My guess is that I’m not ending my life because of a combination of survival instinct, fear of something worse beyond death (hell etc.), and attachment to personal experience (memories.) It’s highly questionable whether that’s the best choice for me, but it seems like it’s at least less likely to devastate my family.
Which leaves me with the question of what to do while I’m still here, besides preparing my exit. I don’t know if I should attempt to pursue anything in this life. It seems wrong to involve myself in the lives of anyone else. I’m honestly a repulsive person (believe me, if you knew me, you’d want nothing to do with me.) The only way I’d ever form a relationship is by deceiving someone. And that’s wrong. On the other hand, I have the same feelings as anyone else – the same longings for intimacy, connection, acceptance etc. I don’t know how to live with those without going nuts. And I don’t know how bad my regret would be at the end of my life (or beyond) if I never made any attempt to fulfill those feelings.
I do know I’m not going to do the virtuous thing – I’m not going to confess my sins, Crime & Punishment style. I just don’t believe the devastation caused to both myself and my family would be worth it. I suppose I don’t anticipate it bringing existential salvation – I don’t think it would wipe clean my conscience.
Apparently, my shame isn’t great enough to bring me to end my life either. That’s what any decent person who found themselves in my circumstance would do. They wouldn’t be able to live with themselves. But no decent person would ever do the things I’ve done.
So I don’t know. I don’t know if I should make any attempt to fulfill my desires or not, given the deception it would require. I don’t know if it would even be worth trying. With the mess I’ve made of my life so far, it’s unlikely I could even put on a convincing pretense of normalcy good enough to appeal to anyone. I’ve spent so long isolating myself I’m effectively socially disabled, and my health is slowly falling apart. But I don’t know how I’ll cope if I do continue alone all my life. I fear some echo of me will remain beyond death, still tormenting itself with everything it didn’t do.
And if I don’t make any attempt at personal fulfillment, is it worth trying to do anything to redeem myself? Am I capable of change, and what am I changing for, if my life remains empty?
I’m so incredibly lost. I have no clue what I’m doing.
4 comments
shit man, i’m so curious as to what you actually did. violently rape someone in an alleyway? bludgeon a child to death? I remember reading in a newspaper once this couple microwaved their cat. But I don’t think they ever felt this bad. Maybe they did, I can’t read minds.
but hey, everyone has different temperaments. I don’t think you not killing yourself says anything about your lack of shame. If anything, won’t that be a cop out in your scenario? Aren’t you torturing yourself more living like this? It’s one thing to snuff out all hope and resign yourself to a prison hold equivalent of a life, but isn’t it far more painful to string yourself out like this, still holding your breath hoping for better, holding on to a fragmented hope that you’ll probably never give yourself? It’s like you’ve handed yourself a life sentence you know you won’t rescind, but you’re still out there every time with sweaty palms hoping you’ll get parole.
It’s more pathetic than it is interesting. A slightly more pedestrian kind of shittiness. But still not something I could ever risk telling anyone.
Killing myself would be the more ‘honorable’ choice, short of confessing. It would at least rid the world of my stain. Confession would be the path to really inflict misery on myself, if I had the moral resolution to do that.
I suppose by living like this I am continuing to generate suffering for myself, but I’m also able to hide from that somewhat in my false hopes. Though that gets harder as the years go by.
If it isn’t as monumentally bad as those, then I’ve a really hard time imagining just what could warrant this much remorse. I also don’t think confession would do anything, just open closed wounds. Fuck virtue and honour, that’s all just a show. Nobody believes in it until they’re shaming someone else for their lack of it. Is forgiving yourself really out of the question? I hope you don’t hate me cause obviously it’s not as simple as this, but can’t you just move on? Haven’t you received punishment enough? I think you deserve happiness, or an attempt at it anyway 🙁
Oh but isn’t the clue in the words ‘false hopes’? I’d argue that you’re just bringing yourself more pain in the long run this way.
I would say it’s more fear than remorse – when you realize you’ve done something that puts you forever beyond the moral pale. Some might consider it as bad or worse than the acts you listed. I don’t, but then clearly my moral instincts aren’t normal.
Confession would mean living honestly with the world, for the first time since I was a child. But it would also destroy my family and likely expose me to extreme hardship. I do think some people really believe in virtue and honour, but I don’t, at least not nearly enough to put myself through all that.
It’s not so much about forgiving myself. It’s knowing that nobody who knew would be able to accept it. And knowing that it’s still an incredibly strong part of my mind, that isn’t going away. I’m a terrible person – that’s not remorse speaking – that’s an attempt at rational self-assessment. Which isn’t to say that I’m a psychopath, or entirely evil. But how can I allow myself to move on and become involved in the lives of others, if I know that I still have this evil within me, and that they’d run a mile if they knew the truth? How could I continue to deceive someone I cared about like that?
I’m not sure there’s punishment enough for what I’ve done. I really don’t deserve happiness. Large parts of me want it. But I don’t deserve it. Again, that’s not remorse – it’s an attempt at rational self-assessment.
I don’t know at what point I finally fully accept that my hopes were false. Perhaps it does become unbearably painful at that point. And maybe that finally pushes me to end it. I’m not sure what the alternative is anyway.