What do you do after you’ve reached out for all the help you can find, confided in friends, family, the suicide hotline, the suicide chat line, psychologists, psychiatrists, gone to a mental hospital, dutifully taken all the pills, followed their advice, and STILL, years and $ thousands later, you are just as likely to blow your head off today as you were when this whole thing started?
Some people feel bad about leaving “loved ones” behind. Some people feel guilty thinking that suicide is evidence of failure. It is. But it’s not your failure. It’s the failure of all the people who say they’re there to help, but they have failed.
If I hear the phrase “suicide is preventable” one more time I’m going to pull the damn trigger. That’s like saying “world hunger is preventable” or “rape, murder and wars are preventable.” Just another idiotic catchphrase that exposes the cluelessness of whoever chants it. None of these things are preventable because it’s the nature of existence. Conflict, suffering, victimization and death have existed since the first lifeform sprouted on this rock, and these things will exist until the day the last lifeform dies. Until then, it’s all we can do to expose the ignorance and the failure of these weak, hypocritical attempts to save us.
I don’t know when my time is coming, could be next hour, could be 10 years, but when I do it, I won’t feel a stitch of remorse, guilt or regret. I never planned on bothering with a suicide note, but suddenly I feel like I need to explain my death to the nitwits who won’t get it. My note would be “I didn’t fail. You did.”
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But world hunger is preventable. It’s built into our system of governance and economic relations that some people will go without while others swim in unimaginable wealth and power. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is because that’s the direction things have drifted since the start of the industrial revolution. It’s been drifting that way since the first city was founded. Nature isn’t such a fickle mistress as civilization is.
The stupid, asinine, superficial things that irk you also irk me, and probably everybody who’s ever had to deal with them. It’s like going to work with primates at the zoo, only the primates are the ones running the zoo and you have to somehow explain what an Alan wrench is. The human population has been drifting further and further from reality with every generation. Reality isn’t a pretty thing at the best of times, but that’s all anybody wants to see – a pretty thing. A nice package with helpful instructions and a bow on top. Instead, we have a jungle of growing things that defy borders and eat away at the edges.
You’re totally right that world hunger, and maybe all of these things, are preventable. In an idealistic world where humans do not behave as humans. Maybe that’s the intent behind these well-intended but historically impossible efforts to save the world.
Brief political analogy: 30 years ago, US leader Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev signed a nuclear treaty that essentially said “nuclear escalation and global annihilation is preventable.” Today that dream is scrapped. Because the reality is, whether it’s the fault of the Russians for secretly building nukes or the fault of the US for abandoning the cause, humanity has reverted back to the warring, hateful, fearful nature that drives humanity.
I think the same can be said for all of these noble, philanthropic ideas. All these things ARE preventable if society would get its head out of its collective ass and back up these lofty ideals with real efforts. But I think we’re fooling ourselves. World hunger won’t be solved because it’s the nature of each of us to prey on others to survive. Survival is a competition, and we’re always going to choose to stuff a Big Mac in our mouths rather than spare a cow and donate $2.99 for some rice to Ethiopia.
Back to suicide, yes, it’s “preventable” in the sense that if society actually gave a damn about the individuals in distress (and not just treat us like unfortunate statistics that must be fixed), then we could all find the support we need to press on.
Long spiel aside, I guess what I’m saying is: it’s possible for the lion to lie down with the lamb. But when in hell is that ever going to happen?
The lion lies down with the lamb all the time. Watch a nature documentary – gazelles just saunter around them like pebbles in a stream.
I have a counter-read on the nuclear proliferation example. It’s all a racket. The arms industries comprise about 10% of our manufacturing base in the US alone, and 1.3% of GDP (which is actually a lot for what it is). The arms industry employs 13% of the US total manufacturing labor pool. Those numbers get bigger every year as the population grows. As our industries grow, industries in competing nation-states also grow in response to the threat our insane war economy poses to their own stability. The only reason any of this makes sense is because of how fragmented and atomized the working and middle classes are. We’re all struggling just to pay the bills and keep ourselves in good legal standing, and don’t have time to scratch that surface. It’s not about human nature, it’s about a small handful of very wealthy people maintaining their position at the top at all costs.
That’s a good point about the nuke analogy. Actually, it applies to mental help as well. The bottom line is as you pointed out: there was never a concerted effort to denuclearize or deweaponize. Instead it’s all a racket perpetrated by the few who dictate our lives.
Returning this to the issue of mental health, it’s really the same thing. The common person passively wants nukes and suicide and world hunger to be fixed, but the reality is that those who have the power to make a difference have no real interest. There’s a depression racket just as powerful as the arms industry with pharmaceuticals, doctors, hospitals and even non-profits raking in big bucks from depression.
So, just as with our insane arms race, everyone agrees it’s stupid, self-destructive and costly, but we’re all just a bunch of sheep sitting around complaining while the rackets rack up. There is no real movement to end depression any more than any real movement to end nukes because the people in charge of this world are profiting plenty just the way things are. Why rock the boat for a mere 0.03% of the population that jumps off skyscrapers and blows its brains out?
I could go even further to say that the strong men in charge are not aberrations of nature but they are simply manifestations of our own selfish interests taken to the extreme. Meaning, even those of us who say we want to help will, pushed to the extreme, give up on other people and say you’re on your own. The flaw is human nature and it’s here to stay.
Human nature isn’t the issue, though. You made this post in a state of frustration with the way you perceive the world to be – it’s like a trap that you have to put yourself in just to live. The issue is scarcity and our fetishization of a social hierarchy that no longer has anything to do with nature. The arbitrariness of it all isn’t the illusion. The illusion is that it has to be this way, and there is no alternative. I like to think that the upper crust is insulted by the idea of suicide because it’s a rejection of that social organization. It’s a slap on the face – we came out of the trees and into the cities to escape that fickle mistress we call nature, and now we have to put up with these fickle mistresses we call leaders. We have to go to work and submit to the demands of rich assholes who have never worked a day in their lives so they can buy another yacht. What does that have to do with nature, other than a tangential need for shelter, food and water? Those are needs that the upper crust never have to think about. If we were all in the same position, true altruism would be a helluvalot easier. But then the handful of folks at the top wouldn’t feel like patron saints to all us poor folk beneath their feet.
I’m most definitely frustrated with the way I perceive the world to be; I equate it to a child learning that there is no Santa Claus.
Popular society tells us that help is available (Santa Claus brings toys to good kids). But after a lifetime of seeking help in all the prescribed places (after a lifetime of being a good kid, per Santa’s standards) I’ve realized that I’m no better off today than I was when I first put a gun in my mouth (Santa has never delivered).
Ergo: in my case, and judging by every other post on this site, it’s safe to conclude that “help” is an idealistic construct (Santa Claus is a fantasy to make kids happy).
You seem to have much more faith humanity’s dedication to save souls. I’ll be the first to admit that everyone wants to believe in that, just like solving world hunger, but the proof is in the pudding. Suicide rates are rising, and the disparity between the rich and the starving is widening. If that’s not a problem with human nature, I don’t know what is.
As a single parent i get told i dont have time to kill myself because what about the children?! Tired of hearing that. Its like im always in physical pain from health problems, and mental pain because im prone to livin a nightmare
Sorry to hear about your pain. Man that is so draining and sounds like it is inescapable pain too. Oh man. I heard a version “you can’t kill yourself” for years.
Myself being married, For years I heard the “but you have a wife” thing. Well I do, plus grown children, plus grandchildren. Plus a couple of businesses that rely on my services. OK all well and good – BUT – none of those “please don’t go” reasons reduced my mental pain any. Eventually therapy helped.
I just remember how much those “you can’t leave” pleas angered me in the midst of excruciating pain. I thought what moral being would hamper my efforts if they had any idea the pain I was in.
I would tentatively recommend Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, if you aren’t familiar with them already. What I like about him is partly that he seems real. When he says something, I don’t feel like he’s bullshitting me. I may not always agree, but I believe he is being ernest, and, equally importantly, that he has thought long and hard about the topic (or, if he hasn’t, that he will offer that caveat). Like you, I have been through quite a lot of therapy. I have read a lot of self-help and pop psychology. It usually leaves me wanting. But I find it very hard to poke holes in Peterson’s claims, maybe because, as I’ve already mentioned, he seems to have thought things through, and he words things very deliberately. When he makes a claim, in my experience, what he says is no accident. It’s not sloppy. It’s deliberate.
Apart from my own experience, I have seen so many testimonies from people online who felt lost, but have turned their lives around thanks to Peterson. I also have a friend who seems to have benefited from the material.
Anyway, good luck!
youtube.com/watch?v=awTgtA3BuRY
The only thing I’m certain I have failed MISERABLY was to not kill myself sooner before I met more horrible people and has more horrible experiences than expected….
what I was going to say though was that dying is not a bad thing, it’s better than a lot of things. I don’t think you should regret suicide because dying is great, it’s good for the right person. It’s like buying a car, a 4 door sedan might work for someone but a minivan works the most wonderful for someone else !!
I feel pretty certain that you are now the first person in history to compare suicide to buying a car. lol
AXYZ, I have just read your message. And I am glad that I find you alive and here. I talked to you in june 2017 and I encouraged you and gave you some hope. I also told you that my life had improved considerably. Now, I tell you: My life has improved a lot since we talked last time(not sure if you remember me). I am no longer suicidal. I have regained my energy and my body feels whole.
Perhaps you wonder, what this has to do with you? I think I have just given you an example to let you know that everyone can recover from hell and a miserable life. And I believe you can. I have some hope in you and I believe in you.
What made me recover was the spiritual teachings I have applied in my own life and the incredible power of sound.
I am sorry that you feel yourself at the end. What you have tried didn’t work. I know. But you have tried what the materialistic society wants to give you, namely: medication, psychiatrists or psychologists, hospitals, suicide hotlines…
Why don’t you try something different, something more spiritual?
You need to find something different than what the materialistic and sometimes insane society can give you.