suicide

you're stuck with us

otm

anyway how else am I going to get lyle pics and ILNFL trash talk

also stfu bumping this thread! you can't do that and then backpedal in the very same post.
cmon dude. don't scare a person like that.

ah, it's ok

Still.

luv

I just learned a childhood friend killed herself three years ago. She was the first girl I ever kissed, and, although as an early adolescent I decided that I was actually in love with another girl, she was the one in the back of my mind I always thought I'd marry. I moved away though, and we never kept in touch (it was the late 1980s, no internet). I heard about her from time to time. She had been one of the best students at school, one of the shining, smart students who promised big things in her future. But there was a darkness in her family; her father was sexist and controlling. I learned he wasn't her actual father; but I never heard who the actual father was. When she was a child he forced her to go on camping trips with a friend, which she hated and didn't want to go on. By the time she was eleven she was protesting highly; my mother convinced her mom that if she didn't want to go on these, maybe there was a reason and she should have to. In high school her boyfriend died and she went into a deep depression. I heard she began moving around. She had some children and got divorced. Her mother died of cancer. Then I never heard from here again. I hit FB regularly searching for her name, as recently as last week. I never thought to ask people we knew in common though. Finally someone wrote me this weekend and sent me an obituary page. Asking around a bit I learned she had taken her own life. She had young children.

I'm so broken about this. My wife is not very understanding, which I get; to her mind, this was someone that I was no longer close to. True. But she signified a very happy time in my life. Our families had been close. She was one of the few people who was always nice to geeky, shy me. She was sweet and she was beautiful. I desperately wish there was something I could have said or done.

sorry man. i don't think there's anything you could have said or done, tho

Question: is there a difference between a suffering individual that "wants to not experience suffering any longer" and one that "wants to now experience not-suffering"? If not, how can any kind of humane suicide be justified? Assisted suicide is very supported it seems.

People's understanding and judgement of what constitutes suffering varies wildly, which makes it unclear... in most assisted suicide cases the people in question have terminal uncurable diseases and/or advanced age. I think people are less likely to support suicide of a physically health person under the age of 70, for example, with the thinking that they the potential time and ability to survive?

But even with advanced painful incurable diseases, how is not existing bring you relief? Isn't that ultimately what the desperate individual craves? You can't experience relief when you don't exist. I think it is the fallacy of the desperate suicidal person. When you feel cornered like one does with such pain, you probably aren't considering your non-existence as carefully as you should. It's the wrong state of mind.

You're equating the end of pain with a state of actually feeling relief, or to realize the absence of suffering - at the point of suicide you just want to stop feeling entirely, at all costs, even if feel nothing afterwards, as its preferable to the existing eternity of torment.

And even that suffering can be difficult to relate as "pain" - many depression sufferers also experience the inability to feel joy, sorrow, prolonged emotional lockdown.

I am always in favor of life when it's worth living or you can possibly be in a state to experience anything worthwhile, but Evan, you're assuming existence is some sort of universal good. If you're not religious and believe in nothing post-death, then it's exactly that -- nothing. I have things that make life worth exploring and people who I would like to live with, but should I not exist tomorrow, it's impossible for me to feel anything about existence at that point. What do you mean when you consider non-existence? The only consideration is the rest of the world. You won't exist or care. I wasn't really angry about not existing when I wasn't born.

I'm saying that it seems one can only crave for the suffering to end when they can experience that post-suffering state. If life is a hand on a hot stove to the suffering individual, they probably see death as removing the hand. But in reality you don't experience the non-heat of your hand removing when you die. So it isn't a solution.

When you say "I have to end this pain!" it is no different than saying "I want to experience the resulting non-pain!" which you can't do without existing.

it is different

How? Doesn't it have to be relevant to you to matter? There has to be a "you" to make personal suffering or non-suffering relevant.

If you've been suffering depression for a long time, even the existence of a "non-pain state" seems impossible, and an anguished death by suicide becomes preferable. The hot stove metaphor is off; life itself and the depression are one and the same. It's either endless misery or nothing.

Note that even as I say this I am loathe to make sweeping universal statements about depression; it's certainly not the same for everyone

Right if life and misery are the same life is your hand on a hot stove. It only makes sense to remove your hand if you can experience the benefit. A desperate person feels cornered by their suffering. And cornered beings make desperate rash decisions utilizing clouded judgement.

Wanting to end suffering and wanting to experience the end of suffering are not the same thing.

Saying "my life is too painful to live" isn't the same as "I want to live without pain" - people often decide/realise that living without pain is not an option and all that's left is living with pain or not living.

But when faced with that extremely desperate set of choices, while in terrible pain, are you really able to fully conceptualize the absolute nature of nothingness? I feel like someone driven to suicide is probably unable to take the time to grasp that no layer of their perception will carry over after death. It's an impossible concept for anyone to imagine- existence divorced from personal perspective.

But when faced with that extremely desperate set of choices, while in terrible pain, are you really able to fully conceptualize the absolute nature of nothingness?

I do not believe that it's impossible to conceptualise not existing, or an existence without my awareness of it.

Many many people believe in the absolute nothingness of death and I don't think desperate terrible pain would change that belief.

Many many people believe in the absolute nothingness of death and I don't think desperate terrible pain would change that belief.

Of that segment, I wonder how many would consider suicide.

I can conceptualize existence without being filtered through my senses, but I can't imagine it. The only reality any of us has ever known has been filtered through our bodies and faces. To us personally, existence is irrelevant without our perception.

Sadly, my philosophy makes it so the only people to benefit from the end of suffering due to death are those close to the suffering individual. Watching someone you love suffer is suffering itself and when they're gone you are removed of that burden. You experience the desired "post-suffering state" that the dead individual cannot (after you mourn, of course, but the burden is immediately lifted). Applies more to putting down a sick old pet in most people's lives.

briefly re-read a portion of this thread in order to (hopefully successfully) send someone an email. hope he gets it. everybody take care in 2014, plz.

OK, so I forgot that my therapy session was TODAY instead of tomorrow, now I have to wait another two weeks to get it.

this could not come at a worse time.

god, i don't want to write out everything that's wrong with me again. it'd be easier to write what was right, but that wouldn't make me feel better at all.

just let it suffice that i wish i had a stupid number of siblings, so my inevitable death would have its blow cushioned. i just do not have anything of worth to offer the world. life just feels way too tough for me to endure, and god knows i've tried, tried, tried. but i fuck up at every turn. i'm just so prone to failure. people always say, "oh, well, AM, you're this and that, you're so funny and insightful and self-aware and kind and conscientious." what do any of those things matter, if they're even true at all, when your whole life feels like hell and you just. cannot. do. anything. about. it.

for some people that's relieving, but for me it just makes me want to cry and scream all day. and sometimes it does. my problems aren't even that great, but it's like a constantly dripping tap that i can't turn off. it's slowly driving me insane.

damn it.

i just do not have anything of worth to offer the world

as opposed to other people, who are so worthwhile, and have so much to offer?

i would love to be able to refute the rest of what you wrote, but i don't think i can. life is a difficult thing to endure, it's true. even "happy people" sometimes feel the way you do, and unfortunately fucking up at every turn and being prone to failure is part of life too (see: the peter principle).

FWIW my life feels like hell too, and i just cannot seem to do anything about it, most of the time. but there are things in my life that make me happy, and i am trying to focus my life toward those things and away from the negativity. it's really all i can do, i guess.

you should see if you can get in earlier than two weeks from now, sounds like you need it.

thanks late great. the rebuttal you made is a realization I came to too late in the great scheme of things.

I'm going to see the doctor on Monday. I don't think it'll be helpful, but I'll try.

The fact that you're thinking and rationalising is good. I have horrific and scary momentary flashes of suicide ideation, and I can't rationalise or make decisions, it's like a switch being flicked and suddenly all that's in my head is "I should be dead". I try not to think about the reality of them when the moment passes, like I won't let it be a conscious option. Get on here, shout into the internet, do something ANYTHING to stop you thinking of what your brain is telling you is an alternative to being alive in a miserable shouty fearful state. Because being alive in a bad place is pretty much better than being dead. For everyone involved. Including you.

alisa, I'm sorry you have those moments, I really am. they are extremely scary and I'm having them about 20 times a day for the past few days. Those moments where you feel you've drained every last source of strength and pleasure dry and still the pain and horror keep coming. I have my parents to act as a barrier against leaping into the void, but that fence gets very rickety sometimes.

I hope you're doing OK.

Yeah. It passes, and I've learned to recognise that it passes and ride it out, and then it's all "wtf was THAT all about then?" and then I go on like it didn't happen. I tend to go and punch my sofa cushions or something to let the rage ride itself out. Almost primal screaming kind of therapy, hitting and punching and screaming until it passes.

(don't go reading upthread for my earlier contributions where I'm all "ILX is shite in a crisis" and then go a bit "my life's OK now". Neither of these things are particularly true, though they probably seemed it at the time)

Incidentally, if any mods are lurking about, could this maybe be deindexed like the depression thread is? It's probably not a good idea for the various mental issues of various ILXors to be googleable.

ailsa & late great otm

i don't know if I have anything v useful to add to that, except just to reinforce that blarping on the internet, calling a helpline, seeking feedback *and getting it* (that second part is key, shouting into a vacuum will only compound things) is kinda key when you're feeling in crisis like this. your inner voice creates its own reality, and that echochamber effect is what is so debilitating, because it feels real. hell, as far as you're concerned, it is. seeking some feedback, in whatever form, can help break that loop

and yeah, if you can get an emergency session scheduled, that would be kinda key. I mean, this is more than a 'oops I forgot sitch' -- if it's the difference between you being here and maybe contemplating not, then they might pull out all the stops

i need to do this because at this stage, i can barely get through the hour.

god, i just can't talk about this to anyone because my mother has been seriously depressed for over a year now and she sucks up all the attention and energy and resources and I try my best to stay strong and fight the pain but my own madness is devouring me alive.

you're not your mother and you clearly need help. there's no shame in that. that's just how it is.

'clearly need help' = would benefit from talking to someone. it came out wrong :)

ha, yeah, I know what you mean.

I've always been an insomniac, so this time of night when everyone is asleep is especially bad. I like coming on ILX to talk about music at times like this. I think it helps a little.

Would it be worth ringing someone like Samaritans or Befrienders, so you can talk it through a person without the worry that their emotional resources are already taxed?

talk it through *with a person, obv

you're using all your energy 'staying strong' and just that alone can seriously, seriously deplete your own resources for self-preservation. you're carrying around all kinds of stuff with you that you don't. need. to. carry. talking to a person about how crazy all this feels is akin to taking off a few pounds or 10 of baggage. hi and welcome to emotional hoarding, let us help you put all this stuff away :)

I did that a couple of years ago when my problems first started. It wasn't very cathartic, even though the people were very nice, plus I don't want to wake people up in the house.

xxpost.

aha, thanks. i like that analogy. keep picking the stuff up somewhere.

it's bad when i'm even wishing i'd rather be bieber than myself.

That's it, we're staging an intervention :)

Seriously though, dude, you can make light of it and talk through it. That's more than half the battle, I reckon.

ha, thanks, I might just do that.

the problem, and the big one aside from general chronic pain, is this weird psoriasis-like condition in my mouth, which spreads during stress, but then stays there regardless of subsequent relaxation, even for long periods of time. doctors haven't been able to place what it is, but it dries my mouth out and leaves it very sore. recently, it's been snaking its way down into my throat and that is seriously setting off my panic alarms, even as I need to rein it in to keep it from doing that. makes it hard to talk or eat without coughing, getting gummed up, the works.

this is why i am a very un-fucking-happy camper.