Imagine if we made friends instead of goodbye threads

[imstillhungry]

Has anyone else realised that every goodbye thread on here is full of SO much love and support? Imagine if we all became friends and gave each other that love and support in real life, maybe it would stop a lot of suicides. A common theme in 99% of goodbye threads is loneliness... Maybe this is just my optimistic side coming out once in a blue moon, but since we're pretty much all lonely and surrounded by assholes, imagine if we were surrounded with each other instead. People who understand and support us

 

[MissNietzsche]

I think this too...

Like don't get me wrong, I have my SN too..I don't want to be dubbed as anti-suicide by supporting this, but I truly believe that if someone isn't 100% certain about death, they shouldn't ctb.

Of course, I'm very glad for this forum because I'm sure there are tons of pro-recovery forums out there, but I don't see life as a bad thing. In fact, the anti-nihilism in me sees life as inherently good.

And the naive girl in me wants to believe that love is the answer to everything..

 

[sleepy dog]

I have sometimes wondered what would happen if a bunch of suicidals moved to the same town. Would they still want to die? Or would they experience positive effects from it and suddenly feel like life is worth it? We know that homosexuals have done that. There are places with large homosexual populations because many of them moved there to live around other homosexuals. It seems to have worked at least for some of them.

 

[Hank]

I have sometimes wondered what would happen if a bunch of suicidals moved to the same town. Would they still want to die? Or would they experience positive effects from it and suddenly feel like life is worth it? We know that homosexuals have done that. There are places with large homosexual populations because many of them moved there to live around other homosexuals. It seems to have worked at least for some of them.

I just think it would be the town known by other people as the town with the highest suicide rate ever. ;)

 

[Elias]

There are suicides that have reasons that go deeper than loneliness, that even support and care can hardly help. When one has a problem with life itself and the concept of being alive, there isn't much love and support can do. But you have a good point, a majority of people could get fine if they had people in real life that could be physically present and care the same way. It'd at least soothe the pain.

 

[KiraLittleOwl]

It's a good idea on paper but in reality we are struggling with so many issues that cannot be cured by friendships but it may work for some
But sadly we are separated by great distances

 

[imstillhungry]

I think this too...

Like don't get me wrong, I have my SN too..I don't want to be dubbed as anti-suicide by supporting this, but I truly believe that if someone isn't 100% certain about death, they shouldn't ctb.

Of course, I'm very glad for this forum because I'm sure there are tons of pro-recovery forums out there, but I don't see life as a bad thing. In fact, the anti-nihilism in me sees life as inherently good.

And the naive girl in me wants to believe that love is the answer to everything..

I'm definitely not anti suicide either, I'm offing myself next week lol. But sometimes I'm so amazed by how loving and supportive everyone is of each other on here, and sometimes think if we had all this love and support in real life some of us might not even feel like ctb anymore. Or at the very least we'd spend our last days/weeks being surrounded by people who understand and supplet us, rather than the assholes 99% of us are surrounded with lol. Idk probably not a good idea in practice, but nice in theory.
Wow your last sentence describes me perfectly! I've always believed love was the meaning of life. Maybe not after all. Lol

I have sometimes wondered what would happen if a bunch of suicidals moved to the same town. Would they still want to die? Or would they experience positive effects from it and suddenly feel like life is worth it? We know that homosexuals have done that. There are places with large homosexual populations because many of them moved there to live around other homosexuals. It seems to have worked at least for some of them.

I find myself thinking this too. Especially because I see 99% of people saying they're lonely. Imagine if all of the lonely people got together and weren't lonely anymore! In a perfect world that's what would happen (but of course this world isn't perfect)

There are suicides that have reasons that go deeper than loneliness, that even support and care can hardly help. When one has a problem with life itself and the concept of being alive, there isn't much love and support can do. But you have a good point, a majority of people could get fine if they had people in real life that could be physically present and care the same way. It'd at least soothe the pain.

You're right, I didn't mean that loneliness was the reason for everyone's suicides. But how nice would it be if all the lonely people got together and suddenly weren't lonely anymore. At least like you said it would make life easier while we're here. I'm sure there are a billion reasons why you shouldn't meet up with someone from a suicide forum in real life, but it's a nice idea in theory

 

[not4us]

it would be quite depressing city

 

[Realist101]

The people on this site don't know each other, though. We express compassion from a distance, but we only have surface level and generic interactions on a website. Human nature causes extreme instability in interpersonal relationships. The divorce rate is nearly at 50%. Humans are not magical, sadly. I honestly believe that survival instincts are incredibly irrational, and I'm shocked that suicide isn't the leading cause of death yet.

Suicide would actually be the leading cause of death if all attempts were successful.

Suicide is a leading cause of death even though the vast majority of attempts are failed. The only thing that stops it from being the leading cause of death is lack of reliable methods for most people.

 

[Astral316]

The appearance of love and support on a goodbye thread is effortless to manufacture. Everyone is anonymous. What if we had to truly get to know one another, and then had to put real effort into maintaining the aforementioned love and support. Let me tell you, I'd still end up an outcast in such a community.

 

[imstillhungry]

I definitely don't have any illusion that even if this were to happen, it would prevent all suicides. But I do think it might prevent some, and those that weren't prevented would at least be surrounded by nice understanding people beforehand, instead of the assholes we all have to deal with in real life. But you also make a good point about the instability of relationships and humans in general. I wonder if the love and support we all show on here would still be the same if we knew each other in real life. Interesting thought

 

[LonelyLight]

I've met 3 lovely people (not in person unfortunately) who I consider friends, and would love people like them to live close enough to have them in my real life, it sure would change a lot of things but I consider them real friends regardless.

 

[imstillhungry]

The appearance of love and support on a goodbye thread is effortless to manufacture. Everyone is anonymous. What if we had to truly get to know one another, and then had to put real effort into maintaining the aforementioned love and support. Let me tell you, I'd still end up an outcast in such a community.

I feel your last sentence so much lol. I'd also still end up giving more than I receive, guaranteed. It's a nice idea to think about sometimes, but yeah reality is always a different story

 

[MissNietzsche]

The people on this site don't know each other, though. We express compassion from a distance, but we only have surface level and generic interactions on a website. Human nature causes extreme instability in interpersonal relationships. The divorce rate is nearly at 50%. Humans are not magical, sadly. I honestly believe that survival instincts are incredibly irrational, and I'm shocked that suicide isn't the leading cause of death yet.

why do you think survival instincts are irrational?

 

[imstillhungry]

I've met 3 lovely people (not in person unfortunately) who I consider friends, and would love people like them to live close enough to have them in my real life, it sure would change a lot of things but I consider them real friends regardless.

That's so heartwarming to hear. I even saw a post about someone finding love on this website the other day! Talk about making the best out of a shit situation. It might not be a cure for everyone's problems but more kindness can never hurt

 

[LonelyLight]

That's so heartwarming to hear. I even saw a post about someone finding love on this website the other day! Talk about making the best out of a shit situation. It might not be a cure for everyone's problems but more kindness can never hurt

I seen the one about love too, regardless of situations, if people can come here and feel like someone cares, and they have a friend, then that's a positive in that persons life. It is in mine anyways

 

[Ghosted]

The loneliness does get to me. I'm so tired of being told to reach out and when I do I'm ignored. I have lost count of the times I've dropped everything to be a friend in need.

My number one reason for wanting to commit suicide is there will come a day when I can no longer walk, think clearly, read, or remember. I will never be bedridden again and no amount of friends who are full of nothing but love and support will change my mind.

 

[dedalus1238900]

Honestly I feel like more of a community talking on here to people that listen, understand the issues we all are going through because you can empathize with them and talk about sometimes abstract concepts such as why you are unhappy without judgement and not tip toe about it feeling that way. They then don't understand why your not happy.

Then we have the (especially holidays/family time of year) where we veer into the you need to go to church and god can help you/get some sunshine, think happy, thoughts and the classic chemical imbalance group, just take the magic one ant-depressant and you'll be happier than ever, It's not a small pox vaccine or penicillin where it works for 99% of people and just fixes you overnight, when anti depressant are half the time ineffective, have horrible side effects, it's like throwing darts at a board and just keep guessing until you find one that might work but is slow and it's not going to improve you from a 1 to 9 in helping it's most time a for many 1 to a 5 approximately, enough to get out of bed.

Not everyone's case even find a medication that works, some do and are happy for them, but for many 20 treatments don't work, you are beaten down by the process of option 21 and tapering and withdrawal to try another to be told are told 5 years later that they don''t know and say t's treatment resistant.

So you don't have energy to explain the whole story and th so you just agree to think more positive or start to explanation thethat times are different.

 

[spanishguy22]

We don't live in candyland though. For most having friends also won't simply remove your worries or illnesses.

 

[imstillhungry]

The loneliness does get to me. I'm so tired of being told to reach out and when I do I'm ignored. I have lost count of the times I've dropped everything to be a friend in need.

My number one reason for wanting to commit suicide is there will come a day when I can no longer walk, think clearly, read, or remember. I will never be bedridden again and no amount of friends who are full of nothing but love and support will change my mind.

Sorry to hear that. Being bedridden must be hell. I really don't think I explained myself properly because everyone seems to think I'm saying having friends would cure everyone's problems and no one would ever commit suicide again. I mean at the very least it would help people feel less lonely. I personally don't think you can ever have enough love and kindness, but maybe that's just me
Also I totally get you with your first paragraph, being generous and selfless is truly a curse in this society

We don't live in candyland though. For most having friends also won't simply remove your worries or illnesses.

That's not what I said though. And I'm fully aware we don't live in candyland, considering I'm on a suicide website. I guess we only like depressing posts here

 

[LonelyLight]

We don't live in candyland though. For most having friends also won't simply remove your worries or illnesses.

Gives someone to share them worries with tho.. a problem shared is a problem halved and all that jazz.

 

[Realist101]

why do you think survival instincts are irrational?

I think it is very important to acknowledge that humans are the only known species that is capable of suicidal ideation, or at least the ability to complete suicide.

It separates us from more primal and less aware species. Other species continue existing when only horror and torture exist for them.

I think we only have the desire to survive due to primal instinct, and a desire to avoid uncomfortable sensations involved in a painful suicide attempt. I just think that suicide would be so much more common if we all had a reliable and easy method.

 

[NeCkDeEp]

I do believe that it could actually make a change, I mean, some people will feel really depressed due being lonely and the feeling of being loved and having someone who genuinely cares about them might make a change.

 

[spanishguy22]

I think it is very important to acknowledge that humans are the only known species that is capable of suicidal ideation, or at least the ability to complete suicide.

It separates us from more primal and less aware species. Other species continue existing when only horror and torture exist for them.

I think we only have the desire to survive due to primal instinct, and a desire to avoid uncomfortable sensations involved in a painful suicide attempt. I just think that suicide would be so much more common if we all had a reliable and easy method.

I read that while a rare occurrence, suicides in animals have been documented.

 

[NextBusLeaving]

Ive been saying this site needs, at minimum, a dating forum.

 

[CursedForDisaster]

As much as I love this community and fantasize the idea of finding friendship here I'd rather write a goodbye thread. I've had friends and I've been in love before but none of it has helped bare the pressure of society. I don't know how the fuck people do it

 

[Azizw126]

5 years ago when i was back home i made friends through a forum for mental disorders. We met and had a lot of activities like desert camping and weekly meetings at cafés. It was a wonderful experience.
I don't know if this allowed in this forum.
If so, what do you think guys if we start to make megathreads for friendship and make topic for every country?

 

[LegaliseIt!]

Has anyone else realised that every goodbye thread on here is full of SO much love and support? Imagine if we all became friends and gave each other that love and support in real life, maybe it would stop a lot of suicides. A common theme in 99% of goodbye threads is loneliness... Maybe this is just my optimistic side coming out once in a blue moon, but since we're pretty much all lonely and surrounded by assholes, imagine if we were surrounded with each other instead. People who understand and support us

Hi

I'm pretty new here, but I have had the same thoughts. We all share so much.
I was actually going to write about this in my journal.

For me, sharing thoughts with a like-minded group is so healing.

Thank you all.

I've been alive for 56 years, and (sadly) I have come to believe that :

1. We are all lonely. This makes sense.
Ultimately, we can only rely upon ourselves. We are all alone in this universe.

2. If we all met up IRL, and created a "caring" community, "assholes" would emerge within hours.

I've had a long life of interesting and challenging experiences, and nothing that I have observed leads me to conclude that a caring online community could transcend human frailty and sustain each other for more than 30 minutes.
I'm just venting here, but it is evidence based venting.
Be stronger than I am.

 

[NextBusLeaving]

I do believe that it could actually make a change, I mean, some people will feel really depressed due being lonely and the feeling of being loved and having someone who genuinely cares about them might make a change.

It would tend to remove my main reason for ctb.

 

[LegaliseIt!]

It would tend to remove my main reason for ctb.

I'm sad that you are so lonely. <platonic hugs>
I think that this thread needs to be in the "Recovery" section—which I applaud.
Can it be moved to "Recovery"?