suicide

Missed Craig's update on Facebook earlier, but she's out of hospital and doing OK.

Just reading back upthread:

and when someone is posting and saying "no one cares about me and I mean nothing to other people" the very least we can do is to testify that that is not true

is great advice, but I'd go further and say continue to testify it even when they're NOT saying it, because they're probably still thinking it, and it helps to look back on the nice random things people did and said at random and not just the things said when you asked people to say it when you feel that no-one cares.

So, with that in mind, emil.y, I won one of your CDs in a raffle at a gig this weekend. And it reminded me of your hilarious and shambolic gig in Glasgow years ago, and it made me smile. And I might even listen to it soon :-)

emil.y, you are in the top tier, the shortlist of online presences who make the internet worth looking at for me. I hope you find a way forward in this life with pleasure instead of pain.

Emily, I love you.

I wish I could help out IRL, like bring you some food or tidy up your house or read to you...I'm not good with words, just gestures, to show I care. But I would do anything to help ease your pain. It is fucking crummy you feel that shitty. Please never kill yourself.

Emil.y, I can't know what you've been going through, but I know what it's like to struggle with self-hatred and suicidal urges. However you feel about yrself, yr life is precious and a lot of people care about you and want you to find a way through this.

I wish I could help out IRL, like bring you some food or tidy up your house or read to you...I'm not good with words, just gestures, to show I care. But I would do anything to help ease your pain. It is fucking crummy you feel that shitty. Please never kill yourself.

^^^^

emil.y I don't know you and I'm not sure I have directly interacted with you, but I enjoy your presence here, the strong and specific points of view. I always get the sense of you as someone with very high standards, which I like even when I don't share them. Many good thoughts to you.

yeah i feel hopelessly lacking in words here but ^^^^ to everything everybody's saying

You're a very special person, emil.y. It is heartbreaking to see you in so much pain. I have struggled to find words for fear of saying the wrong thing, but you mean a lot to me.

your creativity is inspiring, you go in hard on oldschool horror movies. i like everything you bring to ilx, including the selfloathing & the things you hate about yourself & the loneliness. i see all that you allow us to see & accept all of it & i would love for you to stay

I would like to answer any other questions you may have about the etymology of butterfly and other words

echoing everyone's concern & good wishes

Only just heard about this but Emily, I hope you get all the help and support you need to get better. Judging by this thread, there are a lot of people here who care about you and would miss you if you weren't here. Wishing you only the best.

Hi guys. Yes, I am alive and back home. To be honest I'm not particularly happy about it and I feel like an idiot for trying such an unreliable dramatic method and being so public about the whole thing. However, I genuinely genuinely appreciate all your messages and thoughts. Thank you all. It means a lot to me.

oh my god, it's good to have you back :)

^

Hey Em. Regardless of what got you here, I'm glad you're alive and around. I hope if ILX is not helpful you can take some time away and if it is helpful you spend more time on here. Basically whatever gets you through the night is a good thing. Honest. I wouldn't pretend to know your mind but am I wrong to think that music doesn't still sound sweet? Maybe that's a place to start. Sending love.

Glad to have you back, I really really hope you stay around.

welcome back emil.y!!

<3 <3 <3

glad you're still here, emil.y

listening to cece peniston, changed the lyrics to 'emil.y'

I've watched this thread for the past couple days, all the while feeling like I should say something, but I can't really come up with anything. But here goes.

I've struggled myself these last few months and I know what it's like to wake up each day with that same empty feeling, that same hopeless/helpless dynamic. You just kind of become numb to it all after a while.

I literally laughed for the first time in weeks upon failing to successfully kill myself — it made so much twisted sense that I fail at having a job, fail at having a relationship, fail at venturing out on my own in life; what's perfect for that pile is another failure to do something properly. I spent two weeks in institution trying to reconcile it. I still don't know if I have.

I take the pills they give me and talk to the people they set me up with, but I can't say if it all does anything or not. I'm still here, but I've kind of become "flat" to the whole idea of it all; like nothing really matters.

I'm 35 and feel thoroughly alone and unsuccessful. And yet, here I am.

There's two things that have kept me here:

1) Confronting that hurt, the failure and worthlessness. This pain is real. This anguish is real. I'm not crazy and I'm not just being dramatic. It exists.

And 2) Music. It's always been the foremost important thing in my life, whether playing or just listening. But now it serves as both a distraction and a savior. It doesn't bring me the same joy it did in my youth, but it is the only avenue of constant positivity I have right now, so I'm sticking with it.

I'm truly sorry to hear about your troubles, Emily. I wish I could say something that could provide some relief, even if it was just temporary. I wish we all could.

Austin I'm not in a place to think through what I wanna write right now but the awkward empathy we try to share with every ilxor at the end of their resources is definitely yours too. I don't like to talk about this stuff for fear of my own ignorance but I've been in similar places and I wish you your own way through

Austin, I think we might actually be the same person. Among other things, this particularly resonates: it made so much twisted sense that I fail at having a job, fail at having a relationship, fail at venturing out on my own in life; what's perfect for that pile is another failure to do something properly. Am kind of still too wrapped up in my own shit to know how to offer consolation/comfort/anything much to anyone else, but I wish I could. It's horrible knowing there are other people in as much pain. Though of course not trying to make your pain about me (I think my level of self-loathing is such it does always risk turning into absolute egocentrism, sorry), just... it's an awful place to be, I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Emil.y (and Austin) I am v glad you failed to do this particular item properly, v v glad indeed

I am a self-confessed failure and frequently suffer from low self esteem and depression but never to the extent that I've contemplated suicide. Sometimes I like to think being dragged up has imbued some kind of ability to roll with whatever humiliations life throws at me, but that is probably cliched macho bollocks and I probably just don't know true clinical depression. I really feel sorry for you people who feel it so strong, you feel the need to take your own life because it must be truly terrible to be in that place.

When I was having a crisis a few years ago I decided to cut out thinking about what former work colleagues thought about me because I had become a "benefits scum" carer and I was hearing strong self criticism on a daily basis. I just evicted all these negative voices from my mind because fuck 'em. Sometimes I think my main motivation for remaining alive is just a stubborn desire to outlive loads of people I can't stand, and be a good failure.

Anyway all the best to brilliant poster Emil.y and all others in this place who are going through hard times.

I've been in a 'don't want to keep living' place a couple of brief interludes this winter but not a 'how exactly do I make that happen' place

Good to have you back, Emily. Please keep on keeping on (you too, Austin, and everyone else struggling).

Oh, and I asked this before, but can we get this thread de-indexed?

Otm

done

all the best to you too austin and i wish you better times ahead

Emily, oh my god, glad you're still here.

feel better emil.y

Cheers, mod.

I'm 35 and feel thoroughly alone and unsuccessful. And yet, here I am.

Been there but, believe me, 35 is nothing, you should never despair because of your age, I thought I was past it at 20. Never give up on that basis.

love you emil.y. love you austin.

Emil.y, I don't know you well but I have tons and tons of respect for you. Having the mind you have and putting ideas and opinions from it into the world (virtually or not) with what seems like zero ego-driven fear and no bullshit puts you well out of 'failure' territory. I realize that all that totally fails to address what you get out of the interactions, only what they/we get out of it.

um hi

dammit wrong thread

Don't do it bro

lol

sorry - just read the previous revive and literally LOLd

also I am clearing out bookmarks not bumping this for any other reason just to be clear

Don't do it, sis

wouldn't normally ask a irl question on ilx but not sure what to do. a friend of mine, not someone i know for a long time or necessarily that well, but someone i am close enough to, texted me to say she intends to kill herself when she gets back from a holiday she's currently on with her dad.

i'm fairly far out of my depth but i figure the best thing to do is to suggest speaking to a professional person while also being loosely positive without getting into specific responses to any of the negative things she's saying (issues with romantic relationships with people i've never met etc)

i am away myself at the moment which complicates things, but when i get home i've offered to go along and wait outside if she sees a counsellor, or arrange a call. i figure also i should try to find numbers of other older friends, or perhaps family, but i am kind of at a loss about where that becomes a betrayal of trust?

she has agreed to meet for a coffee on sunday - again i don't know whether me asking her not to do anything between now and then is dangerous or puts pressure on her. anyone got any advice or experience - i've never really been in this situation before. i tried googling and looking at samaritans etc and the advice was all for less acute situations, or so it seemed to me anyway.

i mean obv i credit you with knowing how to read a situation well, but theres no chance this is a dramatic turn of phrase as opposed to a statement of actual intent?

no, i really don't think so. like i hoped so at first but it seems really serious and dark.

I can’t offer you any advice except to say this is shit & to ask if you have seen this Mind booklet?
https://www.mind.org.uk/media/5452271/how-to-support-someone-who-feels-suicidal-2017.pdf