One of the biggest things inhibiting desire for suicide in me is thinking about my parents getting the news. Imagining these wonderful people who have poured so much love and energy into supporting me over the years, long after they should have turned their backs. It just seems completely unacceptable to do that to them. I know it’ll break them – they’re way too emotionally invested. Putting them through that much pain – and I don’t think they’d ever heal. I’m a terrible person, and a terrible son, but I still love them.
On the other hand, continuing to exist also seems unacceptable. I shouldn’t be. I can’t live with the despair – shame, self-hatred, isolation, regret, longing. I can’t survive with this. It’s unbearable.
Can anybody think of a way to end myself without having that effect on my family? Or at least to mitigate the harm a bit? I feel like I’m trapped in a no win situation here. Either outcome is unacceptable, so I just stick with the hell that I know.
4 comments
Your situation is my situation to the letter. The only thing I can think of if you make your death look like an accident, it will still crush your parents but not as bad as the S word. I have looked into supposed accidents in great detail and the most common are car accidents, in the long run it’s hard to determine if it was a bona fide ‘accident’ or a suicide if a car was involved.
I guess I’m fucked whatever I do
I’m sorry and maybe you don’t want to hear this, but I believe that if your parents would really be such wonderful and loving people then you would not be in the situation thinking about ending your life and calling yourself a terrible person. No baby is born believing they are terrible, we all come with love and self-confidence, but then it gets crushed. Unfortunately society idealizes parents and has no freaking idea about what real connection actually is. If any of us had real connection with our parents, real intimacy, we wouldn’t be on this site. This is not personal and I don’t want to invalidate your experience, I understand that you think that way, I just felt the need to say this.
It’s complicated. They did everything one could reasonably think of to make sure I turned out ok. I’m a terrible person because of the things I’ve done and the thoughts in my head, which they had no role in. I was loved as a child and was very happy until around age 9, but my self-confidence was fragile, and didn’t survive a move to a somewhat hostile school. I put this fragility down mostly to genetic disposition (which my parents obviously didn’t choose.) Perhaps they could have pushed me more to overcome that disposition, but they didn’t realize how screwed up I was until years later, because I hid it. They were always there for me, always supportive – they just didn’t understand how unhappy I’d become. Possibly I was too sheltered in my happy years to be able to cope when things got harder. But I can’t blame them for that – they really tried.
I felt a real connection with my parents as a child, though it’s greatly tarnished by who I’ve become as an adult.
I agree that your comments apply to the vast majority of people on this site. Many come from abusive or negligent backgrounds. I just happen to be the rare example of a person who messed up all on his own. My parents weren’t perfect by any means, but they always tried to do the right thing.