Discussion My mother said to me this evening...

[StevieNixs]

.....that I am not the only person who is depressed. At least I have a "roof over my head, the ability to pay my bills, a car, my health" that other people are "homeless" , that "my dead sister is in a happier place". I'm wondering if I missed anything....
So - despite trauma, after trauma, after trauma, despite a multiplicity of failings in my life, despite my inability to find any joy whatsoever in life. Despite feeling as if I am dragging myself around like an empty carcass... I need to stay alive because doing otherwise would unsettle other people and be a disproportionate reaction to my life circumstances - which everyone independently acknowledges have been an enormity?

No I have not lived through the Rwandan or Kosovo genocide. No I have not been trafficked through Eastern Europe. No I have not been physically or sexually abused by my parents - but I have experienced many other things from past partners (abuse and coercion); from people in positions of power - doctors, academics, teachers (breaching professional boundaries and then closing ranks to protect themselves), abuse from strangers, Anorexia, Bulimia, other bereavements of close family relatives, the list could go on and on and on and include additional traumatic experiences which are too tedious to go into. I do not see myself as a victim. I see myself as a person who has reached the very pinnacle of my ability to cope with life. I tried it. It has not worked out for me and I want to go at a time of my choosing which will hopefully be soon.

It is a curiosity to me that people would rather see you live a life of abject misery than concede that taking your own life might actually prove to be a mercy to you. I wake up and have to actively stop myself from CTB. I have to stop myself because of the process of packing up my house/arranging house clearance companies to help (so my family do not have to do so) and because of still trying to finalise arrangements with a charity for my idiosyncratic cat who I fear will not be suitable for re-homing. On two occasions, I have come close to taking the SN in a state of impulsivity, and, when I did not, I woke up the following morning knowing that nothing, aside from my cat, provides any meaning in my life. I walk around in a haze. Observing the world but not feeling a part of it. It is such a strange feeling.

When I am not feeling disconnected from the world and the people in it, I feel desperately and heartrendingly upset - tearful, flashbacks, ruminations, excessive suicidal morbidity. I took half a Klonopin to try to disconnect from feeling this way. It worked - after a fashion.

We are all going to die. Every one of us. So why family members, doctors including psychiatrists, therapists, counsellors, friends and/or confidants insist that staying alive until your natural end is a better solution is lost on me.

 

[suisuiforum]

I despise when people try to trivialize suffering because it doesn't meet their arbitrary threshold for who gets to voice their objection to the GiFt Of LiFe. Even if they acknowledge that some have led horrifying lives beyond their imagination, they are still convinced that remaining alive only out of chance that it'll get better is the best decision. I'm sorry for everything you've experienced, and I hope you can find peace somehow.

 

[pthnrdnojvsc]

"We are all going to die. Every one of us. So why family members, doctors including psychiatrists, therapists, counsellors, friends and/or confidants insist that staying alive until your natural end is a better solution is lost on me"

That's what i thought too.

i'd like to debate these pro-lifers or normies. ok i have to stay alive for a while for what purpose since i will die anyway all of us will? i see no purpose for me and you can't tell me you know a purpose for me. so i have to risk my face falling off in a car accident , risk cancer, risk old age , risk homelessness, risk a stroke brain damage and paralysis, risk a tapeworm infection and dementia for no purpose right ?

They don't get it that after Death there is no risk of disease, accident, homelessness etc. and all problems solved no chance of pain or suffering ever again. only when alive can i suffer and feel pain.

i actually had a debate with a damn pro-lifer in person. i made a damn pro-lifer blink . what i got him with was "decades passed by in a blink of an eye" and the moron agreed since it's old and older creeps see this is true. so how can sometthing that is so short have any value ? it doesn't . that sucker looked confused.

 

[Midgardsorm]

I'm sorry.

That phrase from your mother is what we are used to hearing every day. It seems despite that all the pain we went through, despite all the pain of being locked in a state of pain/numbness/desperation, we should be grateful, simply because others have it worse.
To me, that's the pinnacle of lack of arguments.

Frankly, it doesn't matter what you're feeling, what disease you have, what you have been through. You need to endure. Keep living. The question is: Why?

Up until now, the only explanations that we could think is: Religion, Selfishness of other people and Profit for companies/government and Health Organizations, Tradition.

I already had my disappointments with my super religous-traditional-family. To the point that I don't talk about nothing with them anymore. I smile, I chat a bit, I'm the best person I can be ...to a stranger.

Its just the way it is. A few years ago, there was war after war. People lived their lives like a clock, ticking, their joy were to wake up the other day without having to run from the house due to bombardments.

We are going to "Times of peace" (Definitely not peace, but as close as we can get).
Times that we need to deal with our heads, one of the worst enemies one can face. Not only that, times that we need to deal with competitiveness. We are at an invisible war and people from the past not cannot see, but also, refuses to see it.

 

[toforigivelife]

.....that I am not the only person who is depressed. At least I have a "roof over my head, the ability to pay my bills, a car, my health" that other people are "homeless" , that "my dead sister is in a happier place". I'm wondering if I missed anything....
So - despite trauma, after trauma, after trauma, despite a multiplicity of failings in my life, despite my inability to find any joy whatsoever in life. Despite feeling as if I am dragging myself around like an empty carcass... I need to stay alive because doing otherwise would unsettle other people and be a disproportionate reaction to my life circumstances - which everyone independently acknowledges have been an enormity?

No I have not lived through the Rwandan or Kosovo genocide. No I have not been trafficked through Eastern Europe. No I have not been physically or sexually abused by my parents - but I have experienced many other things from past partners (abuse and coercion); from people in positions of power - doctors, academics, teachers (breaching professional boundaries and then closing ranks to protect themselves), abuse from strangers, Anorexia, Bulimia, other bereavements of close family relatives, the list could go on and on and on and include additional traumatic experiences which are too tedious to go into. I do not see myself as a victim. I see myself as a person who has reached the very pinnacle of my ability to cope with life. I tried it. It has not worked out for me and I want to go at a time of my choosing which will hopefully be soon.

It is a curiosity to me that people would rather see you live a life of abject misery than concede that taking your own life might actually prove to be a mercy to you. I wake up and have to actively stop myself from CTB. I have to stop myself because of the process of packing up my house/arranging house clearance companies to help (so my family do not have to do so) and because of still trying to finalise arrangements with a charity for my idiosyncratic cat who I fear will not be suitable for re-homing. On two occasions, I have come close to taking the SN in a state of impulsivity, and, when I did not, I woke up the following morning knowing that nothing, aside from my cat, provides any meaning in my life. I walk around in a haze. Observing the world but not feeling a part of it. It is such a strange feeling.

When I am not feeling disconnected from the world and the people in it, I feel desperately and heartrendingly upset - tearful, flashbacks, ruminations, excessive suicidal morbidity. I took half a Klonopin to try to disconnect from feeling this way. It worked - after a fashion.

We are all going to die. Every one of us. So why family members, doctors including psychiatrists, therapists, counsellors, friends and/or confidants insist that staying alive until your natural end is a better solution is lost on me.

The "there are those who have it worse than you" argument may guilt the suicidal into sticking around longer than they intended to, as it has me, really has no meaning.

If all of us could cure our depression and desire by simply saying to ourselves, "Wait a minute! I 'have it good' compared to so many others!" then forums like SS wouldn't exist.

There will always be a suicide rate due to, in part, people's perception of what justifies being suicidal and what does not.

I'm not saying this is the case with your mother, she's your mother and she loves you, maybe this is just her misguided way of trying to make you feel better, but a lot of times when people make statements like, "Children who were forced into labor in the 1930s had a lot worse than you!" is their way of pushing you away and not wanting to hear your problems.

Another reason that there will always be a suicide rate.

 

[jusbug]

never mind what the others tell you, just tell her you are leaving for good when you are going to ctb

 

[OnlyTheWind]

Pro-lifers can't defend something they know has no meaning. Even the religious have more stable arguments than the average pro-lifer spouting "life is precious!". At least, they provide a narrative; deeply flawed as it is. Personally, the only time life has value is when one has seen through it and wants to get out of here. That, I believe is the first step towards real freedom.

 

[Pluto]

The argument being presented attempts to exploit relativism. If I have $50 in my wallet, I can gloat that I'm wealthier than several Congolese villagers, or I can mourn that I can barely afford some groceries.

Without trivialising the historical atrocities of war that people have been through, at least the people who survived did so together. They bonded like never before and would never know what loneliness felt like. When I was a kid, the old folks of that time had survived the Great Depression and WWII, if not WWI. They were amazing people with vibrant warmth and care for others, and I wish that today's young people could meet them.

Personal trauma is a different beast because, aside from communities like SS, it is an internal hell experienced alone. We experience the worst self-torment that our minds can create, yet do so within a context of the rest of the world being largely OK. It's not comparable. There may be possible solutions, but telling us to compare ourselves with the most visibly distraught echelons of society as a pick-me-up is not one. (Though, in fairness, the only sin of the mother in this story is well-meaning ignorance.)

 

[everydayiloveyou]

Unfortunately it's gonna be hard to convince anyone towards the pro-choice side, especially if they've never experienced major depression before. I think part of the way you get into this mindset is by having a personal experience with intense suffering that leads to suicidal ideation.

There are so many people who go their whole lives without ever thinking about killing themelves. Even when they get abused. Even when they hit rock bottom. So when they hear that other people wanna do it, it blows their mind, especially when the suicidal person does not fit their personal ideal of "true sufferring." Because they dealt with the same things but they never thought about it.

It really sucks, I think it's an empathy issue honestly. People get so stuck in what they believe is worthy, valid, shocking, etc., that they completely forget that suffering is suffering and that all humans are free to make their own choices.

 

[wait.what]

A while back, the Onion satirized the "but others have it worse" mindset with an article entitled something like "All Of Humanity Happy That They're Not Dave." The article featured fake pull quotes from the guy who has it worst out of almost 8 billion people on the planet. The implication was that almost zero people are allowed to complain about anything, because there is always someone who has it worse—and that someone is Dave. Dave was like, "Yeah all this really sucks, but I get to complain now?? Aww yissrs!"

Imagine a world where happiness is compulsory for everyone except for one person who objectively "has it worse" than all other people. When you run it out to its logical conclusion like that, it's obvious that the basic idea is deeply flawed. There's no telling Aunt So-And-So this during Thanksgiving dinner, though.

 

[FuneralCry]

Of course others will have it worse, as this life holds unlimited potential for suffering. Being told that is very insensitive and invalidates your suffering. It is like saying you cannot be happy because others have it better.
People are selfish and they want us to stay alive for their benefit, even if it is against our wishes. It is our lives, our decision and we have the right to take our lives at a time of our own choosing. Nobody else has any say in it. I hope you find the peace you are looking for.

 

[Interloper]

"my dead sister is in a happier place"

Do they not realise the mixed message they are sending with saying something like that? Like why wouldn't you want to be in a happier place? Delusional people.

 

[SleepDealer]

Do they not realise the mixed message they are sending with saying something like that? Like why wouldn't you want to be in a happier place? Delusional people.

This is what I was going to say too. Why don't we have the right to go to a happier place?

 

[StevieNixs]

Do they not realise the mixed message they are sending with saying something like that? Like why wouldn't you want to be in a happier place? Delusional people.

Really good point, but I am sure my mother would turn around and say that my sister "was physically suffering and that is different".

The cracker for me was when my mother told me that I needed to "be stronger" as I single handedly (with no input from my mother) arranged my sister's funeral, dealt with the funeral director, wrote the eulogy and tribute, arranged the flowers, collected them to deliver 1.5 hours away, sorted out the order of service and songs, arranged the horses and carriage, the casket and flowers to be placed on them, met the vicar, met the funeral director, communicated with them throughout by email, phone and in person, arranged the photos to be displayed - all whilst planning my own death (unbeknownst to them). My mother considered me weak and said as much.