Ariii
Member
- Oct 29, 2023
- 74
During my early teens, a lot of my online friends were very suicidal. I had had my own mental issues, but never to the point where I seriously considered suicide (at most, it was just impulsive thoughts on occasion). Looking back, I regret how I treated these people. My memory isn't clear of how I actually acted, but I know for a fact that I discouraged it as much as possible. For one of my friends, I think it was relatively fine to act this way, he ended up getting therapy, and while I lost contact, I know he was doing better.
But for a lot of those people, especially one guy in particular, looking back, I just needed to stfu. He had been suicidal since 8 and had tried literally everything: 3 therapist, multiple medications, etc. He told me this point blank, yet I still tried to discourage him. I was literally unable to comprehend why he would want to die that bad. Even when it was clear that there was nothing that would work for him, I still tried to discourage him. I genuinely couldn't understand why he would want to die, when, to my peanut brain, he still had a lot of options to get better.
Obviously, I don't expect a 12-15 yo to be able to properly handle these types of situations. But that isn't my point. My point is that if someone has never gone through being seriously suicidal, they will almost never be able to properly empathize with us. The desire to live is so entrenched with these people (or the desire hasn't been challenged enough), that it is incomprehensible to feel so hopeless to CTB. While talking to these people slightly shifted my view on suicide as something that should never happen to maybe at times, it is the best solution, I only ever realized that for many people, it is the only viable solution after I became suicidal myself.
I think this is because a) it is harder to empathize with something you've never gone through and b) people who don't consider suicide simply don't think enough about the complexity of it. Suicidal people are going to think about suicide more and probably interact with more suicidal people. Once someone starts doing that, they will realize how there are many people who have tried everything, yet nothing has changed. That there are some situations that are so painful, yet doesn't have cures (eg. childloss). That there are some people who are unwilling to conform to suicide, who don't want to work for literal decades for very little reward. That there are people with such serious trauma and depression that what we count as basic tasks, is like climbing Mt. Everest. And so much more, there are so many situations where recovery simply isn't viable within reason.
Sure, in an ideal society, where everyone has good and cheap accesses to top-tier treatment, less people would CTB. But we don't live in that society, and probably never will. There are so many suicidal people who will never have it. Yet people propose it as THE solution to suicidailty. Normal people simply don't understand/care enough about how we feel and our struggles to propose a better solution. How they see it, death=bad therefore, do anything you can to avoid it. To them, it worth it to be locked up in a mental hospital or to be put into debt or to be isolated bc ppl don't want to deal with suicidal ppl, as long as they live.
But for a lot of those people, especially one guy in particular, looking back, I just needed to stfu. He had been suicidal since 8 and had tried literally everything: 3 therapist, multiple medications, etc. He told me this point blank, yet I still tried to discourage him. I was literally unable to comprehend why he would want to die that bad. Even when it was clear that there was nothing that would work for him, I still tried to discourage him. I genuinely couldn't understand why he would want to die, when, to my peanut brain, he still had a lot of options to get better.
Obviously, I don't expect a 12-15 yo to be able to properly handle these types of situations. But that isn't my point. My point is that if someone has never gone through being seriously suicidal, they will almost never be able to properly empathize with us. The desire to live is so entrenched with these people (or the desire hasn't been challenged enough), that it is incomprehensible to feel so hopeless to CTB. While talking to these people slightly shifted my view on suicide as something that should never happen to maybe at times, it is the best solution, I only ever realized that for many people, it is the only viable solution after I became suicidal myself.
I think this is because a) it is harder to empathize with something you've never gone through and b) people who don't consider suicide simply don't think enough about the complexity of it. Suicidal people are going to think about suicide more and probably interact with more suicidal people. Once someone starts doing that, they will realize how there are many people who have tried everything, yet nothing has changed. That there are some situations that are so painful, yet doesn't have cures (eg. childloss). That there are some people who are unwilling to conform to suicide, who don't want to work for literal decades for very little reward. That there are people with such serious trauma and depression that what we count as basic tasks, is like climbing Mt. Everest. And so much more, there are so many situations where recovery simply isn't viable within reason.
Sure, in an ideal society, where everyone has good and cheap accesses to top-tier treatment, less people would CTB. But we don't live in that society, and probably never will. There are so many suicidal people who will never have it. Yet people propose it as THE solution to suicidailty. Normal people simply don't understand/care enough about how we feel and our struggles to propose a better solution. How they see it, death=bad therefore, do anything you can to avoid it. To them, it worth it to be locked up in a mental hospital or to be put into debt or to be isolated bc ppl don't want to deal with suicidal ppl, as long as they live.
