps there is a greater power to everything, or perhaps the world is full of random events that somehow happen to screw my life over each and every time.
I am now at a point where hospitalization is a simply absurd idea. A while back I knew a girl who had BPD, this was long before I even suspected I would develop it myself. She told me, she wouldn’t die that day or tomorrow – but for sure would she be dead in 15 years or so. Her mind was like chaos itself, but she had an utterly neutral face to the most horrific of ideas or events. It was like she was deep down, mentally disturbed at a level beyond logic. At this time, I didn’t think of it in terms like this. I rather felt pity for her, how hard it must be to live like that… But now… Now I see what she was talking about. I feel exactly like she described herself to me. Yesterday I watched probably a hundred so called shock videos – of cruelsome beheadings, self-inflicted pain of insane levels, and so on. And I felt nothing, yet I kept watching, video after video. I was in some way pissed, that things didn’t turn out how I thought they would. I had planned to die yesterday, but the world decided to screw with me once again.
Right now, I feel like I’m on the brink of death. But not in a state of panic and depression, but rather in a chaotically rational way. I feel like I might aswell live for another 20 or 60 years, but with a constant death-switch in my back pocket. I look out the window and see people. I think that these people are only so far away from death. Every person is only so many steps away from suicide, at any given time. I feel deeply and absurdly mentally disturbed, and yet content with my state of mind. I wonder how therapy will help a person such as myself. I feel like I am beyond all help – I do not need so called “help”. Society just wants to prevent suicide at all cost, because suicide is seen as close to a death-sin even by atheists. I suppose many of you have experienced this too. When talking to someone about how suicidal you are or something, there are few reactions which surprise me. Most people just panic and write something like “DON’T KILL YOUSELF!”, some bring up standard arguments such as “but think of all the things you will miss out on!”, “think of all the people you will hurt by killing yourself!”, etc.
It’s like, people are not so much incapable of living without me… People are rather, incapable of watching other people die in front of them. I read somewhere that journalists are told to watch their words when writing about suicide… To prevent other people from killing themselves too, or something like that. It feels so absurd, society just wants to prevent suicide no matter how much a single individual suffers. Regardless of wether I live or die, I stand on Schopenhauers side. I admit – I haven’t read a single one of his works, I’ve merly read about him on Wikipedia… But I find his arguments to be in line with my own view of suicide. To quote Wikipedia… “In an allegory, he [Schopenhauer] compared ending one’s life, when subject to great suffering, to waking up from sleep when experiencing a terrible nightmare”. I feel like, being on the brink of death – I am sometimes longing to die, and sometimes feeling existentially free on a whole new level. A freedom of willfully continuing to live, with the knowledge that I could end this at any moment if I so wished. Like Sarte… You always have a choice. Even if you climb up a mountain and find yourself at a dead end, you always have a choice. You can turn back… or you can jump down and kill yourself. There’s always a choice. I might be bending Sarte’s words in my own favor here, it was a long time ago that I read about that allegory… But it makes an interesting point. Continuing to live, for no particular reason, but simply because, with the knowledge that… I am only so far away from death, in any moment could I end it if I so wish.
I do not know when I will die. It might be next week, next year, next decade… or in 30 minutes. I could die at any moment, but for now I’m alive, yet on the brink of death.
(I hate myself enough to say that this… whatever it is that I just wrote, is a piece of pretentious crap coming from a lonely, mentally disturbed and sick individual)
8 comments
I liked your post, especially how honest you were about quoting stuff off Wikipedia, and just the detail of your discussion of the empowerment inherent in having a way out.
It’s only now that I’m in my thirties and feel the death of old age approaching (absurd, I know, but once your body starts gradually deteriorating and your older relatives die, and you can’t pass for “young” anymore, your perspective changes) that I realise how precious a gift life is, and that you only get one chance in many cases.
Miss that one concert, that one romantic opportunity, that one business opportunity, or whatever, and odds are life will move on at such a pace that you’ll end up never doing it.
It’s very sobering tbh. Life is super precious and super short, and it seems to accelerate. I never really bought into my own mortality until recently.
Watching those videos does not sound entirely healthy.
Well, life is only precious from the perspective that this life is all there is. And to be frank, disregarding religious convictions, we have no idea what happens after death. It might aswell be “better” than life as we know it. Or it might not be, no way of knowing. All we know is this life. So suicide is just leaving everything you feel you know something about for something you have no way of knowing anything about. If I was some grand philosopher perhaps I could word that in a super dramatic way but… I can’t.
Although I usually disregard the “life is precious” argument as just another cliché, irrational argument among the other ones against suicide… It’s more rational than the other ones, in a way. Since we know not what lies beyond death, it doesn’t seem too unthinkable that life is indeed only once. But then again, you can use “life is only once” for both ways of thinking. Life is only once, so why bother when there’s nothing beyond it? When death is inevitable, why keep going? Or… Life is only once, so make the best of it.
Weirdly enough I can relate to the feeling of life flying by. I’m not even old by any means, I’m merly 19… Yet I feel like I’ve hardly lived at all. Most of my life has been a constant enduring of harsh conditions, in hope for a better future that never came. A constant waiting for a time where I can finally start living. Meanwhile life passes by, and if this continues… on my day of departure I would have spent a life in waiting, waiting for the life that went by while I was busy waiting for it.
It’s not so absurd to start thinking of your mortality like that in your thirties, to me it feels like a natural age to begin to think like that. It feels more absurd when people in their mid-twenties claim “I’m old” when they’re out partying and drinking every other day. That just feels silly.
Yeah, the videos aren’t healthy, but neither is cutting myself, occasionally drinking way too much, living on soda and pizza… There are oh so many things in my life that aren’t healthy. But then again I don’t watch videos like that every day, I do all the other unhealthy stuff every day. I think me watching those videos yesterday for hours on end was more like an… Affirmation to myself how crazy I am. I don’t know, it sounds completely insane, but well… Several times have I felt like it’s comforting to think of myself as a person so completely mentally disturbed I’m like those lunatics you see in mental hospitals in hollywood movies… But yeah, there’s really no point in watching those videos.
Thanks for reading, by the way. How come you’re on this site though? I mean, if you’re not suicidal, how did you even find this place? I suppose it’s not too uncommon for non-suicidal people to be here, but still.
I can’t think of anything positive to say because I don’t believe that suicide is as absurd and stupid as everyone else tries to paint it to be. I have my reasons and so do you. You’re so intelligent and well spoken that I spent 15 minutes resetting my password just so I could comment on this post. I believe that the way you write says a lot more about you than the way you are around other people. God knows how my true personality never cease to fail me. Anyways….
Would you like to talk a little bit about wanting to become a nurse. Or is it a safe option just in case you get to follow your true passion ?
Thanks for your comment, and thanks for the flattering words.
By ” I believe that the way you write says a lot more about you than the way you are around other people.” I assume you meant in a general matter, but I’m a bit unsure if I interpreted your words wrong here. I’ll just go ahead anyway and respond… I agree, I don’t really know what my “true personality” is, if there is anything to be called a personality in me… It’s pessimism itself, manifestating in writings such as the original post. This deep down pessimism is perhaps related to my mental health issues, but I’ve been pessimistic in this fashion for so many years I cannot remember anything else. I guess this more fleshed out and philosophical pessimism started more recently, perhaps 3-4 years ago, but long before that have I been pessimistic in one way or another. When it comes to other things that could mark whatever could be called “me”, I have no idea. What on earth am I? Who am I? I don’t know. Right now I don’t really care, but at times it’s been an extreme anguish related to not having an identity. At it’s worst was when I was thinking “do I have bpd?” – and a thought crossed my mind… I might not have BPD. I might have read so much about it that i began to develop these issues, or think that i have these issues. This idea, that I was somehow living in an illusion or manipulating myself, led to another thought – “what if whatever I think I know about myself, is just something I made up? do I even exist at all?!”. I suppose I was at a very emotionally fragile state of mind at this point in time, which contributed to the chaos… But really. The level of absurdity and chaos that raged inside my head during those days were beyond measure.
When around other people, a mask is put up. I could discuss in length about what you wrote regarding writing contra being around people… but I’ll pass for now, this comment will become way too long otherwise.
During my life, I’ve aimed for countless amounts of jobs. To mention a few which I remember… priest, chaffeur (taxi, bus, train), doctor, nurse, engineer (various types), programmer, musician, opera singer, painter, plumber, something within economy/finance, lawyer, teacher… the list can be made long. I decided to study nursing because: 1) extremely easy to get a job with an ok salary 2) short education (3y) 3) supposedly easy education 4) it’s social. I think the first and fourth points were the most important for me. I felt like I was worthless, so there would be no way I could land a job if it was hard to land a job. I also felt like, the risk was sky-high I would end up lonely for the rest of my life, so I better have a social job so I don’t turn completely insane. Something like that. Right now I’m on sick leave from the studies though, and I only completed one term. I don’t think I’ll continue with nursing, although I guess I could. I’m leaning more towards the teacher job right now… The pay is bad and the education is very long, but it feels like something that could be more satisfying. More academical, more “independent”, etc… I don’t know where things will end though. I might start study to become a teacher but end up studying something else entirely after a while. I have no idea. I have about a month left to decide what to do next autumn atleast.
I don’t know what my true passion is. I don’t think I have one. I wish I had a clear cut raison detre, but I don’t. Sometimes that haunts me, the lack of a raison detre is… troubling, to say the least. But right now I don’t care. Sure I could paint up huge dreams of sorts – becoming an acknowledged writer or musician comes to mind… But there’s no way I’ll be able to do that. I’m too worthless for fame and glory.
The reaction to horrific sites and videos you described is not characteristic of Borderline Personality Disorder. It’s the opposite. Someone with BPD will typically be overwhelmed with grief at the site of such things. It’s like the immense pain a burn victim feels if her wounds are even lightly touched. Touching a healthy person doesn’t inflict pain at all. The most minor site like those idiotic APA commercials with the Sarah Machlaclan song playing in the background will send most peope with BPD into an emotional meltdown where as those without the disorder would feel bad momentarily for the animals and then just go on with their day.
There is nothing in DSM-V or ICD-10 that mentions anything like this. What are you sources for this? Personal observations? There are over 200 combinations of symptoms that would result in the diagnosis, it’s an extremely diverse disorder. Even looking beyond what “symptoms” there are, the manifestation of the symptoms vary a lot too. The american psychiatrist Adolf Meyer thought that BPD should be renamed – to every patients surname, because one person with this disorder is simply not the same as a different one.
I’m overly sensitive when it comes to everything social, not overly sensitive towards everything. I don’t think watching shock videos is directly linked to BPD. I think it’s indirectly linked. As in… I think it might be a tendency of deep anguish and mental issues in general that could lead one to watch shit like that.
I suggest you read this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3494330/
Quote regarding mood/mental breakdowns/etc.: “The third difference [to bipolar disorder] is reactivity of mood. The mood symptoms of patients with borderline personality disorder are triggered by external events and are particularly sensitive to perceived rejection, failure and abandonment”. Although there might be people with BPD who would be sensitive to videos like this, it is clear enough that for diagnosis: the most important sensitivity is in regards to “percieved rejection, failure and abandoment”.
I’ve been on the brink of death for a while now.
I still remember my first personal encounter with death. It was grounding, raw, frightening and exhilarating. The thought of death fills me with a peaceful feeling. Nothing anybody can say will get me to reconsider dying when the time comes. All the : “think about those who love you and will miss you”, sincerely make me laugh wholeheartedly. It shows me how far the person is, from understanding my reality.
Something you said about not needing help reminded me of a quote by
Emil Cioran:
“I don’t need any support, advice, or compassion, because even if I am the most ruinous man, I still feel so powerful, so strong and fierce. For I am the only one that lives without hope.”
I like that quote a lot, thanks for sharing! Philosophical pessimism sure is interesting…