Sandbox suicide thread

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.

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