Sandbox suicide thread

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