Discussion Does life get better?

[ARW3N]

You often hear people say that life gets better after failed suicide attempts or how relieved someone is to have survived. it's the exact opposite from what I've read. People who have attempted suicide are more likely to make a further successful attempt. I made two serious suicide attempts years ago and I wish I had succeeded back then. I don't feel relieved to still be alive. Life hasn't got better.

 

[TheGoodGuy]

The people who say their lives got better after a failed attempt hasn´t been suicidal for a long time I am sure, they were most likely going through a phase of depression lasting a few months at most.

People who have been suicidal basically their whole life e.g. since early teens aren´t going to magically appreciate life after a failed attempt it´s not like all their problems suddenly vanished because of it.

 

[_Minsk]

You often hear people say that life gets better after failed suicide attempts or how relieved someone is to have survived. it's the exact opposite from what I've read. People who have attempted suicide are more likely to make a further successful attempt. I made two serious suicide attempts years ago and I wish I had succeeded back then. I don't feel relieved to still be alive. Life hasn't got better.

Society pushes and loves those who got magically cured after they had a failed attempt.. even if those who survived are left with irreparable damage. maybe those cases strengthen the collective perception of an unrealistic, idealised, happy worldview, in wich everything has an happy end haha..

 

[gnomeboy17]

I don't believe so. I'm 18 and people (even on here) say I'm too young to die because it could get better. If things really did get better than there wouldn't be any older people on this site, because they would have happy lives and no need.

This is a very relatable line from a song in a musical "and you think, getting older will make all of this easier. It doesn't. Getting older just means more responsibilities. And more responsibilities, less help."

for me this is how I feel, things just get more difficult, if I live I've still got so many hurdles to face, dealing with everything "normal" people have, on top of severe depression & anxiety, as well as being transgender. It's definitely not going to get better for me.

I think if it's been at least a few years you know for sure it's not just a bad day. For me it's been about 7 years since I first started fantasising about death. I can be quite sure nothing will change. However, I still wish you the best and I hope you find peace in whatever form.

Society pushes and loves those who got magically cured after they had a failed attempt..

Yep!! This is probably only like less than 5% of deaths but they do the whole "suicide is a long term solution to a temporary problem!" Karen, I've felt this way for so many years, do not belittle my "problem" when you have no idea what's going on inside my head.

 

[Shoopie]

In my opinion, it's a dice roll. I'm older and my life has been a series of peaks and troughs, with the last few years being a trough. The lowest times were caused by events I hadn't planned for, couldn't see coming and were largely out of my control.

I also think that if the conditions that led to suicide in the first place haven't changed then chances of a true and lasting recovery are remote. I also think it depends on whether the attempt was planned or impulsive

Having a meaningful, truly intimate connection with another person helps but is no guarantee of a happy life.

So does life get better? If you roll a 6 maybe. Or you could roll a series of 1s. You can give yourself a fighting chance by earning enough to live in a career you don't detest, having the aforementioned intimate connection with another person and trying to keep yourself healthy (although this can be down to luck if you're genetically predisposed to illness or catch something awful) but even with these in place I believe it's still down to luck (or lack of)

 

[Libracusp_1022]

I think it depends on so many factors, including the root cause of the suicide attempt, combined with the circumstances of the persons' life. So many variables....

 

[DeathIsTheWayOut99]

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't
I think life can get better. But life in and of itself is hard. Very hard. For me, not a day goes by where I don't think about suicide. I have always been told that life gets better, but I wonder how true that really is

 

[TimeToBiteTheDust]

Not for me. It can only get worse... Imagine I'm suicidal right now my life can't improve if it gets worse I will be more suicidal

 

[Emily123]

sometimes it's possible that it gets better but we need to work on it .

 

[AnxietyAttack44]

As many said, maybe it does get better, for some people, deppending on their reasons. But there are many who are stuck in that painful suicidal state where even if they do recover physically and find coping mechanism simply do so to exist from day to day to comfort others. It looks better, but deep inside it still hurts.
I really hope all of your lives could get better tho, altho it might take miracles for that. Just exist until new path shows up i guess

 

[plough22]

Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not. For myself, it does not.
It depends on ones life, depends on factors. What lead to my decent was some close who went out of their way to destroy me, they did and ruined me for good. It has lead me down this path, I see only one exit, I've planned an alternate, hope I have the strength to do the first.

I hope that those in this site find PEACE, some will and things will get better. Happy for them but for those who cannot, hope they find PEACE too

 

[autumnal]

Life certainly can get better, but it is not guaranteed. It depends on the individual and their situation. It is too complex and has too many variables for anyone to give a definitive answer one way or the other.

Here's my thoughts on it:

The people for whom life improves after a suicide attempt are often those who are attempting for the first time. Such people are often younger, and still have available support from family. Before the attempt, others may not have been aware of the extent of their problems. Perhaps the person themselves hadn't even been fully aware. After surviving the attempt, the seriousness of the person's problems, whether psychological or practical, become more apparent to others, and they are (ideally) given the support they had previously been lacking. Their life can then hopefully get better, and further attempts may be less likely.

The people for whom life may be less likely to improve after a suicide attempt are often those who have made multiple attempts previously. For them, whether they are lacking family or societal supports, or whether they deliberately choose not to use such supports, previous suicide attempts has not been the wake-up call for others as it is in the first scenario. They have either avoided psychiatric care, or received it but it has not been successful.

This is only a suggestion. It's not meant to imply that after multiple attempts you are necessarily screwed.

 

[rikamonie]

maybe it gets better but thats only temporary, life gives you a false sense of hope, when youre so depressed and something comes along to make you happy its all a sad lie and will be gone again as soon as it arrived so no i dont think life truly gets any better really eventually i always end up back to where i started with no hope or happiness in life

 

[mpnf]

For some it works out, for others don't. Call it good luck, hard work, fate..or whatever comes to your mind to describe it.

That's it.

 

[GoBack]

Of course it can but it's always changing, good to bad, bad to good and somewhere in between.

 

[coldeyes]

Being suicidal is a state of being. If you're suicidal by your nature, life will always suck

 

[STK]

Maybe it comes down to the support after and the reason that lead to suicide. A terminal illness causing suicidal ideas won't get better so I would say it doesn't get better for a person in that situation. A financial issue that drives to suicide that can be resolved with the correct support and guidance might lead to a better life after an attempt highlighted what was needed.

Over all I think it can only be situational and dependant on what support or help is available or shared

 

[a.n.kirillov]

You have to factor in the biases built into the medium. On this site, people who have had prior attempts will most likely still be suicidal. The ones who have had prior attempts and got better never found their way here. In the mass media, on the other hand, people have vested interest to portray positive cases, and the survivors who step forth to tell their stories are usually the ones who have found new hope – funnily enough often only by making it their lives mission to tell their stories.
Since there are magnitudes higher numbers of attempts than successful suicides though, most people do in fact seem to get better, or at least well enough to not attempt a second time.

Tbh, I'm getting pissed off at people like the Steven Haynes (?) guy (the golden Gate Bridge jumper), since they project their own n=1 experience on all suicidal people and effectively make a living out of and thereby exploit the topic, at the cost of us; they portray a false narrative to the larger public; this is why most normies have the idea in their head that "most people who attempt and fail regret it", yada yada.

Being suicidal is a state of being. If you're suicidal by your nature, life will always suck

You can not generalize like that. I used to enjoy my life, and I can imagine enjoying it again in the future.

 

[autumnal]

You have to factor in the biases built into the medium. On this site, people who have had prior attempts will most likely still be suicidal. The ones who have had prior attempts and got better never found their way here. In the mass media, on the other hand, people have vested interest to portray positive cases, and the survivors who step forth to tell their stories are usually the ones who have found new hope – funnily enough often only by making it their lives mission to tell their stories.
Since there are magnitudes higher numbers of attempts than successful suicides though, most people do in fact seem to get better, or at least well enough to not attempt a second time.

 

[TotallyIsolated]

You often hear people say that life gets better after failed suicide attempts or how relieved someone is to have survived.

This is just part of the bullshit pro-life narrative. They'll say ANYTHING if they think it'll make you back away from the brink. They're not basing 'life gets better' on anything - theyre just empty words.

 

[TAW122]

From my experiences, it all depends and even if/when things do get better, another turn for the worst is almost always just around the corner. I had many of those experiences just in the last two years of my life. In 2018, when things were going to shit, I had a turn in events that held me to see 2019 including acquiring my method (a firearm) successfully during end of 2018. Then in 2019, with my method at hand, I was at peace, then there was one event that could have resulted me in me CTB'ing in May 2019, but luckily that didn't come to pass as there was a turnabout of success. Late in 2019, things went downhill again, and I planned to CTB end of 2019 had things gone to shit.

Then of course, I made it into 2020, and it was a shit year. The pandemic, things in life going to shit, having to part ways (temporarily?) with my method as I moved home to my parents' place, due to living arrangement changes. During this year, I told myself, had I seen this pandemic and other shitty things in life that was to come about, I would have CTB'd end of 2019 to avoid all this mess, but hindsight is 20/20.

So with that said, life could get better, but then it could easily get worse than before, and imho, I would not wish to just prolong my life (until natural death or other causes of death) just to experience many ups and downs for decades and decades on end.

This is just part of the bullshit pro-life narrative. They'll say ANYTHING if they think it'll make you back away from the brink. They're not basing 'life gets better' on anything - theyre just empty words.

Fully agreed, and even in 2020, present day, there are still quite a few people who bellow out that bullshit line "life gets better.", "it gets better.", "It can't get any worse, so you can only go up from there!" When I hear that I really want to curse them out for their empty platitudes and arrogant demeanor!

 

[whitelacedress]

I believe it can for some people, even if you dont have much chance, miracles can happen. Also, you might stay miserable for the rest of your life. And anything in between. In conclusion, the fuck knows, unfortunatelly.

 

[SpottedPanda]

I think it's important to realise that things can change. Life can change for the better or for the worse. But something must alter for there to be a change.

I've been down and out, and I've been up and high. I think this realisation is where the 'it gets better' idea comes from. People who aren't suicidal and those who have maybe turned away from suicidal thinking have just remembered that fundamental fact of the human experience, things change.

Whether or not things will change for the better or worse is anyone's guess. Perhaps there is no change and the status quo stays the same. Nobody can really know. I think it's just one of those things that people say, like a verse out of a song they remember.

For me, things aren't even that bad. I'm simply tired of life. Telling me things would get better wouldn't really have an effect. There's nothing within realistic means that I want out of life. It's mainly apathy guiding me out.

I had one key worker say to me "but death seems so final", probably not aware that I wanted to end things. An end being the operative term. I know I could make changes and potentially make things better, but I'm tired of life, not just circumstances.

One final thing to note is that some issues are circumstances based, and some are internal. Not everything is set in stone, but for those hankering after a change would probably reap rewards by determining which of these two their issues fall into.

 

[blalost]

Not for me. Failure is a constant in my life.

 

[Pan]

Faith, hope and a futuristic vision are necessary. Without them, you may not be dead, but you are one of the walking dead. People have told me to have faith. But where does one go when faith and hope are intellectualized out of the picture?

 

[Bct]

Life will always change, but we don't know which direction it towards to. I haven't done any attempts but I was suicidal on 2017 when my tiny business was fail & I couldn't get a job. Around Q2 of 2018 my life got a bit better since I got a job but still experienced some big distresses, so it's not definitely better. It was around 2019 when I could secure my position at the job & life became better but I foolishly change the job when my life is descending into madness and feeling worse than I was in 2017.

 

[lostangel]

I feel the media pushes the narrative that life can get better but I think it can vary from person to person. I have heard stories of people turning their life around but at the same time, I have heard others who's life got worse. So to answer that it's subjective I suppose you could try and make your life better just to see if anything can become of it. But bottom line, it can vary.