Support NeoGAF

[Roto13]

How dare they not continue suffering just for other people's sake!

A friend of mine attempted suicide once and we were talking about it afterwards and when I asked "Don't you care about what it would have done to the people you would have left behind?" and he said "Don't you think it's selfish to expect someone to live in misery so you don't feel bad?" There wasn't really much I could say to that.

 

[disappeared]

I attempted it once.

It's such a strange state to be in. Like you're seeing everything about yourself, but really nothing. At that moment, you feel alive and already facing the end. At the time, it feels like the right and wrong thing to do. In the moments after you're thinking about nothing, and everything. What will happen, what won't. What could be. It's something so ultimately bleak that it would take a long time to describe to anyone.

It's not something I usually discuss, so pardon the bluntness.

 

[cyclonekruse]

it's too bad he didn't get some help.

pride kills more people than guns. I swear to God.

There's more to it than pride. When I was flirting with thoughts of suicide a few years back, I didn't avoid seeking help because of pride. Most of it was that my sense of self-worth was so low, that I considered myself not even worth saving. My pride, if you can call it that, just exacerbated the issue. I figured that if I were a "normal" person, then I should be able to get through my problems on my own. And I did view my lack of ability to do so as a weakness. Of course, that thinking only served to decrease my self-worth further. And that's sort of an example of the defeatist thinking you always have.

And once you get into that negative cycle, it doesn't take long for you to start projecting your worthlessness onto other people. By that I mean that you begin to assume that other people probably view you the same as you view yourself. And then you deduce that if other people view you as worthless, then no one will care if you're gone. I think that's the point where suicide becomes a very real possibility. I was there. I had even made a plan on how to do it (I figured stepping in front of a train would be quick and painless...and I was thinking about the letters I'd write to people to explain my decision). As I understand it, having a plan is a bad sign and I was dangerously close to offing myself.

Instead, a friend urged me to seek counseling. Had it not been for that, I doubt I'd be posting this right now.

 

[LaserBuddha]

This guy never once confided in a medical professional about what happened to him and what he was still going through. I completely understand the logic he used in avoiding them, but he could not know and never will know if he could have been helped that way.

A huge part of his pain revolved around his isolation and inability to have anyone understand what he was going through. Had he seen the right professional, he might have found himself sharing a flood of experiences and emotion that he had never been able to share before, and eventually become able to tell others "this is what happened to me, this is who I am". He could have stopped being afraid of what he is and what people would think of him, and could have found someone that could love him for who he really is (and who he really is would itself be made less cold and dark by virtue of having others understand and accept him, and tell him that he is still a person). I think the internalizing and loneliness made his trauma seem worse than it had to be.

So in this case, there was an option, and he shouldn't have committed suicide. His periphery concern about doctors blocked what would have been (if it worked) exactly what he seemed to say he needed. Unfortunately his trust issues never let him clear that one hurdle that could have turned his life in a completely different direction. Coincidentally, a lot of suicidal people express the same phobias about profession help ("i can't have someone know how truly fucked up I am"/"they could never understand")

This post-mortem grasp at making people understand him, something he was too afraid to do while alive, is all the more tragic since it shows he desperately wanted someone to understand him. On some level it feels like he may have committed suicide at this point just so that he could get these thoughts out to people without being around for whatever consequences he felt they might have.

Everything any of us has to say about this guy is pure conjecture. I have a well-reasoned opinion on why I think he shouldn't have killed myself. Consider that before you throw any of that immature, militant hate at me for not accepting his choice.