How do you deal with the knowledge of how you will hurt those close to you?

[calm_canine]

I'm pretty certain that I'm going to CTB. I've already begun ordering supplies for the SN method, but throughout my time considering and taking action to CTB I've found myself with this terrible sinking feeling whenever I think about how it will affect my friends and family. I'm particularly worried about my father. I know he loves me a lot--certainly more than my mother--and he has even stated throughout my time dealing with suicidality that it would ruin him if I were to take my life. I believe him, too, yet I can' t bring myself to keep living for his sake. I am in so much pain, and I'm so tired, and I don't want my final moments to be spent thinking about the pain I will cause him. That thought I think has been the primary factor in keeping me alive for as long as I have been. Do you feel similarly, and have you developed strategies to cope with these thoughts?

 

[Blue Elephant]

Whoever loves you will be happy that you found peace, everything else is selfishness.

 

[calm_canine]

Whoever loves you will be happy that you found peace, everything else is selfishness.

I hardly think it's selfish to mourn someone you love. I know that if certain people in my life passed, even by suicide, I'd be crushed.

 

[Havnis]

Yeah, I recently stopped talking with my mother but I still occasionally speak with my dad, I will cut the contact with them to reduce the emotional attachment then I will CTB.

 

[random_user]

I'm in the same boat and it's getting increasingly difficult to live with the guilt, knowing that choosing what's best for yourself means hurting the people you're close to. I don't really know how to deal with it myself...

 

[DisfiguredPsycho]

I just don't think about that at all

 

[Forveleth]

I know I'm going to hurt people but my suffering for decades can't compare. Crying myself to sleep every night is not worth avoiding upsetting other people.

 

[idreamofwires]

I feel like their pain will be temporary. Once they realize I'm no longer a burden and their lives are better off without me, they'll forget about me.

 

[dggtscccvfd]

I have a physical health problem. I console myself that my relatives and friends will at least know I'm no longer suffering.

 

[jbear824]

I can't deal with that. It's part of what keeps me trapped here in life.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I stopped caring. The people close to me haven't been able to help me before, why should they have to feel guilty that they could have actually done something when nobody could?

 

[UmbraDweller]

It saddens me aswell, but I want to put my own well being on the first place. I refuse life where I force myself to live only for others.

 

[sancta-simplicitas]

I'm replaceable. Everyone around me already have someone else, a better option, that fills the role I have in their lives. My friends have other friends. My ex/best friend has a girlfriend. M father has another kid, the kid who is more valuable to him since she gives him grandchildren. I expect people to be sad for a while, but there are definitely bigger losses from them, which is a comfort.

 

[Blue Elephant]

I hardly think it's selfish to mourn someone you love. I know that if certain people in my life passed, even by suicide, I'd be crushed.

You don't know why you mourn, you mourn because of your attachment to them.

You are trained to act on feelings, which is not wrong! What is wrong is that you act ONLY on feelings. Use logic and understanding and you will see clearly!

Think about someone you love! Think about when they are happy, when they smile! That makes you happy as well, right? Now think about when they are sad! That makes you sad as well, right? That's because you care! Now think about when they are really really fucking rock-bottom sad and the only way for the sadness to go is for them to die. Would you like for them to stay alive and keep suffering? Do you care, do you love or are you selfish? When they die, they are finally free! Why would you be anything else other then happy for them!? Unless .. you don't think about them and you think about yourself.

I'm not saying I'm perfect, I mourned too when my dog died, I missed her. I was selfish, I wanted her back! In time I learned, I understood, I changed, I'm better now. Now I'm happy, I'm happy that I shared love with such an incredible animal, I'm happy when I think about all the amazing times we spent together, I'm happy knowing she died happy and I'm happy that her remains are back in nature growing beautiful plants.

 

[FuneralCry]

In my case I never would have chosen something as dreadful and undesirable as existence. If people are so anti-death then why do they procreate in the first place as they are literally causing people to die and we are all going to die anyway, suicide is a personal decision, it's not about other people, wanting to force people to suffer in this existence that was so harmfully imposed in the first place is beyond selfish and cruel.

 

[everythingoes]

I feel like their pain will be temporary. Once they realize I'm no longer a burden and their lives are better off without me, they'll forget about me.

This is exactly how I feel too. I figure it'll be difficult and shocking at first, but I know they'll be better off without me in the long term.

 

[botanist_dude]

I know for a fact that my family will be better of without me. Excep my son, he's the only one I truly have a hard time leaving. Everyeon else eventually learns to cope. Check the subreddit "suicide bereavement". A lot of poeple there struggles but ultimately everyone learns how to live with the grief

 

[Arachno]

I like to think that it will be just one less burden in their lives and that it shouldn't be a significant lose for them. But in reality, it's probably gonna some of them impact them a lot, but it doesn't really bother me, I'm a selfish asshole.

 

[UKscotty]

It's part of our journey to acceptance.

Suicide is always absolutely tragic foe those who are left behind and is yet another failure of the useless Suicide prevention schemes that do nothing.

Once we come to terms with this, we can be free to CTB.

 

[Kinsey]

Whoever loves you will be happy that you found peace, everything else is selfishness.

Black and white thinking with no nuance. it's not selfish, and even if it were-- it would be the good kind of selfish.

 

[divinemistress36]

With time they will move on

 

[femaletwink]

I try and remember that I'm not the most important person in their life, they have other people. My parents have another sibling, my friends have other people they're closer with anyways. I'm worry about my girlfriend but she has a strong support network and I know she's going to find someone better than me once I'm out of the picture anyways. They have other people to support them, and through that the pain will fade eventually.

 

[LaughingGoat]

I think it is best to be honest with oneself and not seek coping strategies in facing the truth that suicides can absolutely tear loved ones apart. It won't be the same for every case because everyone involved is different, but for most direct family members, it very well may be the worst thing they can experience in life. Not saying this means one shouldn't commit suicide, that's a personal decision and their right, but there is no way cope enough to change reality.

 

[Ww42]

I wont be around to see it or experience it. Really selfish viewpoint, but its mine and I stand by it because at the end of the day its my life to do with as I please

 

[thenamingofcats]

Honestly, I think about the odious actions they did to me and then I find myself not caring how they might feel after I ctb.

 

[fleetingnight]

I'm trying to distance myself from friends and family first. I know that won't make it entirely painless for them, and I feel bad about it, but I'm not gonna treat them badly to try and make them okay with me dying. Someone did that to me, and that treatment rly fucked me up. If they'd gone through with it, I'd have felt like I had to forgive them.

Edit to clarify: I'm not suggesting that anyone was going to do that, but it's similar to ghosting ppl (which tbf is shitty in its own way) so I wanted to give my reason against that

I wont be around to see it or experience it. Really selfish viewpoint, but its mine and I stand by it because at the end of the day its my life to do with as I please

Yeah and that too^

 

[accountnamerequired]

I genuinely don't think anyone would care that much

 

[DaBair]

My last parent died recently. My last grandparent died two years prior. My siblings abandoned me because my parents' death and our different ways of coping split us apart. My only two friends live leagues away, and I was the third wheel anyways. My community does not like me. My long distance associates and co-workers care more about fighting. I have no hobbies that feel fulfilling in any profound way and none fit. The question of whether I consider their opinion to hold water in such a scenario as letting go of myself would make more sense if we weren't talking about people who have put me on the back burner to the extent that I consider them having lost their vote in the matter. And my community not liking me is an understatement, as some people, while also accepting rumors about me on a whim while saying I could never have a valid voice even if I was right about things, both via communications and in the tangible aspect of the world, put my popularity so low that I've been told even by people in the mental health field that they wouldn't mind my demise, whether due to perceptions about my past or due to things about me that I would never expect to have any bearing. Can you imagine our supposedly democratic world dismissing those who are so close to dying for such a basic thing? So... to be concise even though the point about the success of humanity is clear... hypothetically, I just wouldn't care, and indifference is what keeps things going. Note I am also easily distracted, but that can change.