Suicide is NOT Painless, Despite What the Song Says

[telecom_goddess]

I, for one, have stopped reading the posts about plaid on cs...I just can't take it anymore. I can't be mired in the grief or I'll go insane.

Because of the way that he did this I have minor panic attacks going about certain daily activities. Without giving away too much detail, some of you will understand what I mean. I'm paranoid about certain things, and once that happens I'm paranoid for life and would love to avoid it. Unfortunately I can't in this case. It's a constant reminder...and I still can't stand the fact that I am in the same city that it occurred in.

So yeah this has had a permanent effect on me....and now for my own mental health I need to stay away from all the hearts and flowers tributes to him. They are great but they're killing me....know what I mean?

[Andara Bledin]

I love breathing air. I love standing by the ocean and looking up at the moon and stars and being apart of the living experience as I feel the night wind on my skin. I love eating and drinking. I love the sweetness of sugary sodas and of stuffing myself at an all you can eat Chinese buffet. I love reading books and feeling for the characters. And I love talking to people and reading and writing and listening to music. And seeing movies. I love these things way too much.

You and I are very similar in this. But for those suffering depression, if they feel any of these things at all, it isn't with the same relish or verve we feel. Their lives are lived through the veil of their depression, which hides the little joys from them and sucks the pleasure out of even the most enjoyable endeavors.

Chronic pain is even worse because you can still feel the enjoyment of your favorite hobbies, but then the pain comes in just a little bit stronger and suddenly all that joy is gone, leaving frustration and anger in its wake. I'm fortunate in that the only pains I endure are fleeting, mostly from my sinuses, but I've had days where the best thing was for me to just sit at my desk and do little things that a sudden flare-up of pain wouldn't have so far to pull me down so that the bottom didn't look so terrible by comparison. I still don't believe that people should be forced to live like that when they truly wish otherwise.

^-.-^

[Rageaholic]

And whenever I think of death, all I can imagine is nothingness. No more eating, or drinking. No more breathing. No more walking and no more seeing the ocean. I am utterly terrified at the prospect of no longer breathing and suddenly just not being. Whether I believe in Heaven and Hell or not is irrelevant. I don't want to find out they exist by dying. And I am terrified by this prospect.

QFT. Death is one of those things that when I really think about the uncertainty and permanance of, I go insane. I have NO idea what happens when you die and that thought just terrifies me. If you truly believe that death would be a better alternative, you're either not thinking clearly, or are truly in a lot of pain. Either way, you're in a horrible mental state.

I can't say if suicide is selfish, but what I think IS selfish is this judging and condemning of people who do make the choice (or are considering it). Because in the end, the one mostly affected is the one who makes the decision to end their life.

[Andara Bledin]

I actually have absolutely no fear of death. Never have.

I'm afraid of the actual dying part, but no qualms regarding the being dead part.

Except that I want to know what'll happen tomorrow. And next week. And I've got the next Dresden book pre-ordered for the week after. And there are some awesome games coming in the next year...

^-.-^

[FormerCallingCardRep]

Maybe even imagine the pain of looking in a mirror and seeing a misshapen face that, in your eyes, makes you a monster, even if well meaning people with attractive or "normal" faces tell you it doesn't matter, and good self esteem is so much more attractive.

Ree, have you been talking to my husband. I hear this from him at least once a week. He has had surgery to give him a "normal" looking face.

In being married to a man with Neurofibromatosis, I totally understand Plaid's thought process on the way he looked. I have told him multiple times that he would one day find a woman who would look past the NF and see the beautiful man underneath the surface. I just wish he would have listened to me.

Plaid's death has been really rough on my husband and I. We both had been there for him in the past when he needed advice from someone who has lived with NF. I just he would have reached out to us.

[Ipecac Drano]

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
- Samuel Langhorne Clemens

[Eisa]

Heh, when it comes to quotes and song lyrics, I get more reminded of this:

"How old are you? I'm older than you'll ever be. I've been dead a thousand years and lived only two or three..." [Emilie Autumn: "Gothic Lolita"]

I have mixed feelings about death, really. Sometimes it's very enticing. Other times, not so much.

[Victoria J]

Except that I want to know what'll happen tomorrow. And next week. And I've got the next Dresden book pre-ordered for the week after.

That's what's keeping my mother going so far. Not that book but books in general. She LOVES books and is always waiting for several. She gets Amazon parcels for the neighbours because the postman tends to assume they are for her. She is getting a small amount of disability benefit and considers this a "book allowance".

The fact of the matter is, my life has sucked a lot of balls this past year. And I have tried my damndest to put on a happy face for people. I've come to grips with the fact that losing my job was my fault and that I may have to live with the lasting consequences of it for a very long time. I look at the mounting debts I have to deal with and the fact that I am stuck in a homeless shelter, pounding the pavement every day for work, trying like hell to make a life that I am happy with. I look at it all and I feel it like a weight constantly crushing my chest.

When I go to people for help, they're either trying like hell to shove a pill down my throat, or they're not convinced that I need help because I was stupid enough not to show up in a wheelchair with a bib around my neck.

And if it's not people refusing to help when I ask for it, it's people giving me help that I don't want.

Firstly I'm really sorry you're going through all this.

I don't fear death. I don't really see it as an alternative either though. I suspect people who can imagine it as a something not a nothing are more likely to end their lives. (Though all sorts of religious believes will stop others from doing so). People who have lost parents at a young age are significantly more likely to commit suicide, for example. Plus suicides can actually encourage other suicides, leading to statistically odd clumps.

My personal approach is more that it's like queuing or waiting for a bus. You know how if you were told you'd have to wait for 2 hours for something you might not bother, but after an hour you're committed and you just keep waiting. When my life has sucked, and sometimes it really has, I've felt like that. I waited this long, I suffered this long, now I'm waiting it out. It's probably the most miserable reason for not being suicidal going but it works for me.

As with many of my views on suicide it doesn't necessarily apply to those with severe illness. Much of my horror with suicide is related to the idea of people doing something so permanent in response to feelings which are temporary. Depression does pass. Live changes - not always for the better but there is that possibility. A progressive illness may not have the possibility. I tend to consider one suicide and the other in terms of voluntary euthanasia but as I said in my first post I have no idea how you draw the line.

I fear this may be help you do not want but I managed depression initially by taking the tablets. It kind of worked for me, and then the side effects were a problem (felt disconnected from my body, nothing terrible but it made me feel more unconnected generally which really went too well with the depression) and then I was manic which was either a side effect or a sign I hadn't been very well diagnosed. I stopped taking the medication. I should have gone back to the doctor but a family member was having serious health problems and I stopped prioritizing my own health. Since then I've coped without medicine. Don't necessarily rule out the drugs without trying them, but they aren't for everyone.

The 2 things that made the most difference for me were - my MP3 player and my cat. The music helps when I just can't be alone with my mind. I have to be listening to something or have the tv on or something. Left to myself I just spiral down into the depression, feeling bad then feeling bad about feeling bad in some terrible feedback loop. I can't read. I can't concentrate on TV. Sometimes I don't even hear the songs but you don't have to feel bad about that. I know them, they'll play again. It works at shutting off my mind even when I don't here.

The cat is company when I can't cope with human company. Plus it's good to have someone who is pleased to see me, and doesn't require the complicated things of me people do. She isn't always nice, cats aren't, but she doesn't have her own crisises or depression etc. to tell me about. She's just quietly there. I don't get so lonely, or feel pressured into company I can't cope with.

I know you can't have a cat when you're homeless. Some people wouldn't find having a cat helpful anyway. I'm sharing this because there were 2 ways to cope I found to two of the worst things depression was doing to me. It didn't make the depression go away, but it made it hurt less.

The other suggestion is to volunteer if you aren't doing this. Maybe help others you meet at the homeless shelter. Anything you can do to make things better for someone else. Society measures value with money too often and if you aren't economically active you can end up feeling that you have nothing of value to give. People can make all kinds of valuable contributions even if they can't find work, or a home, at this time. Potentially you feel better about yourself, more confident and when you value yourself other people are more likely to - including the valuing that includes giving you money which is pretty great too. Plus it tends to help with looking for work and you may meet more people which also opens up further job opportunities. If you feel like you're having to ask for help too often being able to help someone else is also good. I understand you may already be doing this, or it may not be practical. I suggest it only because volunteering really did change my life.

Things can and do change. And it's OK to be unhappy with your life at the moment. If you want to talk let me know (I don't check here that often, but I check CS pretty much every day). If you want me to get lost I will.

Victoria J

[Lace Neil Singer]

Maybe even imagine the pain of looking in a mirror and seeing a misshapen face that, in your eyes, makes you a monster, even if well meaning people with attractive or "normal" faces tell you it doesn't matter, and good self esteem is so much more attractive. .

I have a socalled "normal" face... and yet, I know the pain of looking in the mirror and seeing a face that is ugly and hideous. I had image problems for years, where I hated my face and thought myself to be ugly. Even now I still have days where I see that same hideous face, even tho I've accepted myself as being plain now, and try to do what I can to make the best of myself. I know it's not the same as having a physically misshapen face, but I can certainly understand the feeling of pain.

[NateSean]

. Don't necessarily rule out the drugs without trying them, but they aren't for everyone.

I'll start another thread for this one.

The other suggestion is to volunteer if you aren't doing this.

Most of those people don't want help. They want crap handed to them and they get plenty of that. The shelter provides job listings, food, and other services that those people can take advantage of. All "volunteering" would lead to is me hanging around the shelter all day being treated like crap.

And any other place that one would normally want volunteers at all ready has a whole line of people volunteering there. I know, because I filled out an application to volunteer at the hospital, with the intent that eventually if a job opened up somewhere in the hospital my volunteer experience would give me a contact or two who could be a reference for me. Unfortunately there are college students, elderly, and other people all in line ahead of me for the volunteer hours.

[telecom_goddess]

I'm sorry for all that everyone is going through in regards to what's happened and other circumstances in life.

I've decided to go back to therapy myself. My old therapist doesn't have a regular spot open but I'm taking cancellation spots for now...and have 2 appointments setup. I feel I need this in a major way.

[Eisa]

Good luck t_g! :3

Truthfully, I'm thinking I need to go back too in a major way...it's just finding a proper one.... -sighs- Bleh.

[guywithashovel]

For the most part, I have a normal looking face, though I have gone through periods of time when I felt like an absolute troll every time I looked in the mirror. I won't claim that my experience was the same as Plaidman's, though.

My issue that I look a lot younger than I really am---always have. When I was a senior in high school, I would get jaw drops when I told people how old I was. Many of them assumed I was in junior high. Nowadays, I could probably pass easily for a college student, though being 29, I'm not really that much older than many college students are. I might pass for a high school student still---who knows? A co-worker of mine told me that if she didn't know me and had to guess my age, she'd guess 20 or 21.

I know what many people are thinking. "Heck, you'll LOVE that when you pass 40!" I'm sure I will. Honestly, I don't mind it that much now. I didn't care for it when I was in my late teens and early twenties, though. I was trying as hard as I could to embrace adulthood, and that's hard to do when people think you're somewhere around 15.

I wish Plaidman could have found some comfort in his last days, and maybe that could have prevented those from even being his last days. I also wish he could have stopped seeing relationships as the end-all-be-all of existence. He just really seemed to have it implanted in his head that a girlfriend was the one and only thing he needed to make his life complete.

[Amanita]

I know I'm late to this party, and I didn't know Plaidman as well as many of you here.
But hearing about what happened saddened me. Reading his posts I felt so bad for him- he seemed to have such low self esteem, believing that no woman would ever have him, that he wasn't good enough to attract or keep anybody. And that was just sad. Whether for believing that there was nobody out there for him, or that being in a relationship was the be-all and end-all.

I've contemplated ending it all before- I'm prone to situational depression. Not a day goes by where I don't think about how much I hate my fat body, and how awful it looks. On top of that, I routinely beat myself up for not being where I want to be in life, for living at home and working a dead-end job. For not "having my shit together", as it were.
So in some ways, perhaps I can relate to what he went through.

A good many people in the Pagan/Wiccan community take a hard line on suicide- if you end your own life, the gods will punish you by reincarnating you with the same mess that caused you to kill yourself, served up on your plate again, and again, and again, until you finally "get it" and deal with the circumstances in an "approved" manner- "Approved" meaning that you force yourself to live. It doesn't matter why you killed yourself- even being terminally ill, or so badly crippled that you have no quality of life left, you are expected to "tough it out" and choose to live, because "All life is sacred", no matter how much that life sucks.

You know what?

Even though I consider myself a Pagan, I reject that belief entirely. I know that in some cases, the problems leading to suicide may be things where if the person just held on a little longer, relief would come, things would eventually be okay, and they could work through them. But for those whose circumstances and suffering are NOT going to get better, or whose minds are in the grips of mental illness, confounding their ability to see past their pain- to force them through multiple incarnations of suffering is neither merciful nor just, and I believe that ultimately, the Gods ultimately are merciful and just.

Wherever you are Plaidman, I hope you've found some measure of peace.

[Nyoibo]

I've been debating about wether to write this or not for a while now, since this thread started I guess. I've thought about suicide for years, for many of the same reasons as Plaid, I think. I had, and to an extent still have, no self-esteem, I have major body image issues, I had very few friends who were anything other than just friends when it suited them, not having a job and still living at home when a lot of people I know have careers, their own places and the big one, women and relationships. This is the one that really pushed me close to ending it, my first kiss was only 13 months ago, when I was 27, the amount of pain that causes when you have friends who are in long term relationships, or even married, having kids, all that sort of stuff, people you know who are assholes, but still, they get to have those things, so what's wrong with you that you don't, it gets to the point where it's not just mental pain, it's physically painful, I would feel physical pain when I saw people showing their affection, I heard all the platitudes and bullshit people spout off to you, but the experiences I had kind of proved them wrong and also, just for fun, completely destroyed and self esteem I had when I was younger.

I think I've started rambling and lost track of where I was going with this except that I understand what Plaid was feeling and can understand why he did it.