In 2015 I lost my father to suicide.
My life was irreparably damaged because of his decision, and to this day the pain he left lives on in my own heart and fuels my own Depression daily. The lives of my family were changed forever.
No matter what you think, what you believe, what you may see as evidence to fuel your decision, you will be missed. You will hurt others. You will make a void in the hearts of those around you. Your absence will be noticed. And mourned.
I live with C-PTSD and can barely work because of constant Mental Health relapses. I myself get suicidal thoughts and now undergo therapy to try and ‘fix’ them. The world tries to get rid of me because I’m not able to be as productive or work to my full potential in this rat-race we live in. It cares not that I live with this dark secret – the knowledge that my own father felt there was no other way out.
And it’s hard. I don’t want to say he’s selfish – yet he is. I was there too, once. In that dark well with no light. I just have to keep telling myself that I must respect his wishes. But was he truly sound in mind making them? I’ll never know. The guilt festers and eats me alive.
Don’t do this to others. Perhaps I’m selfish in asking this, especially since I was – and am – one of those people considering suicide or plagued by dark thoughts. But selfishness begets selfishness.
In the end, suicide robs others of life. I thought I was a shell before. Now I understand I was a fool. Am still a fool, because I still think about it. Don’t do this unto the ones who love you. Talk to people who have lost others to suicide. Only then will you be able to truly understand the gravity of what you will wreak.
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I’m conflicted in how to respond to this. I’m so sorry. That’s horrible and heartbreaking and I give every condolence I can.
I’m still going to probably kill myself, though. I like flowery literary words to describe how I feel because it’s easier than trying to say it bluntly, but I’m just hurting so much all of the time and everything inside my brain besides the hurting kind of isn’t there anymore. It gets worse, every single instance of every single day, and I am have not been able to do anything but sit in a corner without moving for months and months and months and months!
I know my family will miss me. But idk. Some number of members of K-selective species see their young die. And there’s nothing they could do! Sometimes a whale calf just… falls to the bottom of the ocean. I’d like if they weren’t mad at me but what can you do? I feel like people usually were unhappy with me back when I talked to people anyways. Just how it is.
And I mean, I guess I’m selfish. But that’s okay. Idk. Do I owe others me being traumatized by my own brain all of the time forever just for the peace of mind that me in a metaphorical iron lung gives them? I don’t… think so. But idk.
Thank you for reading what I had to say.
You say animals see their young die, and there’s nothing they could do. There’s plenty of examples and video footage of animals and species doing everything in their power to save their kin. Sure, it’s genetically woven into us, but I believe animals still choose to save if they have the power to do so. Humans, with our higher power of thinking, do the same. We reach out to complete strangers, even. Not even blood-bound.
I know you hurt. I’m sorry you hurt. I was there, too. But when my father died, that hurt was amplified tenfold. I lost my job, I locked myself away for a year or so, and while I’ve healed to an extent, I still carry my father’s pain as well as my own now. If you feel people are unhappy and angry at you, then you haven’t found the right people. There’s always a chance for things to change, no matter how bleak it all seems.
I’m in a better place, now. I didn’t think things could get better, but they have. My hardships and trauma are still horrendous plights I deal with daily, but I now have a wonderful husband and I’m due to move to a whole different country soon. It took more than thirty years to get there. Despite my troubles and childhood trauma I’ve had from such a young age, here I am. The tragic thing is it took my own father taking his own life for me to realise just how much it tears apart the lives of others around you. The simple fact he wasn’t there on my wedding day tears me apart as much as me knowing I couldn’t be there for him when he really needed it.
I respect his decision. But I was robbed of so much, the same of how you and others like you will rob those of your presence should you decide to end your life early. Life isn’t something we choose to have, but death is. No matter if you bring it on early or naturally. Life is the greater gift. Death is something we all have to face regardless. Make the best of what you have now and be thankful of the experiences you get to have which you otherwise wouldn’t. Whether that’s experiencing a beautiful sunrise or just having a really tasty meal. You wouldn’t experience any of those things if you just choose to give up, however small.
I hope your pain one day alleviates. That’s the beauty of Depression. But losing someone to suicide? That’s a pain that will never pass.
Sorry for your loss MMage. There’s a couple of people I love in my life and it’s a word I rarely use. If I was to lose them it would be devastating, but I also accept that it is inevitable, as we all eventually die.
I guess it feels much worse that your dad committed suicide than if he had died by other ‘natural causes’ such as a car accident or heart attack.
It’s actually one of the reasons I continue living today because I wouldn’t want to make my family suffer from my loss.
However I’ve experienced highs and lows and I know the limits of what I or anyone in my situation can handle. We all have our breaking points.
So while I continue to keep going on for my family and because ending one’s life isn’t an easy thing to do, it doesn’t mean that I would never cross that line.
I can easily imagine scenarios in my own life where I would probably have to stop living. Say I get a terminal illness, or lose everything I have with no chance of recovery. Or I’m really, really sick of living because of the suffering I’ve gone through.
I’m also in my 50s now so the older I get, the less reason I have to keep living, because age now becomes a factor in all life pursuits, esp. dating.
Your dad must’ve had very good reasons to do what he did. Ofc he never intended to hurt you or anyone else in his life…so you should never feel any sense of guilt, because there’s likely nothing you could’ve said or done to change his mind.
I know it evokes strong emotions, but you should think about why people do things logically. In my case let’s say I’m no longer physically able to work, I’m not rich and the state treats people like garbage, so I wouldn’t be able to go on nor would I ever want to be dependent on anyone else including the govt.
There are many good reasons why death is sometimes preferable to life. I’m glad in a way that we’re not immortal and we can end a bad life.
Every person’s situation is different. Some suffer from terrible mental or physical illness or have had bad experiences that make it difficult for one to go on.
So I agree to an extent…if we can keep living for others, maybe it’s better to keep going. But at the same time we can’t live for others at the expense of our own suffering/pain. In that case I think it’d be unfair to expect.
Since my life is reasonably ‘ok’ at the moment, I keep going….but I don’t want to because I’ve had enough of living and I didn’t get the things I wanted out of life. So I’d prefer to be gone. I keep living with the hope that my life will get better and maybe in time I will get what I want, but I know it’s very unlikely.
However there might come a day in the future 5-10 yrs from now perhaps, where I’ve just had enough. I also know my loved ones will be ok as they have families of their own.
I don’t look forward to the passing of my elderly parents who’ve been such a major influence in my life, but I know it’s something that will happen in my future, it could even happen tomorrow.
That’s what makes life bittersweet, sometimes it’s poetic, sometimes it can be wonderful, but we also cannot ignore when life can be terrible, a hell on Earth for some people and ‘not existing’ becomes preferable and a kind of freedom.
Thank you, Soda.
You’re absolutely right. Death and loss is difficult enough, but it’s knowing that someone willingly took their life that’s the real living hell. And in such a violent manner, as one of my therapists said. I can’t specify of course, but my father was mistreat throughout life. I wish I could have made things better for him, even if I resented and scorned him when I was younger because of the pain and suffering he put upon me in various ways. It still doesn’t warrant his death. Suicide is completely different than dying via natural causes or accidents.
It’s easy for you to say that I shouldn’t feel guilt, but emotions are such difficult things. I simply can’t choose for my guilt to go away, the same you can’t wish away your own Depression. That I absolutely understand, as I’m sure you do, too.
I know things aren’t so black and white. Again, I’ve been there. I’ve purposely walked across roads slowly and almost been hit by giant trucks before. I was only in College and not even 20. I know what it’s like living with Severe Depression. But until you lose someone close to you to suicide, it completely overshadows that pain and puts it into perspective.
You’re right, in some circumstances, death does seem like a blessing. When it’s co-ordinated, discussed, reasoned through ill-health, terminal or otherwise where it diminishes quality of life, I understand. I’m not completely without logic and reasoning. I’m writing on this website through a mixture of emotion and knowledge, to try and educate and implore others to think more carefully about what they leave behind. It doesn’t matter if your family has others to rely on – partners, children. You will leave behind a footprint, a legacy, that not only makes their lives absorb a great deal of your own pain after you’re gone, but never abolishes it, either. Suicide can never be put to rest. It’s a dark knowing.
There’s laying flowers at a grave, then standing by own which was self dug. I can’t explain the kind of nightmare that lingers on for years, and years, and years to those who are still alive, wondering if there was anything at all they could have done to help you.
I think about it quite a bit, and it is what holds me back to a point.
I don’t remember where I heard about it, but there is this idea of the suicide calculation, something almost every suicidal person does but isn’t talked about much. It’s the calculation of current suffering, because being suicidal is usually due to real pain, and countering it with the costs, which those left behind is one of those.
and while I feel okay right now, the calculation doesn’t come in even close, I’m not in that much pain relative to where I’ve been. I can’t make any promises, because even though I have massive amounts of love for my family, I’ve been in enough pain that the calculation favored suicide.
and that’s what is unrealistic, people thinking that other people have indefinite pain tolerances. They don’t. I don’t. There is a definite measurable place where I can’t calm myself, where the thoughts become so overwhelming. I hope I don’t get there again.
but, hope is often a lie. An attractive lie for sure, but a fantasy that we can’t make come true. If I lose the fight, I hope those I leave behind know how hard I fought. Every aspect of my life is arranged to make it hard for me to die, which is pretty morbid if you think about it.
I understand the calculation behind it. My father was methodical to a point it was surgically cold. He left boxes of tissues in every room of his house. He turned off and cancelled all of his bills and electrical appliances. He asked people if they were ‘okay’, which in hindsight was him ensuring everything was taken care of for when he was gone.
All nice, and neat, and wrapped up in a tidy little bow.
It didn’t matter. No matter how neat and orderly he took care of his own accounts, the absolute trauma storm and jaws of hell he opened upon others and his family is without description. I can’t rightly tell you what to do, what not to do. I really do understand what you’re saying. I’m at breaking point myself with my current circumstances, which is almost hilarious in and of itself given the amount of suffering I’ve endured since I’ve been born. C-PTSD puts you at higher risk of suicide, and I can very, VERY easily understand why. I mean, I found this place, didn’t I? Why do you think that is?
Of course people don’t have infinite pain tolerances, and I’m not foolish enough to believe they do. I’m not saying that. I’m just trying to tell people here to think of others. I know it’s hard. Screw everyone else when you’re in so much pain, right? I get it. I really do. But I simply can’t put across into words how damning it is when you make the choice to end your own life without giving suitable enough evidence or reasons to those left behind.
I hold onto hope that things will get better for you. No matter how long you’ve suffered, there’s a chance for things to turn around. You’ll never know if you decide to end things and pass that pain onto others. That pain doesn’t go away when you think it will. All you do is pass it onto those who are still here.
I want to offer words to maybe allow you to release your grieving, that may be helping your mental state and depression. Suicide is a choice, and most often a choice to end the person pain. We all have choice. Rarely if ever, will those who suffer, let’s say in pain from cancer, and chose Medically Assisted Suicide, do people say anything against that person ending their pain. Society attributes pain to only be physical, and tries to separate the mind, body and soul. Depression for instance, can manifest in physical pain. Depression in many belief systems are people who can’t or won’t get over the past. Others believe it is anger turned inwards. Other, believe it is simply repressed anger, that amplifies every time a person holds anger, doesn’t process it and so forth. And Depression is also believed to be rooted in the lack of choice to forgive, mostly themselves and others.
Suicide is a choice to end their suffering.
To judge those so harshly for making a choice to end their suffering, because some how their suffering is less than, the suffering of those who remained.
Given in Canada where I live, the government is set to approve medically assisted death to those who main and only illness is mental illness, and that is set to come into full effect March 17, 2024.
I myself am choosing this, and have informed everyone in my life. I wish it had not been postponed 1 year, as now I also have Uterine Cancer.
Death is such a huge misinformed process and guarantee in life.
No different to you stating your pain and suffering, invalidating your father’s pain, won’t bring him back and won’t set you free either.
I have never thought Suicide was selfish. Ending someone else’s life, is selfish, unless it is to stop a live from being taken…so basically self defense.
Suicide is simply a choice, an action and a consequence of their choosing and we are not here to judge others lives based on how we feel.
If anything your words just cut deeper.
As I explained in a comment I responded to above, I understand the need for death as a choice. Terminal illness, Mental Health disorders, Quality of Life diminishment… it’s not black and white. It pertains to people’s individual situations. Open discussion is so important, and coming to a consensus can be a kindness out of cruelty.
I’m simply trying to make others aware of your pain not ending, but you becoming a progenitor of pain unto others should you choose Suicide without any clear reasoning to those left behind.
I certainly do NOT invalidate my father’s pain. I use it as a blade and shield as much as I can to educate others and fight against Depression and trauma myself; something only other Suicide Survivors will understand. For you to say such things so casually disturbs me and makes me frankly incensed.
I’m sorry to hear about your circumstances, and I understand how you explain where Depression can stem from all too well. Especially in regards to physical pain. But you’ll only understand what I speak of if someone close to you suddenly dies from suicide and you’re left grasping for reasons why: even if you thought you understood the nature of it from your own dark thoughts, like I did.
I even have some inklings to the reasons behind why he did it. Doesn’t make it any better by any means. Every single day is hell. If anything he’s ripped half my life away from me. And not just me, but others, too. I have barely any quality in it.
Yet life is a gift while death is an assurance. We don’t choose life, so making what we can out of it is much more beautiful than deciding to end it early with something that has been a certainty since the dawn of humanity. Your wish to end your life without clear reasoning or justification only sabotages the lives of others. And not in any temporary manner, either. It’s permanent.
I respect my father’s wishes. I may not agree with them, but I respect them. I DO NOT INVALIDATE THEM. But I know if he were alive today, and how he saw how much he’s caused his family to suffer even eight years after the fact, and many, many more to come, I do wonder if he would reconsider his actions.
It’s all selfish. For me wishing I was dead, to wishing he wasn’t dead, to wishing others wouldn’t die, to in some cases, wishing they would.
I sense from your reply, you have taken someone’s choice and made it your own. And I know, nothing I say will change your mind.
I do know those who committed suicide, my brothers best friend and 7 days later our cousin. I know those who have been murdered. I know, someone who refused cancer treatment and opted for medically assisted suicide. Just this Sunday, I attempted my bosses funeral, from a hit and run, accident still being investigated. The pain or death for those who remain, is a journey all on its own. The fact you keep calling suicide selfish makes me see that you might be stuck in blaming his death for all your pain.
I too have C-PTSD and cancer and another disorder, very few understand called DID, and death has been around me since the age of 8. I am 48.
Again, I know my words will sting, but you seem to possibly be stuck in martyrdom and choose to keep suffering and blaming others for all of it.
I believe we as souls chose this life, our parents and our journey. I believe our souls move on and heal, when they are released from their body.
I don’t go around advocating suicide, but 100% understand it and would never shame someone for thinking of it or chosing it.
More so, you say 8 years, and that is a very long time. I am assuming you were a child, then when he died. That lose is hard. Death changes relationships, but focusing on the cause of death, helps no one, including you, as you clearing have chosen not to move on.
You keep calling his death selfish, yet don’t see your need to have him here continually suffering, not selfish.
We all are here to live our individual lives for ourselves first and foremost.
I could be wrong, but maybe you are angry because his suicide, makes you fave the reality that you too wish or think of suicide, and somehow his death makes your suffering amplified. Again, you can simply after 8 years hold onto his death, and make his action and his death, the cause of your suffering, or you can accept his death and accept everything you are feeling inside is all yours to feel and heal, and move on. C PTSD is not a life sentence and you can heal, by simply moving on, and moving forward and simply accept, people die by suicide all the time, from over doses, to drunk driving, refusing treatment and death by their own hands.
You can make it your life mission if you want, but suicide is a fact of life. It is death. The feelings you have are valid, and maybe focusing on those feelings and the way you process feelings, will be more helpful to heal. CPTSD is usually diagnosed for those who have experienced multiple traumas, as with myself watching my best friend being murdered on her 8th birthday…”because” someone found my diary. I was also 8. This was 1983. Law enforcement is now taking me seriously. I know survivor’s guilt, from the ripe old age of 8. I have lived with and survived death, even suicide attempt, by asking her murderer to kill me. I was 9. On my 10th birthday, my mother drowned me. I sadly survived.
When I say I know death, I mean I know death. I did die. I was sent back. I was 10. I am now 48. When someone I love has died of suicide, I pray their soul finds peace. I grieve, I feel my own sadness, and I grow.
Maybe look into survivor’s guilt and what it means to be a martyr, and again, I am not trying to offend you, but my attempt is to help you move on from grieving and move onto living.
It is your choice who you blame for your pain, but you can make other choices now.
You continue to dictate what and how I should feel and put words into my mouth when I’ve already expressed myself clearly in above posts. You don’t know me or how I feel. I’m doing my best to move on with my life while advising others of what such a choice can mean to those left behind. I don’t cling to suicide, refuse to accept it, deny its existence, etc. etc. as you so seem to claim. My choices are my own. Me choosing to educate those of the aftermath left behind are my own.
Take what you will from my words, but don’t pull your own claims out of them and pass them off as my own wishes, beliefs, or feelings. Your life is your life. And frankly I don’t care what you choose to do with it.
Wow, not surprised with your response. Apparently, I can’t be a suicide survivor who sees it completely different than you. I also want to educate, and offer those thinking of suicide, that there are many people in the world, who will miss them, and suffer, and hold difficult feelings about their loss of a loved one. Hope one day, you heal.
It is a horrible thing to go through, although I have not had that displeasure. I’m on the verge of suicide, and in my mind all I want to do is “shut off” and be gone forever. KAPUT. I’ve always thought about the ones I may leave behind, but in my situation I don’t care. It may be selfish, but it’s the “off” that I want desperately. Nothing else seems to be of any matter when I’m in this state of mind. I just want to shut offf as in dead. Never having to deal with this life ever again. Sorry kiddo’s but this is my brain in motion. Just when is coming soon.
Thank you for sharing your story. As a mother, I struggle to stay alive because it’s only the effect my suicide will have on my daughter that I’m still around. I don’t know about your dad’s experiences, but for me, I’ve been suicidal since childhood. My worthlessness was reinforced regularly and despite a lifetime of therapy and other efforts to acquire self-esteem, I have never been able to spend much time at a place where my existence had any appeal. Now I’m older and any window of opportunity to be the person I could have been is closing. Instead, I’m physically and cognitively far less capable then even ten years ago. Thus, my future is bleak. I’m less capable of even supporting myself because my line of work is quite demanding, intellectually and emotionally. From my perspective, I have ever-decreasing peace of mind and I never had much to begin with. Rather than deplete what few financial assets I have, I’d much rather preserve them so my daughter can have a small measure of financial security. I realize to someone who has lost a parent to suicide this makes little to no sense. But from my perspective, it’s the least I can do for my child.