More then a decade I made the decision to kill myself. Came within a few millimeters from succeeding. My mother caught me in the backyard wearing a sweater and jeans drenched in gasoline with a lighter in my hand. My mother was never really athletic or decisive, but she moved as faster then I'd have ever seen her in my life. Hugged me hard and refused to let go no matter how hard I struggled. Took me longer to realize why she was doing that. For me to burn, I'd have to burn her as well... and she knew damned well I could never do that.
The only reason I'm here is for her sake, but only just. After she is gone that there's little else that compels me to stay.
It's not as if I'm unafraid of dying. It frightens me just as much as it does you. But even now don't find living to be more appealing, for reasons I cannot remember anymore. I'm just here, a clock in the shape of a person that's waiting to die.
> “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”
I hope you can find some joy in your life, find other things that are worth living for. You're on Hackernews, so I'm assuming you're into tech. Maybe you can apply your skills to more altruistic projects. Helping others might help with one's mental health.
Hope this is not too personal, but why did you choose to set yourself on fire? It's a brutal and painful way to go. It's also brutal for the person who would have found you, seeing the disfigured and charred body.
Maybe in a suicidal state of mind it's difficult to think about the after effects and all you can think about is to end the pain of living.
Honestly, it was what was within arms reach that I knew would work. It wasn't as if there were an elaborate master plan to execute. If there were, do you believe I'd be here talking about it?
Though... I won't deny the possibility that spite may have been involved as well.
There's not much of a story to tell that's not been told a billion times over. I wake, go to work, go home, browse, go to bed, repeat. The stress of life is there, tense moments where my teeth grind loud enough to hear. But is that so different then anyone else going through life?
That said I don't know if you and I are two sides of a coin. You ask the question on whether there is meaning in life, and answer that there is none. I look at the question, and find myself unbothered in any case.
How unfair would that be to that someone? Having to bear the burden of being the sole reason for another to live?
I spent years deliberately and intentionally slowly distancing myself from every friend, every acquaintance, until my existence was nothing more then a fading echo of a memory to everyone that would mourn not just a death of a human being, but the my death in particular. I've crossed paths with many of them in recent years, and to them my face is that of a stranger's.
So to answer your question. No. Not without some sort of actual desire to live from myself.
> How unfair would that be to that someone? Having to bear the burden of being the sole reason for another to live?
That's one way to look at it. But it's one viewpoint of many.
Another one is that they may just enjoy being around you and communicating with you without necessarily feeling you or your life is their responsibility. And on your end you might recognize that you bring value to other people just by being you. You recognizing someone as your sole reason to live doesn't place a burden on them automatically.
I've deliberately tried to keep out emotion of this and to keep it transactional just to illustrate a different, simpler, viewpoint.
Also a more concrete example: I don't know you but from the couple of comments you've left I really enjoy the way you write. The cadence, word choice, it's concise and thoughtful. Brief and mostly one sided interaction but already made my life a bit better.
I'll go a different route since I see the arbitrariness of everything, especially with the scope of time, but that scope is also what makes living until the end a more obvious choice.
We have been dead for billions of years. We have no memory of concept of time or ourselves beyond our lives. Similarly, we will be dead for billions of years, almost certainly with no sense of self or concept of time.
The tiny speck of time that is our human lives is so small it seems unimportant if not foolish to rush through it. If the default state for such a large percentage of time is no experience, any experience, even the ones that cause us to suffer, has such a novelty and quickness that surely you should just wait.
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I also like the song 'Any Major Dude' which is about just going to sleep because you'll feel differently the next day. If you look at things like suicide rates and coal fired stove availability in England[1], it's clear people rush to kill themselves who wouldn't have if they had to wait.
I think you made a slightly poor choice of words; I am waiting. I've done nothing but wait in a waiting place. Waiting in a chair, waiting for a sign. Waiting and wondering when it will be my time.
Pitiable attempt at bad poetry aside, it is not as if my mother is bedridden with illness. Barring the unforeseen, another decade at minimum I think is reasonable. Who knows after that.
Until then I am waiting. And doing nothing else but waiting.
I hear you and I'm sorry -- That is just the tricks I use to fight the calls from the void.
If you're just waiting -- I hope you at least find things you somewhat enjoy to pass the time. Escapism through books or video games or nature or whatever can make the waiting more bearable.
In reality, I think we're all just waiting but most have found some way to distract themselves from that fact :)
Thanks for the chat hope you find some kind of solace.
> How unfair would that be to that someone? Having to bear the burden of being the sole reason for another to live?
Is it really a burden? I've been through a very rough year and basically just live for my two wonderful kids. The only thing worse than the suffering is knowing my kids will remember their dad as being a coward who killed himself, and will have to grow up without one. You could see it as a burden but if I was that person I'd be happy to be there for them and profoundly wish they were happier.
I think it's a terribly fragile thing to tie one's life to.
Say I were to give you cup of water, made of the most fragile glass to ever exist, and asked you to hold it. I'd imagine that it would be fine for a few minutes or even a few hours.
Does that stay the same if I asked you to hold it for days? Or months or years? Forcing you to always have to look tie a hand to it, always having to pause every other aspect of your life so that this glass doesn't shatter from setting it down just the wrong way, or going outside in the wrong temperature? And you do so, but only because of the guilt you know you would feel if the glass did break.
With a parent and child, such a relationship is inherent. To a child, mother and father are their world, their protector, their provider, their everything until they are able to fly on their own.
But what of peers? Do you think such is the basis of a healthy relationship?
Were it me to be the one that would shoulder another's burden as such... I think there would be a small seed of resent that would take root in my heart. One would grow like a terrible weed choking every other plant until nothing else remained. I'm scarcely able to tend to own wellbeing, there is barely a single bread crumb to spare for another.
Yeah. I felt similarly about the importance of the kids when we lost a loved one. They kept us going. Life has phases, and this one will pass, and hopefully you will find the next phase to be better.
Maybe this relates to you, maybe it doesn't. I struggle with lifelong depression and suicidal thoughts as well. A dictionary of mental disorders and an extremely traumatizing childhood.
In order to defend myself against impulsive thoughts I've had to dig deep and discover purpose which made sense to me. In my case that is a duality of contributing to mankind however I can, and devoting substantial time to enjoy the contributions made by others. Slowly synthesizing and contributing to what it means to be human. Learning how to love and appreciate everything just on the merit of its existence. It's not enough to accept life, I have to refuse to die, and mount evidence against the utility of a premature death.
What convinced you that suicide was the right option a decade ago? A specific event? Is there something you want from life which you aren't finding or receiving? Or is there an inability to connect in an emotionally positive way with your experience? Or something else?
Some sort of fight I think, the details of which have long vanished into irrelevancy. Though it was not as if it were a light bulb that was switched off. It was a long road to that junction in my life.
Do you remember your first words that you spoke or the first steps you took as a toddler? Or has speech and stride been just a part of your life since a time beyond your first memories?
To me, the idea of ending my own life has always been there, as constant as the sun rising in the east. There may have been a time when it wasn't so, but I cannot find it anymore. Because of this were were half hearted attempts both before and after; a sliced wrist here, a sloppy noose there. The one was the critical one. The one who's cause was nothing more then a piece of straw that broke the camel's back. But it broke nonetheless.
If you don't know why you feel that way anymore, then it sounds like your perspective is ripe for change. The way to change your perspective is through introspection and experience. Maybe you should exhaust these avenues first; travel, perhaps? Or volunteering, or anything else which places you outside of your comfort zone so that you can encounter new perspectives.
And there in lies a bit of a problem. I could probably be 'cured', if I had any particular desire to be cured. Or perhaps put more into programmer terms; this is a feature, not a bug.
I've had decades to look inward and ponder why it is that I am what I am. And often the line of questioning leads down to one particular core reason; that I do not wish to be not suicidal. I've looked at every friend I've severed from my life, every decision, every opportunity I turned away from, every life milestone I will never experience. No first kiss, no first date, no birthdays parties or Christmas get togethers. There will be nothing to reminisce about at the end of my life, no taste of nostalgia at a life well spent.
And yet every time I ask myself if I regret any of it... I would have to say no, I don't. And if I could go back and do it all over again with what I know now, I wouldn't change anything. Had I killed myself then I think it would have left a terrible pain behind. As is, when I do kill myself, it will be as quiet as leaf falling from a tree.
But to entertain you. I have done international travel and volunteer work. I still do from time to time. But there's no enlightenment in doing so, just busy work for myself.
I'm very good at being completely and utterly predictable in every respect that people will see, even if all they know of me is a false name and a false persona. And thus, having met all expectations, be I become someone less interesting then the task at hand.
I realize this is likely what you didn't wish to hear but I do not know what else can be said. I am who am I am.
There are people who care. You aren't alone, there are other people who feel similarly. I've felt similarly (even today)
When you're in a rough spot emotionally, it's easy to believe things that aren't true. Please reach out for help from someone. And I'm not saying this because it's a platitude or because that's what you're supposed to say. I'm saying it because I know what this type of hole is like, it isn't pleasant, there is another way
Or there aren't. I know for sure that no one cares about me except my family. They care because we have a blood relation - but for anyone else, they literally wouldn't care if I was dead tomorrow. (I know because sometimes I disappear for weeks when things get too much. No one gives a shit, really.)
> When you're in a rough spot emotionally, it's easy to believe things that aren't true.
I generally agree with this, but don't you think that someone can come to a rational decision that life is not worth living for them? I'm curious what your stance on euthanasia is.
Life is hard. We never asked to be born, yet are forced to endure the hardships of life, which can be unbearable to some people. Not only are hardships wildly different for everyone, but our coping mechanisms are also different.
We can never truly understand what life is like for someone else, so saying you understand how they're feeling is indeed a platitude. I know it comes from a good place, but we shouldn't assume that the person is delusional.
The only reason I'm here is for her sake, but only just. After she is gone that there's little else that compels me to stay.
It's not as if I'm unafraid of dying. It frightens me just as much as it does you. But even now don't find living to be more appealing, for reasons I cannot remember anymore. I'm just here, a clock in the shape of a person that's waiting to die.