Suicide - Always read the first post please

[Aes]

Ironic that a thread about suicide has lived so long, isn't it?

Anyway, around my freshman year in high school, I hated myself for many reasons, none of which are important because I made a point to crush every last one of them, and I have. However, during that time I was picked on quite a bit, which lead to an almost non-existant sense of self worth in the pits of depression. While I never actually tried to kill myself, I did sometimes talk about it, and wish for the 'courage' (haha) to do it.

Now my personality is quite different, in such a way that makes suicide simply not an option for any reason. It's my belief that many people attempt suicide because they think they have "lost" in the game of life. Thing is, the game isn't over until you reach the end, or decide to end it yourself. Do you want to end it with a low score, or do you want to end it with one of the top scores?

I guess being an atheist helps, because once it's over, it's over. There's not going to be any angels tooting horns to welcome me, or even a firey pit to burn in for all eternity. My consciousness and perception of reality will simply wink out as though I never existed, with the only things left to mark my passing being whatever I did while I was around.

When I go (which technically, I don't) I want to go in style, and be remembered for a long time afterward. The longer I live, the better my chances of realizing this dream become.

 

[mosaix]

I've been reading this thread with interest. I think I have come to the conclusion that we just haven't got a clue what goes on inside other peoples heads or what drives them so it is hard to be judgemental about what they do to themselves.

Why anyone would want to kill themselves just because they have reached 60 is beyond me but that's just another way of me saying 'I don't understand'. And if I don't understand how can I judge?

Magistrates verdicts on suicide end usually with 'whilst the balance of the mind was disturbed'. Another way of saying 'the balance of their mind was not the same as the balance of my mind' - just a cop-out really, because it is their job to judge and they have to say something.

I would imagine (I don't know - how can I?) that when a person is considering taking their own life they weigh up the pros and cons. Some do it, some don't. But when they do the pros outweigh the cons for them. For us it may seem strange, but everyone does things that seem strange to others.

I have said in another post in this thread that, for me, continual pain or illness would be a driving force in me considering suicide. Some of you may think that stupid but all that may mean is that your pain threshhold is higher than mine. I have never, not once, been depressed so I have difficulty seeing how that could be a cause for me but if I ever was then, maybe, I would understand.

 

[Ben.ak]

I’m 16 now but In 8th grade I attempted to take on my step father in a fist fight. A few weeks later I tied my hands together and dove off the side of the bleachers at a locale recreation center. ( Ended with a concussion and a sweet scar, to this day my mother thinks I fell off the bleachers and I think of this as a fortunate misconception.

My girlfriend has revolutionized the way I think now and when I think about her and how she would feel if that were to happen I hate myself. She has changed my attitude and shaped me so positively I almost think god sent her to me as my own little guardian angel.

She’s Beautiful.

 

[Saltheart]

Yes, as a sufferer of a rare genetic disease called Cerebellar Ataxia, I have tried a few times and have failed miserably up until last year. However, I do not plan on dying anymore: I'm going to live with what little I have left, whether in the end of my life I am alone or not; I don't care anymore if I may never be loved after the death of my parents: I've accepted that loneliness and constant humiliation is an essential part of my life that I have to bear along with the burdens of progressively losing my entire body to this disease.

Were it not for Stephen R. Donaldson, I would have never been able to accept my losses and box my past in a dark, dark place I will never visit again.

 

[No_one]

I had to choses other. I don’t believe there is any underlying point to life. I don’t think we mean anything other than a blip on the radar in time.

However I don’t think suicide is an option for me. You are only given one life and no matter how pointless it is you might as well see what happens and experience it to the full. The good and the bad.

Having said that it is definitely something that I contemplate on a daily basis. But every time things get tough I just reassure myself that in 500 years when I am dead and my memory is dust, I wont be feeling that way (well I wont be feeling anything).

I don’t know if that makes sense.

 

[SpaceShip]

I feel really sad at some of the posts on this thread and can understand where lots of people are coming from.

I don't think anyone can be definite as to whether or not they will commit suicide. A close friend of mine had severe clinical depression. Also he loved life but one day the depression was so bad he strangled his wife and then went and hung himself. We all knew he was ill and suffered in this way but had no inkling of what would happen. And I don't believe he did either. So there's no way any of us can say no way!

 

[0123vicky3210]

A girl who nobody is friendly with at our school said she was going to commit suicide. She told me and my friends to remember her as a good and nice person (even though I hate her for my own reasons). It ended up that she couldn't do it because that night I told her all the things that would have to be explained and sorted out, and the pain it would cause her family. I honestly think she would have done it if my friends and I didn't talk her out of it.

 

[Lacedaemonian]

It takes an unbelievable amount of strength and determination to ice ones self. Most people fulfill this by accident.

 

[Admiral Ryouhei]

poll response- none

suicide is mixed in my opinion, really extreme situations will make it seem okay, while most of the crap people kill themselves over hardly warrants such an extreme all-or-nothing act

it's actually kind of cowardly, it's the ultimate form of running away, I think it's a genetic no-no, unless your kids are on their way to a future of their own and no longer require you

 

[Admiral Ryouhei]

I just signed up here tonight after I came upon this link to this post. I am having a really hard time with eveything that is going on in my life and can't seem to get a grip on anything about me. A lot of times I have to do things for my boyfriend. So in return I hope that he treats me with the same respect. But I feel that he doesn't want to do anything cause he keeps making excuses after excuses to not help me with any aspect of my life. I'll post a few cause I wish I could write a whole book about it, but I'll try to keep it short. For example; (1) I need a back rub/neck rub after a long hard day at work and ask nicely even....my response back to me is "I'm too tired!" "I just did such and such a job how can you make me do that for you"? "I don't know how." (when I know he does, cause it's happened on occassions when HE wants something) (2) Can you help me take the garbage out/help around the house please?......I get back "I'll do it later" and later being a month later. (3) I want to talk about how I feel and what is going on in my head and why I am so stressed and frustrated and feel so neglected.....All I hear is some way where he turns me trying to talk about my problems, into blaming me for something he did wrong.

As I was reading, I was thinking about what MaryJane said:



I have to hide almost every day about my pain and my feelings, while I run him all over the place to work on his computers. He doesn't have a car, doesn't have a job except freelance, and he expects everything to just fall in his lap when things are tight. Well things have been tight for years now, and he threw a huge battle axe at me about I should go to hell cause I don't know who he is and his religion. That was after I told him he doesn't seem to want to get to know me any better and that all he wants to think about is himself. I have been giving 500% of myself to him and his business and I feel he only gives about 2%.

He doesn't seem to understand my pain and suffering level to want to care what is going on. I feel he is pushing me further and further on edge and I am about to fall, cause I actually thought about sucide the other day. But I pushed myself not to think negatively and to cheer up, but all I feel like doing is crying. I feel like I haven't slept in years. I feel that my world is no longer my world and that he is the puppetmaster. I can no longer make decisions. I buy 97% of the groceries. But he pays for food too, only we go out to eat about 28 days out of the month!!! It's expensive for that kind of lifestyle I told him, and he disagrees with me. I think just cause he is eleven years older than me he has this thought in his head he is smarter than me and is the one in charge.

I admit that when he doesn't do what he says he is going to do, I yell at him and call him names and curse a lot. But if he would do the things he said he was going to do, I wouldn't have to curse, yell and scream. He still pulls the same trick out of his hat and I have had it. I don't get any support from him on what I want in life, and so I get the short end of the stick.

My stress level is past boiling point, and I have only maybe 2 people to turn to, and I just feel like I am a waste of their time cause I don't listen to them sometimes. They tell me to get rid of him, but I love him. At least I thought I loved him. I feel I have lost my love, and my heart and I'm just so empty and don't know what to do anymore.

I'm reaching out, but I don't know who to turn to since my significant other doesn't want to hear me. He calls me needy, and whiney. He perceives things differently from me, to an extreme!!

My life is a mess, I'm a mess, and I really don't know what to do anymore.

J00!!! gives this bum an ultimatum 'you start shaping up and acting respectable or you can find someone else to tolerate your crap!'
====
forget that, if he changes because of the prospect of you leaving makes him and not his feelings for you, it's not meant to be

seriously I read like the first paragraph, I'll read the rest and give you any revisions to my primary statement I deem necessary after reading your entire argument, yeah, time to read.

edit: either give me your address or send him over to me *evil grin* I'm a 17 year-old male and it's plainly obvious that he needs to answer for a lot. if things don't get better soon just drop him, don't talk to him, don't recognize his existance, clean break, least pain for you, no amount of love you could have for him should keep you in a situation like this, he's using you, show him what he's going to lose if you leave, reciprocate his actions back to him, show him how much you are worth, and if he bitches at you or things just don't get any better, leave, no notes, no warning, never warn them, make it worse, don't buy groceries, don't eat the fast food, buy things for yourself, i mean like the essentials, don't go fashion shopping, don't sooth him with backrubs and the like, do what he does to you. If he leaves you because of it, good, he wasn't good for you at all. If he doesn't change or gets worse, leave him behind in the dust and the setting sun. Either way, it's best if the end is a clean break, less pain for you, maybe, it depends on who you are.

biggest piece of good advice I can give is don't give him any ground, never back down to him until you see some change.

 

[Admiral Ryouhei]

I'm going through.... something, it might be depression, or i need to find myself

therapist gave an analogy: there's a white elephant in my living room

it works, i guess, dunno, most people know what their problems are, i, I can't remember anything in great detail, for all intensive purposes I have no memories, sure bits and pieces, like three or four out of 17 years, i have like 5 minutes (if that) worth of memory, a few more minutes of muddy blurry recall where i can't tell when it's from

school doesn't matter, passing two classes in which, amazingly, I have drive to do the work and actually feel good-ish, don't know if it's more of a brighter null than usual.

hate the government, hate authority and all its obvious unfixed failings, I really want to lead a rebellion to make things better for 'mainstreeam' classes, unfortunately people are complacent cattle being led to the slaughter while the rich grow fat off our flesh and blood, nice imagery, neh?

so, yeah, down with governments, up with democratic/socialist/anarchic/capitalism, basically in with what works, out with what doesn't, no major leaders, no moral issues, no ethics

we are all the same race, but they can't see the present because we are too busy looking at the past to see the cliff and bridge that is the possible futures of man

organic, pure, hands-off the world, lassiez-faire, natural, regrowth, wash away the dirty,corrupt politics and bring in something else...

...benevolent dictators?

if there is a god, it had to think itself into being, 'i think therefore i am'

there has to be a god or first-mover/shaker/creator

maybe the universe is god, and doesn't really think on or near our level, like not above or below, simply apart, there is no comparison or link to the way it thinks and the way we do, and there never will

what of souls and ghosts and demons? stories?

is the afterlife non-existant or do our souls make up god, and we come back here to learn more about physical life.

what if this life we live is just a psychic dream, we are born into this excistance when we sleep and our death is just us waking up? does that mean people who die and come back several times have trouble sleeping?

what is the purpose of life, is simply a more advanced version of the suns and stars, we are born from those before us, we burn things to live and continue, we create more life, harbor it, nurture it and then cease? is it all just the progression of the natural order of things, are we simply the result of a chain of positive circumstances, if so does that mean life is truly meaningless? what use is living? what use i dieing, killing, striving, hoping, dreaming, wondering, questioning, fighting? why love when the cycle repeats anyways? why try when another will fill your vacancy?

why do you all fight and claw for the top you percieve is there, all I see a race off the edge of a cliff, why win when you die by winning? much better to sit back, watch the show, and live longer.

what is the use? I can't kill myself, why waste the energy? I can't cry, can't hate, why waste the energy? can I love like the rest of you? i remember such a feeling once, it was good, but it was broken, and it hurt, i cried. now i can feel neither, i feel nothing in my shallow immortality.

why kill those you are against, why kill, why waste the energy striving when you can sit and watch the carousel go round and round you, while you sit still, and they move and die around you, they get on and they get off, in the end no one stays on, it's just a ride... what of the operator? is he some person who knows the levers and buttons well enough to run it, easily replaced should he fail, how does it feel to watch it spin round and you remain as you are, watching, monitoring the machine they ride, see their happy faces

 

[Alurny]

One of my friends used to SI but never spoke of taking their life. People do these sorts of things for many reasons. Thankfully they are ok now and no longer SI thanks to some intervention.

With regards to suicide it is dependent on the situation etc.

 

[scalem X]

Ry?hei, the feeling you describe seems to be the result of a philosophical way of thinking rather than a real problem with yourself is it?

If you got a person who says everything is pointless you'll have a hard time proving to him that it isn't.

You might have two people having the same life, one thinking himself lucky to have it and another one thinking himself miserable for having such a life.

There is no real sollution to what the meaning of life really is, we are much like animals, following our instincts. If you look upon it in this way, there is indeed probably a medical explanation as to why people are depressed. Isn't it weird for example how drug addicts seem to be sure about wanting to live when they get their drugs and wanting to die when they don't? Is it then so stupid to think of suicidal and depressed people as people missing something?

About self injury; there are two types. The once who belong in this thread and the ones who belong in the thread: "why does acting emo seems a trend nowadays?" (note this thread doesn't exist don't go look for it , I just mean it is something compared to as to why children can act drunk even if they aren't just because it resembles to them as something cool)

 

[Admiral Ryouhei]

Ry?hei, the feeling you describe seems to be the result of a philosophical way of thinking rather than a real problem with yourself is it?

I dunno, psychologist seems to think... something, can't remember

I don't have a memory anymore, it's not all gone or any of it for that matter, but I can only remember tiny bits and pieces of my life, nothing that gives me any answers I need or am looking for, just simple little flashes, sort of like I'm remembering this whole thing from some future point in another body

like reincarnation but like it goes both ways.... sorta, it just feels like I'm not really supposed to be HERE in this now and where, like my soul was sent to the wrong time-space, meaning not as in like my soul or whatever is from another dimension, well it is (but that isn't the point), but that I was born into the wrong body or something like that

 

[scalem X]

well that seems though luck. Most people don't remember more than 4% of their long ago past, you just remember a little less than others.
As for the logical part:
Blind people (born blind) shouldn't think that they are in the wrong body because they can't see either and maybe have an alien soul who can perceive things another way and therefore doesn't have vision. Neither should you.

The psychological part:
Since it's a feeling, it won't go away easily and well we just have to accept it. I use "we" because in the end all of us are just here and we can only try to find a goal and go for it. I don't know the purpose of my life either.
If you can't find a goal for yourself how about helping out someone else who seems sure about what he or she wants to reach .

 

[bowerbird]

*This is the first thread in my campaign of plagerism, please only reply here if you are willing to share your ideas with me, and possibly have them attributed to some of my fictional netheads, i don't expect genuine replies, about genuine circumstances, this is a very tough topic, thats why i'm having difficulty in formulating all of the responses myself.*

Is suicide a genuine way out? Or just a cop out? have you tried it? or had to deal with the suicide of a loved one? Or worked to prevent the suicide of a loved one.

My profession is ICU nurse so, this is a topic I have quite some experience with - especially para suicide (the ones that do not kill themselves)

Do you know that 75% of Parasuicides never attempt again, and most cannot remember what brought them to that point in the first place. But there are many, many reasons for attempting suicide.

1) Reactive Depression - where they have gone through and unresolved greif
2) Depression
3) Mental illness such as schizophrenia
4) Loss of self worth
5) drug overdose (Geeze man I didn't know the !@#@ was that pure - yeah they are real GOMER's (GET OUT OF MY EMERGENCY ROOM!))
6) and my fave BPD - Borderline Personality Disorder - usually young and female but you do get male counterparts - now think of THE most self centered attention seeking PITA you have ever met and think of her taking tablets in a "so there" suicide attempt. They are the ones who scream down the Emergency room when you won't let them smoke (but honey that is OXYGEN you are hooked up to and the man next door is dying of lung cancer - yep have your smoke here)

Sorry - triggered a nurse response

 

[bowerbird]

I better post an addendum to my previous post in case people get the wrong impression.

I care about those who try to suicide - the reactive depressions, the schizophrenics because they cannot help what they are going through. It is an illness and should be treated as such but as you can probably gather from my previous post I have little tolerance for those who willingly bring it on themselves - the lice infested drug pregnant drug addict who takes a little too much of whatever and who you know will go back onto the streets to do so again.

And as I said the BPD's who use the threat of suicide to control others around them "If you don't say you love me I will kill myself".

These are in a different league to the poor sod who has been bullied at work to the point where they no longer HAVE any self-esteem.

So guess which one will take the lethal mixture??

Sad, Sorry, some of my memories I should not share........

 

[that old guy]

My personal feeling is that there are in fact things more precious than life. As in behaving according to a code of personal ethics. And if I am somehow either prevented from or find myself unable to live up to this code I would kill myself, though hopefully only after serious consideration and not as a rash act.

Marcus Aurelius put it rather well, even if the translation is awful:

As thou intendest to live when thou art gone out,...so it is in thy power to live here. But if men do not permit thee, then get away out of life, yet so as if thou wert suffering no harm. The house is smoky, and I quit it. Why dost thou think that this is any trouble? But so long as nothing of the kind drives me out, I remain, am free, and no man shall hinder me from doing what I choose; and I choose to do what is according to the nature of the rational and social animal.

Beyond that there's quite a bit of circular reasoning in this thread. As in, thoughts of suicide are by definition irrational therefore we can call anyone irrational who has such thoughts. Ridiculous.

And the link between suicide and depression is not as tight as some here seem to think it is. There are those who are severely depressed and never think of suicide and there are those who consider and act upon suicidial thoughts who are not and never have been depressed. Anyone interested in this should read The noonday demon : an atlas of depression by Andrew Solomon. There's a chapter on suicide and depression where he gives a very good synopsis of the available research into the above.

 

[the wild]

suicide does take a lot of bravery and courage and there is a lot of conflicting emotions to do it !! how strong do u have to be and wat kind of extreme issues must you be dealing with >> i believe that suicide can be just or pointless depending on wat is there ... if u try to stick at ur problems whilst thinking about suicide then believe there is no way out then suicide may be the only option > i think ppl who try suicide pathetically and no it wnt work just for attention rele bugs me ... myself i have tried suicide and right now it sounds hypocritical but life is hard and thats about that
lovidge > *the wild*

 

[Chrystelia]

*This is the first thread in my campaign of plagerism, please only reply here if you are willing to share your ideas with me, and possibly have them attributed to some of my fictional netheads, i don't expect genuine replies, about genuine circumstances, this is a very tough topic, thats why i'm having difficulty in formulating all of the responses myself.*

Is suicide a genuine way out? Or just a cop out? have you tried it? or had to deal with the suicide of a loved one? Or worked to prevent the suicide of a loved one.

This is a tough topic...

I've known 2 people who decided to end their lives at the age of 17. Both jumped from a tall building.

For myself, I had seriously considered ending my life because of depression in the past, but I never got to it. First I was afraid to die, and second I felt responsible for the mess I'd be leaving behind. Things did improve after that.

However, these days I find myself at the other end. Call me weird or whatever, or maybe I've been thinking too much, but I have this intense curiosity to know what's at the other side of death, what's next. I don't suffer from depression anymore, or at least nothing life threatening, in fact, I've never been happier. I won't look for death, but I know that if it stares me in the face, I will welcome it gladly, and I'm not afraid anymore to die. Anyone had this feeling before? I'm still sane you know.