Today for the first time my reasons for suicide outweighed my reasons against. Which doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything hasty. I’m still terrified of the idea. But for the first time it seems like the balanced, rational choice, rather than just an emotional reaction. My resistance to it now seems like the irrational emotional response.
I suppose what this mainly reflects is the further erosion of my optimism. I’ve had more time to dwell on what I value in life, and it’s become clearer how slim my chances of finding a meaningful life are. I’ve also been spending more time out and about, which has reminded me how much I struggle to just be around people. I can’t seem to get through a basic social interaction without feeling terrible about myself. So the idea of forging any sort of meaningful connection is laughable.
By far my biggest reason for staying is not wanting to cause devastation to my family, rather than anything in my own life. I have no real life. I’m a shell. But I suppose the thought of them just isn’t enough to outweigh the amount of pain I’m in right now. My own pain just matters more to me than their future pain.
Emotional pain is weird. I guess it’s a kind of delusion. Where is it? Where does it hurt? And yet I’m utterly convinced that I’m in a state of unbearable suffering. My subconscious is constantly in the process of telling me ‘this is terrible, excruciating, awful, unacceptable’. I don’t know how to stop it. How to stop this psych-ache. How to stop hurting myself emotionally. This cycle of despair, self-hatred, guilt, regret, longing, craving. And I don’t know how to live with it. I just want it to stop.
I suppose if my perception stays like this for long enough, maybe I’ll gradually be able to overcome my fear of death.
8 comments
I’m sorry this doesn’t have to do with most of your post but I feel it’s a good question/observation. “Which doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything hasty” God forbid a suicidal person feels a little bit down. Everyone around them that isn’t goes into instant red mode. “Omg there gonna kill themselves. Something small happened to make them feel a little down. We have to watch them like a hawk and put them straight into a hospital.” Like really Why? Just relax we aren’t allowed to have bad (well worse) day but you can? Or make a joke. Others can say “OMG I’d die if that happened to me” but if someone suicidal says it again red mode. Please just treat me normal not everything is literally going to kill me and it shouldn’t have to be explained. Or am I alone with That?
No one in my life knows I think about suicide, so it’s not really an issue for me, but I can see how it could get really irritating.
But I can also understand that desperate kind of concern. People worry that if they miss a ‘warning sign’, and then someone does off themselves, then they’ll feel terrible guilt about it afterwards. So they’re constantly on the look out.
It’s a shitty situation from both ends.
Everyone knows. Ok most. And I don’t much care. So what I want to die. So what I’ve been abused. So what I cut. I’m tired of caring about it all
I hear you. I guess if people know, and they care, then they feel a responsibility to prevent harm.
I’m also tired of caring about things I can’t change. I wish I knew how to stop.
I just stopped wearing sweaters and openly saying I have depression. I have no idea why so I don’t think I’m much help
Emotional pain is so vague, so mysteriously unclear, and so subjective. One person’s “remedy” is another person’s letdown. So, yeah, I can understand the feelings of helplessness that accompany not being able to make a human connection. I think there’s a lot of childhood issues that go along with the inability to connect.
It sucks man, like reaching into a dark room for the light switch, and no matter where you grope, you just can’t find the darn thing.
I’m sure you’re right that childhood issues play a role. But I often feel like to an extent I was ‘born this way.’ It’s almost like my default setting. I think it would’ve always taken an extremely unlikely set of circumstances for me to form a real lasting connection with anyone. Either that, or a major intervention during childhood, to completely change my disposition and how I interact with the world. I’d have to be a totally different person.
You only live once…