yeah i think there can be a sense of enlightenment from the brink of utter despair and hopelessness. its up to you what to do with that enlightenment. finish it off, or make it better.

Ok, first let me address a pet peeve. There is no such thing as rock bottom! I know it's a cool buzzword Fight Club made popular but it doesn't exist. Things can always get worse. Depending on one's perspective, that can shed light on a situation or make it seem even more hopeless. Personally, I don't like comparing my life to a horribly gaunt Somalian child in order to say "Hey, I have it pretty good. It could always be worse." Yes, it indeed could be worse but it's like apples and oranges. On the same token, I can understand a perfectly physically healthy billionaire hating his life.

Suicide and its implications have been running through my mind awhile. It might be presumptuous to assume this, but my guess is after death there is nothing. If there is nothingness then is it wrong to prefer that over somethingness that is absolutely miserable? I refuse to accept a role on Earth as simply a living organism that maintains the status quo for surrounding people. However if I could be shown that someone else, maybe even a number of people, in a very similar situation have moved on to enjoy life then I could be convinced. I've yet to see this empirical evidence though. There are generally skewed variables in both the positive and negative directions. For example, someone might say I'm in your sitiuation BUT I do have friends and perfect physical health (positive) or I'm in your situation BUT my father is an abusive alcoholic (negative). Either way, the deviation only helps to not convince me of anything.

I've tried 3 times before. My last being summer of 2000. I'll never forget that summer. I was so depressed. I still am. I think of suicide everyday. It seems like it's the only way out. I hurt so badly. I tried to imagine my life after death yesterday and I couldn't conceive what nothing was like. That gave life a little more meaning. That, and carnival..and The matrix revolutions..and the final chapter of the Lord of the Rings.

We all have something to live for.. ::chuckles sadly::

best not to try and find out, LuFega...

I imagine it is a lot like sleep without dreams. You feel nothing, you see nothing, you smell nothing. Your senses are dead, and you will never wake up.

Even if things are rough, its better than being in perpetual darkness as such.

Hence, we are still here.

I used to think of it, the idea of nothingness forever, and once you can handle the concept, its a mentally debilitating idea. Its very boggling once you figure it out and get lost in it. Suddenly I feel that I have to do whatever I can to avoid that, because even if life is all bad, its still better than no life at all.

Psychologists categorize attention this way, and I think it is a good parallel to life experience. Good attention is, of course, the top of the list, followed by negative attention, followed by no attention.
Tests have been done on this, and while I could get very verbose, suffice to say that no attention is the worst possible way to live.

Thus, having absolutely no feeling must be the worst way to go. Even if all is negative, at least you are feeling something. Plus, no matter where you stand, you will have your high points, even if you consider them to be low.

when i was younger, i was in the same position numist put himself in, the one who helped everyone, but really had no outlet to help himself. i became overwhelmed, so i took a knife and pressed it to my flesh, but i didn't like the way it felt, so i pulled it away. in another instance, i found myself at my grandparent's house, but i couldn't find a key to my grandpa's gun safe, so those plans were thwarted. i don't think i ever told anybody about those episodes, they just kinda got buried in the heap of everything else happening.

i'm going through another spate of difficulties, and it often feels like there's so much negative that there's no way to get out of the red. i've often considered the consequenses of going through the actions, and even further, the consequenses of dealing with the source of many of these problems before taking care of myself. i know in the deepest part of my heart that it wouldn't solve anything, but it would be such a gratification to know that noone else's life will ever be ruined like mine was.

and then i think about my girlfriend and realize that not only would i miss her, but that she dosen't deserve the pain and suffering of a loss like that. i'm having dark thoughts lately, but her light keeps me from being swallowed by the shadows. she's my lifesaver, in more ways then one.

mmm i hear ya. nothing to do with suicide, but i consider my GF to be my lifesaver. i was heading down a road of cocaine and jack daniels abuse until i met her.

now i'm eating right and running 4 times a week!

everything in life seems so much easier when you have someone loving and supporting you.

and for everyone thats contemplating suicide in this thread. DONT!!!!!! please? your family loves you too much.

ive attempted suicide a few times- pills mostly, and one time some very deep shaky cuts.

now mostly, its become a problem where i intentionally am apethetic to my body. if my stomach hurts, its funny to me. if my back hurts, i apply more weight to it.

i have thoughts about suicide everyday, but i choose to stay alive because i have someone very important in my life. along with the fact that i am curious as to how crappy my future will be, since i'm only a senior in high school. hmmmm...

Just to give a view from the outside, anyone who considers it should think about this.

A friend of mine killed himself a year and a half ago. I'm the type that doesn't cry, doesn't frown, and rarely shows much emotion at all. I'm sitting here in public right now, trying to pretend that I have something in my eye so that nobody asks me why I'm crying. It's just too painful to think about.

My family hates me. It's a well deserved hate.
The only reason I keep going is pure unadulterated hatred.

Veritas en Lux!
Jimmy The Hutt

MrSelfDestruct has it exactly right.

There is nothing more painful in life than suicide.

As a person who has lost people to suicide, it is the worst feeling that you can ever have. If someone runs over your puppy, or your best friend succumbs to cancer - you have a reason to why they died. With suicide you fall into an endless hole of what ifs and confusion. You don't have an explanation, and its unbearable to live with.

As far as committing suicide... There's too much in life, so as Ive iterated before... please dont, and seek help. Even if you don't think you can find anyone, we are always here.

I don't

Now that I think about it, I have never even thought about it.

I'm not a happy go lucky guy, but I have never thought anything was that bad. I guess I just don't understand.

I always washed teh pills down with the Vodka cause I wanted to have a good time.

I think many people have had vague thoughts about what it would be like, but I have never really considered it. If I have ever even thought about it, I think about people who have been in much worse situations and kept on fighting and surviving. My dad fought cancer for three years (brain tumor) before he died. My mom had a bone marrow transplant ten years ago for multiple myeloma(a type of bone marrow cancer). Now it is back, but the doctor told her that she has gone twice as long in remission as any other marrow transplant. Christopher Reeves is also a person I look up to. It's wonderful that he has all sorts of money to afford really expensive treatments, but he still has not given up and keeps fighting. And then there is always the people who have been persecuted and beaten down for their beliefs. Look at all of the Jews that survived the concentration camps. Most of them did not commit suicide. My problems were a lot less than theirs, and I think most people here never faced problems that they did. That may sound callous, but oh well. I mean, what was so bad in Kurt Cobain's life that he needed to commit suicide? If you have problems, seek help. Talk to someone. Learn to accept that life sometimes sucks, and understand that there are millions of people who have had a tougher time than you and have pulled through. If you want attention, be a person who makes a difference, not a selfish kid.

The Spanish have a saying :"Hace falta tener cojones."

It means you have to have balls.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by pocon1
My dad fought cancer for three years (brain tumor) before he died. My mom had a bone marrow transplant ten years ago for multiple myeloma(a type of bone marrow cancer). Now it is back, but the doctor told her that she has gone twice as long in remission as any other marrow transplant. Christopher Reeves is also a person I look up to. And then there is always the people who have been persecuted and beaten down for their beliefs. Look at all of the Jews that survived the concentration camps. Most of them did not commit suicide. My problems were a lot less than theirs, and I think most people here never faced problems that they did. That may sound callous, but oh well. I mean, what was so bad in Kurt Cobain's life that he needed to commit suicide? [/QUOTE


I totally well thought out post pocom1. You have excellent insight! I being someone that has attempted suicide have always felt terrible about not wanting to live, while people who do struggle so hard to. When I was younger and more suicidal I wished I could have traded places with them and let them have my health and live. It has many times made me revaluate my life and how hard life can really become. It's true that becoming depressed and suicidal makes it harder to see the forest for the trees. You become very self involved and start to forget that people have triumphed in alot worse circumstances. Thank you for your post! Hopefully it will give everyone something to think about next time they feel upset.

Hey, some families deserve to be hated, there are not all good.

I'm very sorry to hear the MrSelfDestruct! Thank you for posting though and letting people know how it feels to everyone on the outside.

Hang On! It gets so much easier after high school! I'm 19 and have been doing alot better personally since I've graduated! I hated middle and high school with a vengence. I still have problems but at least I know that I'm not mandated by law to have to be there!

Hey there ain't nothing wrong with liking books and tv, it's a great way to be in somebody else's world for awhile and give yourself a break! After I was in a coma for a suicide attempt for about a week, I kinda began to relize what nothingness. I didn't dream, see any bright lights or anything. When I woke up I didn't know where I was or what had happened. It was kind of sobering relizing that all I saw was blackness. Made me want to stick around a bit longer, besides who knows what you might miss book wise or TV wise. I know that sounds stupid, but it's my escape too.

I was going to drop these lyrics in earler, but I fogot. Since C/B quoted you on that, here's the lyrics for "Suicide" by Bobby Gaylor. It is kinda long, but a cool spoken-word piece. It cheers up at the end, so don't stop halfway.

Actually they aren't the problem. Most of them are fairly stable, productive, well-adjusted individuals. Mostly they resent the fact that a whack-job like me is related by blood.

Veritas en Lux!
Jimmy The Hutt

I feel like I spent a lot of my teen years convincing my friends not to kill themselves. I frequently had my own thoughts of, "I want to die. I want to die," but I felt a lot of responsibility to my friends. I felt like if I was gone, there would be nobody left to support them.

I'm here for people who need someone to talk to. I run this site to help people and the community as a whole, and despite my schedule, I have time for people who are in need.

i'm very much speechless on this topic, but I can say that I've never attempted it

I hope that for those of you who seem to relish it that you don't succeed; at the very least, the TFP is here for you

Well that fact they they resent you, shows that their kinda weird in there own way. I too am the only whack-job in my family and I stick out like a sore thumb by since their my family they have learned to live with me and vise versa. Family should love you no matter what. Maybe you just scare them because maybe you actual reflect their inner person. Hey you had to get it from somewhere! Or you could use this found power over buggin the hell out of them to make weird and whitter remarks in public places and embarrass the hell out of them!:D I personally do this to people who act like they have a bug up their butt around me

I'm the one disrupting their normal suburban lives. They have every right to resent me. I don't think I scare them so much as I make them worry about property values and the police. Its not like I'm not a complete freak. Its bound to upset a bunch of urban professionals.

I think aliens switched me out at birth.

Veritas en Lux!
Jimmy The Hutt

Dude my parents our urban professionals too and they just think I'm entertaining and I'm sure they would like you too! Why should they resent you? Blah! You have a bad outlook on yourself which is totally unwarranted since you seem to be pretty funny and an individual. You can come live at my house and feel loved amongst the other outsiders!

there are some families that are better left apart, even in resentment. What is important is that there is support elsewhere to take the place of the role a family plays for most people.

I think this quote sums up why people commit suicide. Since the mind blocks out everything, this is especially true because normally there is help available:

I also like to relate the quote that has been my signature for many years:

I am one of the lucky ones who has not suffered with depresssion or suicidal thoughts thankfully. I can see how people lack understanding for people who do when it is so very difficult to understand. However i do feel for people who have felt so bad that they are affected by this and I hope they will find a way through it.

Let me throw my 2 cents in.
Unless you have been there you won't understand so quit trying to judge some one who has been there. Second the idea that if you really want to succeed you will, is completely wrong. No matter how good the planning or how far overboard you go to assure success, something and I put it at divine intervention, can come along and keep you alive anyway. I have seen people put a bullet in there head and survive and I know people have taken enough pills to kill three people and they are still around.
Depression is a terrible illness because it robs you of your ability to think and act sensibly.

Have you ever been doin' 65 down the highway in traffic up to your ears and you think to yourself that all you would have to do is slam on the breaks and turn the wheel into the guardrail and it would be all over?

No more.

See, when you live a life that's in a constant state of limbo that's how you think. My life has become a fight against my own mind. That won't make sense to many of you. I have mental problems. Like real mental problems. I'm not like the kids that you see on the streets with the black make-up and the ICP shirt that act as though the world hates them and that they're depressed. It's people like this that have actually given people with real problems a bad name. And why we get so many people that say they would never have respect for someone that has killed themselves. It's a misunderstanding.

When you can no longer think for yourself because all you can think about is death then you can tell me about respect. When you wake up in the morning and you can't function like a normal adult, which means your mom has to make you breakfast and make sure you get to work. I'm 22. My mom takes care of all my bills and paperwork. In some respects I'm still 12. I get by everyday with hope that I get better and it was all a phase. 9 years and I still have hope it's all a phase.

See, I don't write things like this for pity. I don't need your pity. I tell you about my struggles so maybe some of you will better understand why someone would slit their wrists. It's not a cop-out. It's the last option most of us have. And when your mental state limits you to half of what everyone else has... you get to death quicker.


*continues to fight*

Just curious, but do you think it's a chemical imbalance or environment?

For me it's a chemical imbalance. For others, such as the kids I refered to, it's all enviroment. If you put yourself in the position that being depressed is the norm then you will eventually become depressed. I was born with an imbalance. That's never going to change until medical science finds a way to. I can't just simply find a new group of friends to hang out with or stop listening to depressing music. I've tried both of those things... I still keep the same thought. There is nothing more creepy then being completely sad with a smile on your face. But then again most of the people that lead the "dark" life were drawn to it because of exsisting problems. Which, oddly enough, is why it's so hard to find a stripper or even someone in pron that doesn't have some sort of sexual misconduct in their past involving a family member or someone similer. Hate breeds hate... just like depression breeds depression. My father is clinicly depressed and in a way past it on to me... both through my parents divorce and mainly by genetics.

I hope that answers your question.

It does, but forgive my ignorance on the subject, isn't there some sort of drug that can treat seratonin deficiencies?

Serotonin deficiency isn't always the nature of the chemical imbalance, and the drugs often have side effects like insomnia, low sex drive, constipation, dizziness, and more, not to mention a small percentage of truly deadly health risks. These side effects can make mental health recovery that much more difficult. Even then, however, you need professional counseling combined with drug treatment, not just drug treatment.

Sometimes people are too embarrassed to to talk to a professional, or they are past the point of wanting to go to one by the time they realize they have a big problem. Or their insurance doesn't cover it.

My ex-girlfriend exposed this world to me, and it's an important one to understand so that people with clinical depression can be respected just like anyone else. Some people can't just "walk it off." Some people are told by their friends that they don't need no stinkin' shrink. Some people refuse to accept that they are clinically depressed and try to just shrug it off, for months and even years. But it just builds up.

All I can say is just keep trying. It is awfully hard I know, but things can turn around and you won't be able to comprehend why you had the thoughts you did.

Excellent post, Johnny Rotten, I just had to come in and say that.

I truly thank you.

I am here! This might not have been possible if it weren't for the principle, counselor, parents, friends and a select few others that recognized my pain when I was 8 years old. That's when it started. I hated myself.....I felt a lot of mental and emotional pain that I couldn't possibly begin to understand at such an early age. I hated the way I looked, I hated the way I felt, and yet I was only 8 years old. I had "pain" in my head that I couldn't begin to express because I was too young to put it in to coherent thoughts. This "pain" needed to be unleashed over the years, so I picked up a razor and began to carve things into my arms. On multiple occasions, I would lightly run the blade over my wrists to make a trickle of blood. I was amused by the release it gave me. I was also amused at the thoughts of ending it all right then and there. I thought a lot about "the darkness" and the end to my mental turmoil.......

This phase lasted through High School.

I look back on it now and wonder how I could have ever contemplated suicide at such a young age. My life didn't have problems, yet I had this deep depression in my head, tucked into a tiny corner of my brain that I could not understand, nor do I think I could make others understand it. I now know that I am much stronger than that.

It is easy to condemn people for trying it....and failing....
It is easy to say how selfish it is...
It is easy for you to detail how wonderful your life is compared to other people's lives in worse situations.....

But when the sense of hopelessness completely and totally consumes you, how can you condemn something that you don't understand?

Good question! I have a chemical imbalance too. I actually have excellent parents and had a great childhood. I actually wish I never got past the ago of 10. Neither of my parents have depression but my paternal grandmother did and my uncle does on my mother's side. Genetics play alot in detertiming you chances at getting depression, about as much as your eye and hair color. I currently have decided not to have children of my own due to the fact that I cannot predict if they will have depression later on and if not them, grandchildren. I think adoption is the best route for me! :D

looking at this from another angle....

Like some of you I too, was the "friend" everybody came to when they were down and depressed, I still am, everyone considers me one of the emotionally strongest most optomistic people they know....

back up 15 years to when I was 20....

I wont say ever "consciously" considered suicide..but in this previous post

I see a lot of myself...I had gotten to a point where I was SO obsessed with ridding the world of suicide that I couldnt handle it anymore, an extremely close friend of mine killed himself, with no warning..none of the "signs" nothing, he just upped and shot himself..it hit me out of the blue that if my best friend could do this, to not have even tried to talked to me about it, what the hell did I think I could do for anyone else....I went on a self destruction campaign, I said f*ck it and commenced on doing every drug I could get my hands on, in amounts that truly should have killed me more than once...cocaine being the main one, this went on for 2 1/2 years.

Now, I was raised in church, had tremendous faith in god, that disappeared for me...I did many many stupid things, I held no value for life, if I was dared...I did it...then, the last 3 months of my drug abuse, actually the heaviest use, somehow the haze started to clear and I started to realize that "somebody" was watching out for me because by all rights I should have been dead and in my drug induced state I started having "feelings" again.

No one helped me thru that time...the realization hit me so hard one day that though I didnt know why, I had everything to live for, and I put the drugs down and completed my "new awakening"

I will by no means claim to be a "good" girl now, but something in that experience told me that by god Im here for a reason and until God decided I had fulfilled that reason, no matter what I did, I wasnt gonna die so I may as well stop trying to do things that would end my life.

A lot of people ask me if I regret those "lost" years and I most unequivically have to say no I dont, they made me into the person I am today.

To those of you that have tried suicide and it didnt work, dont ever look at it as a "failed" attempt...look at it as suceeding in living...there was a reason it didnt work, it might take you 50 years to understand the reason...but that gives you something to look forward to.

15 years removed from my experience I still have no clue why I am still here but each day I wake up and still feel excited that this might be the day I find out.

(sorry for the ramble...I tried to tell it as coherently and compact as I could)

Once. Overdosed with temazepam. A half-hearted attempt, and am glad that that's all it was.

I have never seriously considered suicide, much less attempted it. But, I do have a friend that was considering killing herself, it disturbed me some. I talked with her, and she went to the doctor and got meds and will probably be getting treatment soon.