suicide

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.

we belieb in u

it sounds stupid, but it hurts a lot, but people are like "oh, you're not gonna die from it!" fucking wish i would sometimes. a lot of the time actually.

Xpost: lol

I too have chronic constant pain, but I've honestly just learned to deal with it and pretend it isn't there and convince myself it's just a thing I have to deal with now like greying hair and increasing short-sightedness, except for when my leg seizes up completely and I can't actually walk any more (this happened to me this afternoon, my leg buckled out from under me when I was standing still, and I fell sideways and nearly started a domino-style comedy collapse of an entire row of people). Um, I don't really have a point other than that I, er, feel your pain.

quite literally it would seem!

yeah, the pain is not really an issue with me, I've learned to tough that out. It's the other thing which is the problem, but I hope that this next doctor visit will convince him to give me something that'll ease it.

My big problem really is that I see catastrophe around every corner. Most other people seem so chilled out, including my dad, but I am a big sad bag of neuroses and fear.

When I called my dad to tell him I'd been hospitalized, he said "that's another thing you must've got from your mother. I've never been depressed a day in my life." I had to lol

I think realising that other people are also big sad bags of neuroses and fear is kind of reassuring. Some of the smartest and cleverest and funniest and loveliest and downright great people I know are a total fucking mental mess. And they're still the smartest and cleverest and funniest and loveliest people I know. Somehow we all keep hanging in there. The fact you're on here, and not away plotting your own downfall is great. Keep doing that.

Isn't it mildly reassuring when the anticipated catastrophe fails to materialise? Take each one of those non-catastrophes as a win, makes the net loss of an actual catastrophe/mild blip a lot smaller in the grand scheme of stuff. Like, I go "nice coffee, didn't burn the toast, found an episode of Frasier on Comedy Central that I'm not completely word perfect on yet, I'm not a Man Utd fan" and then the odd "waah I am a giant fucking housebound loser" is like "well yeah, but, you can make nice coffees and watch telly all day and you can read the irritating co-workers thread and thank the deity of your choosing that you don't have to deal with THAT shit every day, and at least you don't support Man Utd", and then you regain a bit of perspective and you carry on until it happens again.

xpost, yeah, and don't speak to people who tell you shit like that. It's taken me AGES to convince my mum that my mental health issues are not her fault, like I feel bad enough in myself and now I have to feel like I've made you feel inadequate as a parent

(note: I'm kind of shit at following this advice, but I do try)

i hope you told him his genes were weak tea xp

u can be bieber. print off a bieber mask and record a track while wearing it

@ AM, I find it difficult for "you're so funny and insightful and self-aware and kind and conscientious!" to register, it's like my brain runs away from validation, or is allergic to it? Whereas every neg thing anybody's ever said at me clings like wet semen. It does always help me to be reminded though that this is your brain that is sick, not you, study your brain patterns but regard the resultant feelings as transient, changeable.

lol mookie, alisa otm

alternatively, yeah, bask in the reflected mindwreckage of your fellow ilxors >:D

oh now there's an image

krulls, i do too, people always say that to me and i reply, "well so what? it's not even true. even if so, fat lot of good it's done me." I used to have everything negative cling to me, but (un)fortunately, that's been replaced with near psychotic obsession with my various health issues.

lol at imago.

clings like wet semen

This simile can't go uncommented on. And yet, I have nothing to say.

I am appalling at taking compliments. Thankfully, I rarely receive them.

alisa, you make good, very eloquent points. unfortunately, in me, you have come across someone whose sole catastrophe keeps happening to him, and there seems to be nothing anyone can do. as far as i know at least.

what catastrophe is 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."

if it was just a come-and-go-with-stress deal, then i'd be cool with it, but it sticks around, makes it hard to sleep, breathe, eat without coughing or getting gummed up with mucus. super weird and docs don't know what it is.

sounds wimpy, i know, but it hurts and bums me out and i whine about it a lot.

AM: I have a different but similar chronic affliction. My doctor told me this is directly linked to facial trauma, the nervous system is closely linked with the brain stem, and that it is not unusual for people going through face and head stuff-- cold sores, rosasia, even black eyes-- to experience The Worst Thoughts And Feelings on the road to their recovery

Also my therapist told me that when you're depressed, it's good to surprise your brain with unusual patterns of activity such as the creation of new and evocative similes

that's really kinda crazy/interesting -- the connection between face/head stuff & depression

Not so good for the rest of us, tbh :-(

AM, that must be so frustrating. I have no diagnosis for my leg issues, I've been xrayed and pulled and poked and prodded every which way until Christmas, and still no idea. I've decided it's fibromyalgia, but my doctor doesn't believe in its existence. He does prescribe me lots and lots of lovely drugs though, but it's super-frustrating to not be able to do stuff I used to be able to do like go dancing or stand up at a gig or swim or play badminton or sleep through the night without being woken up feeling like the circulation in your leg is made entire of a flow of lava and razorblades, all of which I did regularly and none of which i can do at all now.