What would make you stay?

[LaBrava]

Money for me too. Would be cool to be rich but enough to get my own place and to live on would do fine.

 

[not_a_robot]

i kinda feel like i'm gonna sound super weird/broken saying this (guess i am lol), but the one kind of life i fantasize about at all anymore is a life where i could just be as openly miserable as i want as much as i want, and have that be more or less expected and normal rather than seen as some kind of defect that immediately needs to be cured. i think i'd be more willing to put effort into things if i just wasn't expected to somehow find a way to take it all with a smile and actually enjoy any of it. there are some things i might still have half a heart to work on, not because i'd expect them to be at all bearable for me, but rather because i imagine that something about them might lessen a certain burden for others. the only kind of life i've ever really tried to live has been the long-suffering martyr kind, i think, but that lifestyle just seems more and more absurd to me when i look at the people i'm supposedly doing it for and their endless demands for me to magically crack my anhedonia and somehow also make them a part of it, more or less regardless of my own general preferences towards contemplative solitude. i really resonate with some of what @not_a_robot said above, although what i have is less autism in the prevailing contemporary clinical sense and more the kind of structural paranoid psychosis described by lacanian psychoanalysis. i've only ever really wanted to find some way to sacrifice my life in a way that feels meaningful, because somehow appreciating it as an end in itself feels like a cruel joke designed by a metaphysical evil to make me go insane

i think also to a big extent it's less that i really would desire isolation in and of itself, and more that my temperament has it that if i don't get a certain (high, almost categorically unreasonable given the seeming emotional limits of most people) level of respect for my autonomy from the people around me, then i start to fear/hate them as persecutors in often overreactive and melodramatic ways. i think this is largely because i've been pretty seriously traumatized from a handful of experiences with people having a really serious lack of boundaries with me. it got me diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, too, though i find the usual psychiatric narratives about what that is to be pretty lacking and too muddled about causality. either way i don't really feel fit for human society when it comes down to it

Your freedom to be miserable is only as great as your ability to remain isolated. It creates too many problems to be openly miserable around others. Social beings feel entitled to be affected by every little thing they see around them, and to constantly interfere, to demand compliance, to retaliate. So isolation is a must.
Personally I enjoy the isolation and it's more considerate to shield others from my unorthodox view of life anyway.

 

[Kaput]

Your freedom to be miserable is only as great as your ability to remain isolated. It creates too many problems to be openly miserable around others. Social beings feel entitled to be affected by every little thing they see around them, and to constantly interfere, to demand compliance, to retaliate. So isolation is a must.
Personally I enjoy the isolation and it's more considerate to shield others from my unorthodox view of life anyway.

Idk. I hear what you're saying About social obligations, and conformity pressure in society (putting on a face). At the same time, isolation compounds detachment and magnifies the misery, IME. Not that I've a good solution.

 

[Alpha_Draco_Pegasus]

Well, I would have to lay out the reasons why I want to commit suicide, and then say, I would be willing to stay if all or at least most of those reasons were solved.

1. My addiction. Obsessive-compulsiveness probably ties into this one as well. After all of my experience with methamphetamine in particular, I just can not delay gratification for anything anymore. I've had to quit absolutely everything to keep my head on straight, including nicotine, caffeine, chocolate/junk food, and masturbating. I can't have one cup of coffee, I can't have one beer. I am too damn fragile and need my lifestyle to be far too finely controlled if I even stand a chance at achieving a well-ward being and a stable mind.

I can't even chew gum and talk, literally. I get too damn distracted. I can't eat and talk at the same time because savoring the taste of the food distracts me from conversation, so I can only order a small salad or something I can just intermittently nibble at.

2. My medication, and all of the supplements I rely on for wellness. Although I accept being different and less fortunate when it comes to mental health, it irks me that normal people get by in life without having to see a doctor to obtain 5 medicines necessary to their health. Everywhere I go I'll need to find a doctor who prescribes my medicine, be on a health plan that covers the cost and also doesn't break me with co-pays, deductibles and monthly cost. Having a psychiatric diagnosis and being caught in the mental health system worries me in general because I have a hard time relying on strangers let alone entire organizations and companies.

3. My ambition, life pursuits and dreams. I never decided what I wanted to be when I grew up. I'm just 26 and still have some time to decide - right now I'm taking general ed courses at a community college with the plan of transferring to a 4 year university and earning a bachelor's. I don't think there's any way in hell I could make such a scholastic achievement - getting an associate's I could see being a bit more doable. But I've gotta go for the B.A. thing I guess. My major? English maybe. I'd say that's my best subject. I don't care for reading much but I'm a decent writer. I have the potential to be good at a lot of things but I'm just not interested. I used to be interested in philosophy and enjoyed discovering and listening to particular genres of music. I used to want to be a DJ, or a drummer... but now that I don't, it doesn't even feel like I'm more depressed. I just feel older, somehow.

Anyway I've considered working in a lot of fields. I would settle for an office job at a desk - I would much rather work indoors wearing nice clothing sharing vicinities with co-workers who I could hopefully spark up relationships with. But would the actual job, the work, whatever it was, be worth it to have that lifestyle? Maybe. I guess I don't know yet. But that was my yester-dream. Now I don't know if I'd rather do that than be an exterminator or a plumber. I have ZERO clue anymore.

4. Money, would make a huge difference. I recently lost $7,000 in a scam which I didn't know any better about how to avoid. That put a huge dent in my savings and makes me feel less secure about my future. It isn't a life-crusher because I still have enough and I'm continuing to make more, but it just reinforces that sense of vulnerability, the strain, the stress, that my life, my goods, my valuables are not safe.

To sum it all up, well, or I guess you could say my headline should have been, "I would love to live if I was normal." By normal I mean not addicted and not mentally ill. This world was made for normal people and so normal people get by easily. They get their lives handed to them on a silver platter at birth. Others, such as addicts, are not so lucky. We don't get the manual. We have to work 50x harder to get by, with just a slight chance of becoming happy.

Okay, now I feel like I'm just trying to be pitiful and pessimistic on purpose. I'll stop! I know it's not good to be dreary and resentful and most times now I feel like I'm at least trying to grow out of those attitudes. But even if I haven't put it on paper yet, I know there's now some solid reason why I have realized that this (suicide) is what I definitely want to do, and I'm often excited about it.

 

[GinaIsReady]

Tons of money.

 

[Severen]

Millions of dollars or more. Immortality as in never aging and having a body that is indestructible except via one or two weaknesses(otherwise I would never able to CTB in the future and that would suck). Some super powers too. Like super strength, super speed and being able to jump 40 feet up into the air. And the damage done to my brain, cured because I can't be dependent on medications for a really long time because I'll build up tolerance and what if those medications get banned one day etc... And I don't want to be a slave to drugs as well. Because that means, I'm a slave to the people who can get me those drugs...

 

[Crematedashes]

I honestly couldn't imagine anything that would make me want to stay, especially just one thing on its own. It would have to be a combination of things.

 

[azucaramargo]

Family, friends, pets and a support network

This is such a sweet post! These things may feel elusive at the moment, but they are not out-of-reach. I love that you wrote this. You always have a support network here on SS. Please feel free to message me if you'd like to chat more.

 

[262653]

Abolition of physiological needs. No more hunger, thirst, food intolerances... I'm no longer ought to work my ass of anymore just to scrape by. Life doesn't have a paid subscription in form of basic needs. One thick layer of dependence is dropped... I still need some way to rebuild/transform cells so that I can improve. Solar energy will do just fine, I guess. Better nervous system, better brain that would allow me to better articulate my thoughts, or to update all my beliefs accordingly when the main belief was changed. And in general to change habitual behavior when it fails to serve me... And more cognitive power and attention to learn and apply learned material to practice... Superpowers mentined by Severen, but I'd like to avoid drawing excessive attention like celebrities do. What if someone with power and status would want to use me as capture, encage me, and put some nasty experiments... I have to be either too powerful for anyone to deal with me, or having more discreet powers, like mind affection/control... Oh! We are talking about what would make me stay, not what would make me want to stay...
Unstoppabble will to live or strong survival instinct should do the trick.

 

[Camille Lejeune]

Being cured or having my cancer kept at bay would make me survive.

Same here! I'm very sick too. So yeah a cure or a miracle.

 

[Faraway1990]

Hmm is there anything now? Im mixed, it have to be a miracle to make it happen but yes if everything changed between me and the one person I care about (and who's always cared about me) and I could be with her again but in our 14 years of knowing each other a lot has happened mostly due to my lack of foresight and self guilt and not seeing a situation for what it was that's all escalated. If I could go back in time to see my 16 year old self I'd get me to go on that coach and everything would be different dam it.

 

[azucaramargo]

Is there any particular event or turn of fortune that would make you want to stay?

How about you, Sailfisher? What, if anything, would make YOU want to stay?

The people who've claimed to give a shit about me have never been anything but a source of hindrance, hassle, and misery. I'm pretty sure that my opinions on how to live my own life are precisely as I stated them, so your feeble attempt to correct them with Hallmark platitudes about "people needing people" are unnecessary and irrelevant.
Neurotypicals need people, and neurotypicals all assume that the needs of every other person on planet must be the very same as their own. It's unbelievably narrow-minded.
And it's so funny when neurotypicals talk shit about "empathy" while displaying the fact that they are congenitally incapable of considering that anyone's else's needs might be different from their own.
"Empathy" means being able to understand another person's perspective. But neurotypicals all think it just means assuming other peoples' perspective is the same as their own.


I am autistic. My needs are not the same as everybody else's. Trust me on this. I have known me for a very long time. And I have had to live it all with other people being nothing but constant pains in my ass, even more so when I actually needed their help.

Money is what puts someone's life back together when they have bad luck. People are the bad luck.

I hear what you're saying, Not_a_Robot. I just have an earnest, non-rhetorical question. What if you, Heaven forbid, choked alone in your home, or fell down in your home and couldn't access the phone...would you want people in those circumstances? (Again, I don't have an axe to grind, I'm just genuinely curious about how you'd want things to play out in those hypothetical situations.)

 

[ArtsyDrawer]

I am doubtful anything happening NOW would do me any good unless we're talking about winning both the 10mil lotto AND having my brain surgery succeed exceptionally, making me a free man.

I've lost a good decade by now. Thirteen years. Soon fourteen. How do I recover from being trapped for fourteen years?
Even WITH money?
I've never had a proper girlfriend, I've never been on a date.
I missed ten years of youth.
Alright, sure, some of the older members will say thirty is still young. Judging by how shit is going right now I'll continue maturing from 18 to 30 at the age of 35. Mentally I'm 20, physically I'm 30.

 

[azucaramargo]

I am doubtful anything happening NOW would do me any good unless we're talking about winning both the 10mil lotto AND having my brain surgery succeed exceptionally, making me a free man.

I've lost a good decade by now. Thirteen years. Soon fourteen. How do I recover from being trapped for fourteen years?
Even WITH money?
I've never had a proper girlfriend, I've never been on a date.
I missed ten years of youth.
Alright, sure, some of the older members will say thirty is still young. Judging by how shit is going right now I'll continue maturing from 18 to 30 at the age of 35. Mentally I'm 20, physically I'm 30.

You've got brain surgery coming up? That must be nerve-wracking. But, it's good that the doctors think surgery is an option.

You are not the first person I've encountered lately who wishes he/she had racked up certain exeperiences in the past. Forgive me, but I just don't really understand that. Couldn't you pursue these experiences now? I am aware of the difficulty of entering new professional fields, yes, but if there's an area that interests you, you can research the field, and try to infiltrate it from different angles (e.g., applying for support roles, writing blogs and interviewing experts). Why do you think it's too late to have those experiences now? You know, if you're talking about personal relationships, I can't tell you how refreshing it is to meet someone who hasn't been through the wringer. It's really easy to get jaded about romance and personal relationships, so if that's the experience you're missing, I'd say that's more of an asset than otherwise.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I tried to put myself in your shoes...I was the only kid in 5th grade who couldn't do a cartwheel. On my college track team, I always wished id had someone to really work with me on some field events like high jump and hurdles. I bailed on this German year abroad in college, and I regret that, but these are all things I could work on now. Maybe not as easily as I could have in the past, but you can't discount the experiences you DID have. They have helped mold you as well.

The ten years you "missed," I assure you, you didn't miss anything. You were having your own experiences that are valuable to your development, whether you realize it or not. I can't think of one woman who would be turned off by a man who hasn't had time to make dating a priority.

You need some friends, who can help you keep your sense of humor and your confidence. You did not lose anything, and your life is just beginning. I am wishing you the best for your surgery.

 

[inconsequential]

Adequate pain control would cause me to hang on for longer.

 

[sadgirl2002]

True love from the one who has a special place in my heart. Making him happy will make me happy even though I'm full of sadness.

 

[Scribble Fan]

Real love and a supportive family. I'm not sure I want friends in real life but I'm sure a couple wouldn't hurt.

 

[GrizzlyGrapefruit]

A solution to my (physical) health complications/issues. Not only are they super uncomfortable to deal with and make getting through each day difficult, but they also make me feel inherently inferior to everyone I meet.