Sandbox suicide thread

Hey, let's get this shit de-indexed over here, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNfbcSBib64&ob=av2e

emil.y ;_;

deindexed

wtf

Wtf = this is a thread for sad people of any stripe who aren't sure why their life is worth living.

k just was like what

someone I know killed themselves after saying they were going to on facebook so now "lol" is not really my reaction to internet suicide threats or w/e

I figured there was a 'sad but determined' thread, why not a 'sad and not determined at all, in fact the complete opposite, I feel like totally just giving up' thread?

This is not meant to be a "lol" thread.

In fact, if anyone turns it into a fucking "lol" thread I will be majorly fucking pissed off. Admittedly, I'm already majorly pissed off, but that's just at me, not anyone else.

plz don't do anything to hurt yourself emil.y!

if no determination is a problem, surely staying alive requires the least of it?

also, on a side note, i feel sorry for anyone who is sure why their life is worth living.

You're right, lack of determination is a problem. Which is why I wake up every day wishing that I had a terminal illness so I could go to Switzerland. And yes, I know it's callous, and I know there are people who wake up every day wishing they didn't have a terminal illness, and if I could help them I would. If I could swap, I would. But I can't. All I can do is sit and fester and rot here, until one day something will let me just stop.

no to suicide and no to lol

go to switzerland anyway. pay for it by giving up an organ on the black market. best of both worlds!

seriously though, what do you want that's in switzerland? if you want to go there, i bet nothing can keep you from doing exactly that.

terrible at articulating this but argh no

maybe you're conflating ~yr situation~ with ~being alive~? cos being alive is huge, our situations day-to-day are like pinpricks.

i think the swiss reference was related to the terminal illness/right-to-die thing, not a particular desire to go to switzerland

What do I want that's in Switzerland?

http://www.dignitas.ch/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=20&Itemid=60&lang=en

a member can say “I have had enough now, I want to die.”

That's all I want. I've had enough now. I want to die.

i cant cope with this being said and i have no response to make it different

I'm around all this weekend if you need to meet up and chat emily, ok? But also is Craig around and are you able to talk to him?

can you go there now? sorry if you dont know her well

ah ok. emily, how you have enough determination to do that and yet you want to "give up" is ridiculous. giving up and killing yourself are like the opposite of each other! you're worth it, you should totally just give up instead! xp

honestly can't tell if you're trying to be helpful or not

i have no idea what i'm supposed to say to *be helpful*, no idea what emily's going through. just trying to talk tbh.

can you go there now?

I don't know where there is - but I'm just about to webmail my mobile number emily okay, so you can always just call or text me whenever got me?

I'd kind of appreciate it if my real life could be kept out of this thread. I know it's de-indexed, but I'd still rather it be abstract also. I guess I respond better to a philosophical argument than an argument based on 'oh, but you have x, y and z, so why why why?' (Not that I'm saying that anyone is making such an argument, just if my irl existence gets dragged into it, then that's what will happen).

emil.y, while you're awake and stuck in this one horrible loop of thought, can you find something to occupy your mind instead for a little while? i don't know, i used to sometimes do long division, or try and learn different computer languages, or try to translate something, or play a game, or do the washing up, or clean the tiles in the bathroom - something that takes enough of your attention that you just can't think about pointlessness and failure, at least until the morning.

I'd kind of appreciate it if my real life could be kept out of this thread.

Got you - apologies! - I was just hoping you had someone around if you need someone right now.

In September I read William Styron's book about his suicidal depression, called Darkness Visible. It was the most cogent discussion of depression as experienced by the sufferer that I've run across, and it is very, very short, just 80pp. It was blindingly obvious that he wasn't depressed because his life was awful, but that his life became nearly intolerable because he was depressed. It gave me a lot of sympathy for his plight.

Luckily he survived it, and his sole message was: you can, too.

Hey philosophical arguments are bunk because they all come down to "life is worth living, objectively and subjectively, for these reasons and depression/bad things/etc seem insurmountable and cause you to not understand that"

emil.y, I really love your posts on a variety of topics and I feel like this sort of thread may have been helpful in the past, but at the same time I realize that feeding the "why don't I kill myself this time" behavior is not a long-term living strategy, it's a short-term coping strategy and leaning on a community that basically says "get therapy, get support, get drugs, get help" isn't coming to a long-term solution. It CAN be, and I hope it is, but I know several people who used it as a way to justify lapsing into suicidal talk and thinking that's a tolerable pattern.

Again, ymmv, and I hope this isn't the deal, but the best way to not think about suicide is to do shit that isn't thinking about suicide. If it takes a lot of work to get to that point, so be it. But moving onward doesn't happen by doing it again.

I think I am going to try to drink my way out of it. This may take some time.

xpost - Aimless: I guess I do understand why people want to stop other people from killing themselves, I've even done it myself before, but... actually, I don't understand why. William Styron either didn't survive it or won't survive it, because he's either dead or is going to die. Nobody survives anything, they just hang on for a bit longer. I don't have any belief in post-mortem regret, because it is quite simply impossible - if you think that once I die I will regret it, you're attributing intentionality to a no-longer functioning brain. The only way I'd regret attempting to die is if my attempt failed. Which is the only thing that's stopping me, my certainty that I'm such a fucking loser I would fail.

I know several people who used it as a way to justify lapsing into suicidal talk and thinking that's a tolerable pattern.

Yeah, it's not really a tolerable pattern. I've come close to losing friends before because of this sort of behaviour, which is why I clammed up for many years. If I want to do it I should do it and shut up about it. In fact, most people who actually do it don't talk that much about it, they just plan it so it doesn't fail.

If I want to do it I should do it and shut up about it.

Umm fuck no, if you are suicidal and want to do it ASAP go get yourself committed and get yourself into situations where you CAN'T think about it.

Why?

it's hard for me to think about life/choosing death in solely philosophical terms. so much is about people, and things, and bodies, and senses, and stuff.

Like get a roommate and huge projects that you HAVE TO DO every night that are rewarding or at least tiring. Or take up some sort of exercise class or whatever the fuck else.

I'm sounding insensitive as fuck, but the fact is in my really bad moments I've contemplated it being better to not exist, I have family members who have made attempts, and my fucking ex-fiancee pulled that shit all the time and ended up trying to kill herself in front of me and I sat there all night in the ER as she came out of a booze/drug-soaked haze after being forced to drink a lot of charcoal and later being in the ICU in case she had physical aftereffects. I should have broken up a long time before, but I felt fine seeming like a jerk for leaving her after this attempt because I was enabling her to keep these threats, and thoughts, up.

emil.y
i know it probably doesn't matter to you, but you are important to me
i understand what you're saying 100% and i'm not going to engage in an intellectual argument to change your mind
but i want you to know this:
your existence makes me feel a little more at home in what is otherwise a rather inhospitable planet

also, 2012 Indiana Roundtable Gong Party

emil.y. You shouldn't do it because it's fucking retarded and most of the time your life is pretty ok.

And stop drinking. Maybe for good! Did you know drinking is horrible for the balance of your mental health, and a lot of people have a cycle of mental wellness that coincides with drinking patterns?

Like, if you knew someone who had diabetes and had one event where they didn't get their insulin and nearly died would you be like "no, just let yourself die, don't delude yourself into thinking this is a condition that can be controlled!"

Just wanting to off yourself because you are having difficulties getting shit sorted is like the diabetic person who is like "oh well, I lost a foot, that is just how I live"

Actually, no, you don't sound insensitive - I know it's hard for people around someone who thinks like this. And you are right, you cannot stay with someone simply because they're suicidal (and *particularly* not if they're aiming their suicidal tendencies at reasons to do with you). But on the other hand, it still doesn't give an answer to the big "why" question - why stay here when you've had enough? What is it about "life" that everyone seems to kowtow to? It's really not that big a deal - give me the option of saying when I'm done, please? Because... I'm totally done. That's it. That's all I can do with this. Please let me stop.

xxxpost

There's no "kowtowing". Do you have something really bleak in your life you feel you're subordinate to? You've always framed it as an inner depression, not necessarily external situations and forces. Do you feel comfortable talking about those? With anyone?

I just don't understand why people privilege the concept of life so. Is it really such a big deal? Why can't we choose when we stop? Even if we had to have a waiting list of, say, two years, why can we not actually get help with stopping it? Everyone just wants to try to "help" prolong it. That's not helping.

xp
If survival entailed never again taking pleasure in any aspect of life, but merely hanging on until physical dissolution killed you, then I fully agree that survival would be pointless, as every moment that was not totally numb would be painful.

But whenever your mind tells you that the future will be a particular way, because it is merely an extension of the present, then you are falling prey to a delusion that is generated by your mind and has no substance in any other reality. This is as true as thoughts that tell you nothing will go wrong as thoughts that nothing will go right.

Again, descriptions and characterizations of the present that have a strong emotional content, whatever that content, cannot be viewed as "true", except as descriptions of your emotional state. There is nothing stable or reliable about emotions. They happen without our volition and we cannot control them. As soon as you allow the outer world to take on their coloration, you are falsifying it to some degree.

So, when you feel like shit and like your life is shit and nothing will ever matter or change for the better, the only one of these statements that is "true" is the first: you feel like shit.

Also, thank you, league of women voters (right now I am going to imagine you as an actual league) - I know it sounds cheesy as hell, but I really kind of do want to stick around and come visit the ilx premium-quality outlouders, no matter how horrible I feel now. I do know it's not enough in itself, but it is *something* that I want to do, at least something to focus on.

i know! that's why i mentioned it!! i too am sincerely dopily genuinely looking forward to 2012 Indiana Roundtable Noisemaker's Colloquium and Gong Party. i am one who contains multitudes.

please stay.

Hmm, Aimless. I think you have some reasonable arguments, but you are assuming that I think that the future will be a particular way, when I don't, aside from two unassailable facts: I will die, and when I die I will not have any intentional state. I fully believe there is the potential for periods of happiness amongst the shit in the future, I just don't believe that having a variable intentional state is ever a better wager than having an absence of intentional states.

(xpost)

a couple of things:
- one of the reasons many of us keep on living, even though many (too many) days feel like there is absolutely no meaning to it all, is because none of us know what might change in the future. none of us know for a fact that we will continue to feel this way, that our lives won't somehow be changed. it doesn't matter how remote that possibility seems, or how long we have felt this way, because it is POSSIBLE.
- another is we don't know for sure what the end of living will be. it doesn't matter what you believe, or what science says, no one knows what it feels like, what it looks like, what happens. you might believe 100% that death is the end of it all, but you don't know it 100%.
- there must be certain things that you enjoy - music, food, books, whatever - maybe that is all the meaning there is, for anyone. if circumstances outside of your mental health (no money, no home, no ppl who care about you) aren't making your life unlivable, you might as well keep on living.

emil.y
i know it probably doesn't matter to you, but you are important to me
i understand what you're saying 100% and i'm not going to engage in an intellectual argument to change your mind
but i want you to know this:
your existence makes me feel a little more at home in what is otherwise a rather inhospitable planet

― league of women voters, Friday, December 9, 2011 2:20 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

^^ this, Emil.y, this. Be well, you are making a difference. Heck I even played a boardgame with you in my dreams last night (see dream thread). You and I saved the planet!

i suppose the problem is: how do you know when you're done? how do you know for absolute certain? how do you know which is the experience to end on?

like, and this is a bit personal but hopefully abstract enough: sometimes i have a day or a moment or an aesthetic experience and i think 'i am glad to be alive'. it doesn't happen very often, because in general i'm a pretty low-mood kind of person, and i guess i don't do a lot to keep my spirits up or whatever. but when it happens it is absolutely as real and as valid as the days when i get stuck on the thought 'i wish i did not exist and it is my fault that i exist'. the feeling of 'this moment is amazing and i am glad to be in it' is fleeting and the days of 'i wish i did not exist and it is my fault that i exist' are grinding, but just because one lasts longer doesn't mean it's a stronger or better or truer experience. each adds up to a single feeling. i sort of think happiness and misery are like pain: you can't remember what pain actually felt like, though you can remember that you were in pain.

I just don't believe that having a variable intentional state is ever a better wager than having an absence of intentional states

the problem with this is that you're not experiencing a variable intentional state right now, you're experiencing the extreme end of a single intentional state, and quite an extreme one at that, though it's been around long enough to feel normal. i suppose one of the reasons that people recommend drugs and talk therapy and lifestyle interventions is to smoothen the curve, to make the highs and lows less precipitous and less cavernous, so that having variable emotional states is exciting rather than sickening. it's not like you only have the either/or of "all of the emotions" versus "none of the emotions".

i have not much useful to add and it is always hard for me to talk in these situations because i dont and never have had these feelings, so anything i say that tries to get inside your head is basically bullshit, so i wont. but the thing that on a pure thought experiment level for me that makes suicide inconceivable is that if you have a curious mind (and judging by posts on here and yes certainly outloud you certainly seem to) there is value simply in the next thing you hear or read or see that is unknown and new, and that is the great loss and/or fear re: death. i get that the post death regret thing is not a thing for you, but when i think about never hearing that just discovered delta blues recording or that moment where someone says something that you have never thought of before, that eternal newness both good and bad is undeniable justification to me. and really thats all i can do or say about this, but tbh i wish i had said it to several people i have known that arent around anymore thx to this very thing.

xp, of course

The fact that you'll die strikes me as moot, because it is guaranteed, whether you help it along or not. To me, that makes it far less interesting than such variable contingencies as what's for dinner, or is it raining. Death just is. Eh.

A variable internal state is cool with me, mainly because I've never expected anything else and besides, achieving a flat, changeless state, seems to me like no more than a pure form of negation.

If you accept any value exists anywhere at all, you're going to have to accept that the value cannot exist apart from change. Valuing pure negation is sort of a contradiction in terms. Embracing pure negation seems oddly inhuman and kind of ugly, because it negates every value and generating values is sort of what we do.

it is also probably hard to take that advice/opinion seriously from a dude named PROVED BY BOOZE SCIENCE so hi i am usually jjjusten

Well, it's not "all of the emotions" vs "none of the emotions" - intentionality isn't just about emotion, it's about awareness as a whole.

i sort of think happiness and misery are like pain: you can't remember what pain actually felt like, though you can remember that you were in pain.

Yeah, I sort of agree with this. But I'd... just rather not have to deal with that? I mean, I'm not arguing that I'm a good person for feeling like this. I know I'm weak and useless, but... is it really that much of a problem to everyone that I'd rather not carry on? Why is it a problem?

xxpost again. God, I'm taking ages here.

My mom's coffee is weak and useless. You are better than my mom's coffee, emil.y. At least you stimulate interesting conversation.

it is also probably hard to take that advice/opinion seriously from a dude named PROVED BY BOOZE SCIENCE so hi i am usually jjjusten

Well, I did know, but actually, I thought PROVEN BY BOOZE SCIENCE was pretty apt.

I still say... why is it a problem? Aside from the fact that I'm announcing it? Which I admit is kind of stupid and counter-productive.

is it really that much of a problem to everyone that I'd rather not carry on? Why is it a problem?
well, since you asked: i am selfish and learning of the existence of an emil.y has been a genuine source of joy for me. i don't want to lose that. you're my friend. so, i am selfish and simple and i like you. that's probably not enough but it's my reason.

i mean can you just wait a while?

Yeah, I sort of agree with this. But I'd... just rather not have to deal with that? I mean, I'm not arguing that I'm a good person for feeling like this. I know I'm weak and useless, but... is it really that much of a problem to everyone that I'd rather not carry on? Why is it a problem?

You started this thread, so surely it must have some significance to you what others think (=feel sometimes, feel for you, think of you as a great person), like you did in the (ilx) past, too. And rightfully so.

The answer lies, how cliched, in that a lot of people care about you. They want you to carry on because we are all carrying on, all with our own problems and difficulties. But because that "we" continues, that same "we" wants to keep you on board. Not because life is so sublime, for often times it is not. But "we", nor you, know what un-life is, and we'd rather get there together than to have to say goodbye to you already, not finishing the journey with us. For you are not weak and useless ~ not more than anyone else here.

Infants are the biggest fucking time sink in the universe. If you want to talk about weak and useless, they have it in spades. They piss and shit themselves. They can't do a fucking thing. They drool. They cry. They can't even crawl, for christsake. They are EXPENSIVE!! God knows why anyone would want them around.

Same with severely disabled people like my daughter. Here she is, 25 years old, and she's about as useful as a bag of turnips.

I suppose it boils down to this stupid thing like the value of a person isn't connected to their value as an economic unit, or what they produce, or how smart they are, or if they can sing, or dance. Maybe we just like having you around, emil.y. For no good reason.

I was gonna make a flippant remark about how I hate kids and they should all be murdered. But yeah, on an individual basis nobody deserves to be written off. I guess my weakness and uselessness is not really the *cause* of my wanting to disappear, but rather something that goes hand in hand with it. I accept that it is unfair for me to land people with a burden like I have, but is it fair to land me with a burden of maintaining something I neither want to nor am fit to maintain simply because you want me to?

i used to have a housemate who would, about once every two or three months, announce "i am going into a decline"* and sit on the sofa with a blanket wrapped around her and do nothing, because she felt rotten, and although she really did feel horrible and things had become too much for her it was also an indulgence and an experience she performed and a way of taking the piss out of herself, and the next day or a few days later she would not feel as bad because she had worked it out of her system. for her feeling bad was a thing she could indulge in and then get out of! she had a variable intentional state, just as validly as i had a variable intentional state that sometimes manifested in my never leaving my room because if i left my room i might have to talk to someone about the fact that i never left my room.

what people protest against, when you say that you'd rather not carry on, isn't your weakness or any moral failing. mostly, we just want you around. but also you talk as if there is only one way of existing, and one way of not existing. and it's true that one exists or one doesn't exist. but it's sad to think you're in a position where the variety of ways of existing isn't real to you, because for me at least it's that variety of ways of existing that makes life interesting and worth sticking with for the time being.

* she liked victorian literature, or possibly she just liked mocking victorian literature (she was studying english)

is it unfair for you to land people with a burden? what would be fairer - to never ask anything of anybody?

relying on each other is how society is woven

the people who think they are only providers or inspirational leaders and need nothing from others are sociopaths imo

i have to go to sleep now but i hope we can continue this discussion in the morning.

I don't know what you refer to as you being "weak and useless". What is that, and how does it go hand in hand with your desire to disappear?

I know you have a fair knowledge of the existentialists (from ILB, Sartre etc), and you might agree with me that in essence yes, we are weak and useless. We all are. None of us asked for our own existence. We are all landed with that burden, with life. On the other hand it's the only life we will have; so we of us are trying to make the most of it, trying to enjoy it. Death is inevitable. Death will come with more certainty than life will ever be lived, let alone be enjoyed.

No-one here is saying suicide is bad, not by default. What we are saying is that you are way too beautiful and bright a person to just slip away like that. "Life is unfair", that famous quote, taken to extreme, is what accounts for all of us. By definition life is something we did not choose, nor is it fair, because life is hard!
But not for a second I doubt that you have a boyfriend, are into arts and music, are on a forum even, because you want to enjoy life, express yourself, learn, out of curiosity... You are lovely and lively, because you live, and that might be a stronger force within yourself than you acknowledge.

Night night, I need to sleep as well. Let us continue this tomorrow Emily. Sleep well.

emil.y, i'm just seeing this and feeling stupid for posting stupid shit elsewhere on ilx. a good friend of mine killed himself a few weeks ago. he was the younger brother of my best friend in high school, who also killed himself. it's just not fair, to anyone. the older brother was 18 when he died, and now he's frozen in time at that age, as i get older and he stays the same in memory. whatever he was going through, in podunk shitting missouri, it was going to get better. it was terrible for me back then, too. in fact between the two of us i was usually the one talking about suicide. when he actually went through with it, it was such a shock. i mean, nothing has ever been the same, since. i don't know what your situation is, but no matter what you think, there are people out there who would never be the same. 10 years later, his younger brother died in the same way, same house (home on the eve of thanksgiving), and it was just...total tragedy. my older friend was frozen in memory at 18, but his younger brother is now frozen at 22. there are no more younger brothers, that's it. whatever you're going through, or whatever seems permanent - it'll get better. you can always email me anytime if you need to, and i'll always talk no matter what time of day it is or where i am - alloneword > zach r scott at gmail dot com

Emil.y, you're my favorite Outlouder and I would mourn the hell out of a world without you in it. Take care if you can, and take joy when you can, and I still have more Material tracks to play for what that's worth.

e.mily I really like and admire you. I have kind of a weird nonsexual girl crush on you that I think is totally obvious? (Let me make this weird.)

IDK that anything can really stop suicidal thoughts and feelings. There are so many pains in life and ways our wires just get crossed and it seems like they can't be uncrossed. I am not sure suicide ends that, though. There are no guarantees. It's ok if you find this patronizing or condescending or a bunch of bullshit but here is a comic I drew to work out that idea:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f86/igotabeefpastry/suicider.gif

I don't believe in reincarnation but I don't believe suicide is an end to pain either.
I don't know why some people privilege life or why some people privilege the choice to be able to take your own life. I don't have any answers.
I can tell you that having had friends commit suicide is an exponentially much more heavy burden than having a friend who just feels & talks suicidally for their whole life. Much worse with such a vital person as you, when it happens.
That was pretty dark, I should have just stuck to I LIKE YOU
I like you

^^This

I can tell you that having had friends commit suicide is an exponentially much more heavy burden than having a friend who just feels & talks suicidally for their whole life. Much worse with such a vital person as you, when it happens.

this is so true

my friends are supposed to still be here with me, overshadowing me. i loved them. and the huge regret is that with both of them, i doubt either of them truly knew how i felt about them.

I'm sorry, you guys. I don't want to make people feel shitty. I guess I am aware that this stuff is a horrible thing to lay on people, but I also have absolute faith in the absolute nothingness of death, and I believe it happens to everyone else too, so... I guess I think that although I might make people's lives worse, it'll only be temporary? I dunno, the relativity of time... life feels so very long when you're living it, so the solace of knowing I won't mourn someone when I too die is a pale imitation of not having to mourn them at all.

And Abbs, that comic is great, and I totally reciprocate non-sexual girl-crush feelings (you like Dagmar and Togawa! How can I not be in love with you a little?). I just wish I felt like the person that you guys talk about, because I really don't feel like that person at all. I feel like an idiot dullard, pretty much.

It's ok to feel like an idiot dullard. It might not reflect others' perceptions of you and it feels really shitty to feel that way. BUT I embrace the whole range of feelings. Many days I just feel like a broken radio and that the cold embrace of death would be better (can you tell maybe once I wrote some bad poetry). But feeling that way is feeling something. Feeling is life.
AND I don't think suicide is a temporary way to make others feel bad. Like many things in life I have found ways to adapt to the fucked upness of missing my friend Rosita, for example, who killed herself. But the fucked upness is part of me now. It's been ten years now and it hasn't gone away, I don't think it ever will. One example: I don't even like the song "In Too Deep" by Genesis all that much but I heard it a few days after and now the bandage is torn off every time I hear that goddamn song. In a grocery store, whatever.
I feel that way about Bimble, too, who I didn't even know, really.
I'm drawing a heavy line here and I don't want to sound preachy but pain is real for you and for others.

i feel like there are two separate things going on here, and one can be resolved, the other might be more difficult:
1. your self-worth - this has nothing to do with the "concept of privileging life". if you think you are a shit person, that is something you could work through with therapy and/or drugs bc obviously you can't be that shit of a person if there are so many ppl irl and online who care about your life
2. the whole philosophical what-is-the-point-of-it-all - no one here can truly answer this question for you. ever.

when ppl feel like 1. then it's really helpful to their cause to get on the band-wagon of 2.

I think emil.y is arguing that 2. is more like 'I can choose not to engage with life' rather than 'there is no point to life'. I'm only being picky about this because I want to understand it better so that I can try to articulate what I think doesn't work about it. I keep coming back to Abbott's and ZS's arguments about how other people feel about you. I guess that's appealing to a reality that's bigger than your individual reality. I admire you.

'reality'! pretty confident of me! y'know, 'state' or 'consciousness' or...

I want to say in re: philosophical arguments about this that they're not bunk & it's valid for people to seek them out. I'm kind of inexpert in hard philosophy so I can't really articulate this in the grand terms which I suspect exist for it, but the chief reason as I see it to resist the urge to commit suicide (an urge I'm pretty familiar with) is the actual, undeniable uncertainty of the future. Like, the permanently uncertain condition of the future. Suicide sort of takes as its beginning point: "I know that even if things will get better, they won't do so soon enough to make enduring my current state worthwhile" or variants of that ("can't tolerate this state long enough to wait for possible improvement" say). but in point of fact, even at the most comical hypothetical low ebb, one has no idea whatsoever what the future holds. that's just a fact; no reasonable person can advance any good argument against it, as far as I can tell. "I have a pretty good idea because everything's sucked to now" just doesn't wash; probability doesn't work like that. It doesn't hurt my case that I've gone from some pretty horrible beginnings to a place where I generally love life: I could never, in a million years, have imagined that my life would turn out as it has. And I think, over time, many once & future suicidal-ideator folks find this, too: that while the darkness is always there, and the things that make it hard don't go away, there's the vastness of the possibility in life which you can only deny if you're fooling yourself.

on the more personal front, I know what it feels like to feel as though there is no point in going on living, and that's a horrible feeling, and I hope it passes for you; and also: I know that it passes, even though waiting is terrible & those low feelings carry an illusory & false but v. persuasive "this feeling is the actual truth of all matters, when we don't perceive this as true we are being dishonest" mood with them. that mood really is the worst. it is entirely false but feels true in its moment, and that's hard to counter. but it is false. the truth is not what you see or feel when you are in darkness. it just seems that way at the time.

emil.y, there was a post of yrs that made me laugh recently. and i thought, damn, i am laughing way too loud.

and later i was thinking about this thread on ilx and how people like you who are so intelligent and interesting can think themselves to be worthless losers. i have a friend like that irl who is one of my favorite people, but i will never convince her that she's funny and smart and kind. she listens to me and respects my opinions, but she just can't fathom that she's a worthwhile person. i tell her anyway. it frustrates me that she's so incredibly wrong in her perception of herself. her brain is wired in unfortunate ways.

i don't post much on ilx, but i've been here for years. i read your posts, and i like you. everyone on this thread does.

also, aerosmith otm.

the truth is not what you see or feel when you are in darkness. it just seems that way at the time.

aerosmith has just said everything I tried to say, but more poignantly.

i read your posts, and i like you. everyone on this thread does.

this, this, this

It's going to be really hard to answer this without a reserve of anger (bcuz I'm kinda pissed off at you not answering DMs and emails from unfinished business from yesterday) and a HUUUUGE streak of sheer envy because so many people clearly give a shit about you.

But, you know, you want philosophical answers as to why you shouldn't kill yourself, and there actually aren't any. I've been looking for 40 years and they are cobwebs. Life is fundamentally pointless, we are just machines for eating and fucking and throwing our genetic code into the next generation and anything beyond that is evolutionary gravy. Human beings don't commit suicide en masse - our life instinct is so strong because because a species without one is an evolutionary dead end because staying alive is a struggle and honestly who would bother. Human beings have an instinct to talk one another out of depression because a population of social animals without *that* instinct would lose too many members to stay viable. That's all there is, really.

It's like you want some abstract reason for existence that isn't "your existence is a node in a giant net containing everyone you interact with, and your absence would cause a portion of that net to unravel." Maybe not permanently but maybe not even irrevocably but enough of an unravel to cause damage to that net. And you want an answer that doesn't involve your personal life because you don't think "because: your partner, your band, your university, your film club, your massive circle of friends in at least two different cities that I know of..." is just NOT GOOD ENOUGH. When jesus christ, speaking as a person who has NONE of those, speaking as someone living in abject emotional poverty, I just can't express how callous and I dunno, I'm reaching for a word I don't have ... ungrateful isn't even the word ... you sound while you just write those connections off with a flick of phrasing. Like, "don't mention my million pounds as a reason that you think I'm rich, you have to come up with ~philosophical~ reasons for my wealth!" You want to write off those reasons, well, those ARE the reasons. The only ones.

I wake up most days with a depression so bad it feels like an actual headache that is going to crush my frontal lobe. There is nothing medical I've found, in nearly 30 years of dealing with psychologists that stops that feeling. Only delays it for a few hours. The single only thing that stops me from killing myself is the thought that it would DESTROY my mother. There is no one else who would be inconvenienced for more than a day, maybe a week. The sheer fact of that is enough to make me not do it, and I tangibly, reflexively think about suicide several times a week in a good week, and several times an hour in a bad. When my mother dies, I will have no reason not to end it. This is not a threat, it's something that brings me immense comfort, the knowledge that there will be an end to this eventually.

I'm not saying "don't start this thread" if this thread is what gets you through - but jesus christ, can you imagine if I had started this thread? It would have been 51 people lining up to kick me in the teeth and say "go die in a fire" and ask when SB is coming back. And you can tell me till the end of time that I'm just "wrong" about that, but the data says differently. It's hard, when you're someone who has NOTHING looking at someone who has SO MUCH, in terms of connections and good-sentiment and fellow-feeling from most people (and its converse, no one lining up to kick you in the teeth) wanting to throw it all away. Yes, I believe it is your basic human right to throw it all away if that's what you want. I believe suicide should be as much a basic human right as food and housing (though some idiots are actually inclined to argue against those latter ones, too.)

It's like you want people to give you hope - I don't have any. I feel like the ghost of fucking christmas past telling you "I can't give you hope, but I *can* show you a much MUCH bleaker world!" like maybe that's going to guilt you out of this? I don't know that guilt is that much of an effective motivating factor and "things could be much worse" usually robs people of hope instead of giving it to them. But seriously: you could *not* be the girl that dozens of people are chipping in to try to keep alive. You could be me. I'm not saying this as a pity party or an attention seeking ploy, but a sheer warning: you could be as bitter, nasty, mean, thwarted, angry and consumed by envy as I am, and reap the rewards of it. The fact that you are not clearly means quite a lot.

I will get shit for posting this, I'm sure. But I will be unable to stop crying uncontrollably if I don't say something. It's not like you're replying to my emails right now anyway. The only reason I'm even hitting submit on this post is because I know I can't be SB'd for it. Take from this tangled message of rage and envy what you will. But from where I'm standing, the things you say are not the point actually ARE the point. There isn't anything else.

aw emil.y plz dont go

Although I respect your honesty FT i think i am allied far more with aero on this. You are right that things could be worse, but that is no argument for forging on - the point is that things can be different. they are every day, every minute, whatever. i think that part of the suicidal urge is a denial of change, because it is a decision made wrt right now, but right now changes ALL THE TIME. and it would be stupid to fall back on the side of "things will be better" because hey, things might not be better an hour/day/week from now. but they will be different. shit they might be worse, but the important thing, the thing that provides whatever drive either towards or away from the preservation of self is that life is fluctuating from moment to moment, and that has worth, even when things are awful. e.mily i get the feeling from what you have said here that that isnt how it feels right now, and maybe it isnt the way it has felt for a long time, but your life is not stagnant, because life just simply doesnt work that way, no matter how your head might make it seem.

I just want to pop in and say that both emil.y and Fotherington Thomas are people I greatly admire & respect, and I think the Universe is far richer because of their goings-about.

^^^ That

hey id just like to say w/all due respect to those who have posted in depth thoughtful responses on this thread and knowing full well that this is sort of a relatively minor point, suicide please please dont do it, it is a horrible awful thing, you have wrapped yourself up in a genuinely faulty scheme, its truly the worst idea youve ever had

i cant tell you why, not sure that any one can

Wise words... from, uhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Cooper Chucklebutt

man if letting yr five y/o nephew choose yr ilx sandbox display name isnt proof that existence is fundamentally worthwhile im not sure what to say

i joke but there is so much beauty joy and just intese reality in the world, and its available to all of us, and the bad times too they are worthwhile

i have a friend whos father tried to kill himself before she was born, and shes an beautiful person, and her father lived a long and fulfilling life

before she was conceived that should read

i have another friend who did kill himself and it was the most pointless horrible bullshit, and so many people miss him

I just want to pop in and say that both emil.y and Fotherington Thomas are people I greatly admire & respect, and I think the Universe is far richer because of their goings-about.

― Adrien Brony (step hen faps), Friday, 9 December 2011 10:32 (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

Damn right.

I just want to pop in and say that both emil.y and Fotherington Thomas are people I greatly admire & respect, and I think the Universe is far richer because of their goings-about.

― Adrien Brony (step hen faps), Friday, 9 December 2011 10:32 (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

yes.

I dunno, I try to read whatever it is Aero or JJJ say and it's like trying to read alien script from another planet.

...

There is this pervasive myth among super-cerebral brainy types (and I know that emil.y will snort at the idea of being called a brainy type but you fucking well are) that there is some kind of GNOSIS, some kind of formula or logic function or philosophy that will make everything suddenly make sense, like a-ha, you have finally completed the crossword puzzle. And we spend our lives searching for this like we're searching for the grail.

And there just isn't, and I sometimes think that the belief in it is more damaging than anything else. Because it doesn't exist. There is only this:

-Stay connected to the ppl that care about you
-Spend time appreciating nature
-GROK and express gratitude for the little you have
-Take care of yr brain's meat case - eat, sleep and exercise right

There is nothing else. You can throw scraps into the void. I can be all "hey look, this Japanese art collective has knitted a working Buchla with actual Nyancats for oscillators and are recording a synaesthia symphony for the colour brown" or you can tell me "a Brazillian paparazzi has photographed Thom Yorke engaging in actual felatio with the Aphex Twin while swimming through a sea arch" but it's just that. Throwing scraps into the void.

There is only the Indra's Net of connections. I think every human being has the right to sever themselves from that Net if the conditions of their life become unbearable - to force someone to continue under conditions they find intolerable is pretty much the dictionary definition of human bondage. But to try to pretend that there is something *other* than Indra's Net or that the Indra's Net is not *the* important thing rather than a useless acoutrement to be philosophically explained away.

This is just shouting into the void so I'll shut up.

<3 FT

the pointlessness is the point. truth.

FT you are terrific & I miss you when you're not around. I am going to listen to 1967 Stones to think of you.

Regarding "what's the purpose of life": we are organizers. There are things in this world & we serve to organize them, to make them manifest, to make them intelligible. & you can ask again, why do we do that? & I say: we do that for them, that is our place, to give those stones thoughts, what they long to have but cannot as it is not their place. Well, Rilke put it better in the Ninth Elegy:

These things that live upon
the gesture of farewell know
full well when they are praised:
dwindling away, they demand rescue!
And, that, through us-
the most dwindling of all!
They desire that we change them,
whole, within our invisible hearts;
transform them endlessly, Ah!...
into ourselves.
Whomever we are to be.

Hey, you big dorks. I think you're both awesome, and I'm glad you're here. emily, I tell you that all the time, but FT, I don't know if I tell you that enough. Thank you for the bits of yourself that you give us and show us.

reading this thread made me really sad and i don't know you well enough to give advice i know will be helpful, but i hope you do not give up/have not given up on trying talk therapy and medicine. there are a lot of different treatments, some of them don't work, but you might eventually hit on something that helps you.

reading "feeling good" by david burns was a good step for me - i did not end up following the exercises all that closely but it did make me better at identifying that i was depressed and more receptive to seeking treatment. i've made a lot of progress with therapy and medication over the last year and i would not really have thought it possible before (i HATED therapists, i was SURE they couldn't help me). different people react differently to things and i don't want to come off like i think i really know the answer, but opening myself up to the IDEA that there might be help was REALLY extra hard to do when i was depressed, but things did start to slowly get better after i did that.

I think every human being has the right to sever themselves from that Net if the conditions of their life become unbearable

No argument with you there, FT. I am impressed with the depth both of your courage and your love for your mother (which I hope doesn't sound mawkish - there's no other way to describe it accurately.) You are quite otm in identifying these as the powerful counter-forces that may hold in check the forces of death and despair. I encourage you t hold out as long as you can, to the last gasp and last dregs, but I will never fault you as a poor custodian of your gifts.

I will get shit for posting this, I'm sure.

Not coming true so far.

the thing about ending a life, is that so very few suicides are a euthanasia, an ending when all other possibilities are run out. most are just a murder, with the worst thoughts and tendencies snuffing out the greatness of a person way too soon