When no one knows who you are and you write about wanting to die, people react quickly. They tell you to stay strong and give you tips that may actually help you. They talk to you and say they support you. Behind the mask of the internet, you can say anything and no one will know you.
When someone knows who you are, everything changes. You’re not dad’s precious little girl anymore. You’re not mom’s light of happiness. You’re not the emotional support for people who depend on you to stay sane, that trust in you to hold them when they have panic attacks or listen to their stories of neglect and anxiety and depression and all of those other problems. You’re a lying freak. You used to be a 4.2 GPA honors student who was on the swim team and cross country and student council and favored by teachers but now you’re a lying freak. You aren’t the same one who can support others who suffer more than you do. At least they’re loved unlike yourself.
When you say that you put a gun to your head online, people don’t freak out. They know what to say to help. When people you know hear that, you get lectures on how you’re ruining your future. When you say you’re depressed in the real world people shrug it off and say get over it. You’re not really, you’re so happy! No, that can’t be right.
I feel responsible for the people I know with depression or anxiety or both. I know a girl I held on and watched over for an hour in the middle of a street because I saw her walking down it in the middle of a panic attack. I know another girl who self harms and is supported by a nice guy everyone loves and who loves everyone but me, telling me to “shut the fuck up” and snapping at me no matter what I say. I feel like it’s my job to help them sometimes, and then I remember all the friends they have that help more than me who ruins everything I touch. And I remember no one in the real world will help not-so neurotypical me.
If someone I personally know read this and knew that I held a gun up to my head today they’d not react like people who don’t know me would: if they knew me they’d say I was over reacting and was doing this for attention. Because why would an honors student with a good home life want to die for? It doesn’t make sense, right? Being suicidal is a luxury for the damned I guess, but who’s to say I’m not damned.
The point of this stupid thing is to see what it’s like to be sucidal I guess or something like that. Being suicidal isn’t pretty skinny girls holding pills on their hands crying while their boyfriends hold them. It’s a girl with neat hair and nice clothes that came from a normal middle class family’s income blankly starring at the mirror with a pistol in her hand home alone, holding it against her head. And it’s not telling a soul outside the internet.
8 comments
I know this too well… most people see things merely as relating to themselves. When you’re a stranger it’s just a few nice words and a pat on the back, enough to ease their conscience, and then they can forget about you again, which is easy.
But when you’re not a stranger and your problems have real impact on their life as well (because you’re a family member, because they’re faced with those problems every day as well, because they have to help find real solutions, because they might lose a person that is close to them) all that matters to them is how they have to suffer under your problems, and they see themselves justified in getting angry at you, blaming you for being the way you are, and alleging that you only have selfish intentions for your suicidal ideation.
It’s sad, really. Most people don’t even know any better, because they are overwhelmed by the situation. That doesn’t mean that how they are treating you is okay, but it means that it’s very reasonable not to let them in on what is going on with you. Not that you shouldn’t hide it from everyone though; it helps to talk to people about it. What matters is that it’s the right people, the one’s that you know won’t judge you and will stay by your side.
Honors student with a good home life? I would see a heavy mountain of expectations. Expectations are evil things. We’re all damned by the good intentions of those around us. It’s the ultimate form of irony that nobody seems to understand it.
Internet is not real life. We are invisible.
However compassionate, understanding or caring we may seem to be (or not),
it’s those imperfect REAL LIVE people in your life that have the power to actually help you.
If you’re holding a gun to head (attention-seeking or not) you need to give those in your real life another chance.
Accept they are not perfect, and appreciate whatever they can do, to make your life a little better, to get through this tough time.
Right now, our understanding (about suicidal feelings) is pretty much useless to you;
– I can’t jump through my phone screen, take the gun out of your hand and hug you…
If I could I would, and if I did, you’d likely shoot me, being a stranger in your bedroom hugging you. (Just kidding).
You need ACTION, not words.
And stop expecting perfection. Real live people never are.
Just this once, please trust me (an invisible person)
and GO find a real live human being to be with.
* I promise, it’s the most reasonable thing for you to do, if you feel that inclined to be dead.
Take care and please keep us posted on how you’re doing.
*Note:
–Aloneness is the #1 risk factor for suicide–
Please don’t be, at least for today.
Thanks for reading this,
and now I need to go take my own advice.
(Stop being alone today). TTYL (I hope).
By your own logic, we should all discount the nonsense you just said. Thanks for that.
To this;
” Internet is not real life. We are invisible.
However compassionate, understanding or caring we may seem to be (or not),
it’s those imperfect REAL LIVE people in your life that have the power to actually help you.
If you’re holding a gun to head (attention-seeking or not) you need to give those in your real life another chance.
Accept they are not perfect, and appreciate whatever they can do, to make your life a little better, to get through this tough time. “,
I want to respond with a quote:
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, yet wiser people so full of doubts.” – Bertrand Russell
I am by no means insulting you. I am just denouncing your behavior.
No matter how many chances she gives them. They will only help if they are willing to.
In my experience, dealing with someone close to you, who is depressed and/or suicidal requires to first, feel what they feel.
It is like looking into an abyss. It makes you- the person who is trying to help-, feel absolutely powerless; lacking any sense of control or even an ability to truly make a difference.
It fills their- the person who is trying to help- whole being with fear.
(none of them will admit this; instead, they will give you useless advice, insult you etc to get you of their backs)
Imagine yourself – you, in this case – drowning and pulling on the hand of a passerby who doesn’t know how to swim. What is the passerby going to do but push you away?
My Point=Only a real live person could take the gun out of someone’s hand.
The BS hopeful advice or “feeling” discussions (including my own) is useless when you are about to die.
And btw rarely do people READY* to kill themselves think reasonably or rationally,
so being physically alone is again the biggest risk factor to dying…
AND,
You’re welcome Rivets, thank you for reinforcing my point that the internet is not real life. Would a stranger tell me to my face that my statement was “nonsense”? Very unlikely.
–I can’t think of how much lower my life could get, ALONE physically or being rejected by (invisible) people on a suicide site?
TO 566299:
With a plan or gun in your hand, You don’t need to talk abour suicide, you need to try to stay alive a little longer…(Find a real live human).
Hope we both can/will.
Note:;”Ready”- Sometimes I get the feeling that many here are chronically depressed or chronically thinking/talking about suicide.
Sorry that I don’t understand that way of being, and maybe I wrongly take people’s statements (like holding a gun to their head) to be a sign of immediate + urgent danger.
If I was doing that 99.9% certainty I would be dead and not talking about my suicidal feelings the next day.
Again, trying to stay alive or dying, apparently I don’t belong anywhere. Sorry.
“Rivets, thank you for reinforcing my point that the internet is not real life. Would a stranger tell me to my face that my statement was “nonsense”? Very unlikely.”
Exactly. People’s snippy douche bag comments on the internet shouldn’t be taken seriously, nor should their preaching of hope. Anonymous people say whatever they feel in the moment. That’s why you’ll get extremes on both ends of the spectrum, douche bags and saviors.
I don’t think anyone who’s really suicidal can be talked out of it by an anonymous forum discussion. If that’s the case, the person probably wasn’t seriously intending to die. Expecting real life people to act like online people is like expecting a suicide hotline operator to come to your home and make you hot chocolate and sit with you for hours and take you out for ice cream.