Normally the first rule of responding to a suicidal poster on a web forum would be advising you to get professional help, call an emergency line, join a support group, all that stuff.
Okay, I haven’t done the first two. I’ve made a couple posts on www.reddit.com/r/suicidewatch during the past few years but then I started harassing the people of that subreddit for reasons I’m not exactly sure of—I encouraged them to commit suicide, like this—then my whole IP got banned from reddit about a week ago.
And it’s still what I will recommend you do in the first place, but we must admit that some of them may be ill-equipped to deal with the struggles of a highly rational person.
I’m not sure if I’d call me “rational”, I’m not sure if a rational person would consider suicide, but I’m a bit out of the ordinary for sure.
On the other hand, they may try a supportive approach you haven’t thought of yet.
Okay, I promise to call to a suicide hotline before I attempt a suicide (confidence, 90%).
I don’t live in any of those countries so that didn’t help me very much,
In your post I saw several signs that suggest you don’t really want to die. You postponed it out of consideration for your relative (i.e. you still care about things in this world). Every day you wake up less sure of doing it than you were the previous night. You still find the idea repulsive on a gut level. By what I’m about to say I mean absolutely no disrespect, and I don’t intend in any way to minimize what you’re feeling, but as someone who has been terribly depressed before, I can assure you that people who are resolved to suicide find the idea comforting, not unnerving. From your words it’s clear you want the pain to end, but not to end it all.
I’m not sure if that’s a good thing to say for a person frequenting LW forums who probably has some level of self-awareness, but it surely isn’t for a general suicidal person. I quote SQLwitch, the mod from /r/suicidewatch, who’s been helping suicidal people for decades:
‘Don’t disagree with suicidal people about how bad things are. It’s not about their circumstances; it’s about their suffering, and you can’t measure that from the outside. A message that in any way tries to tell or show the suicidal person that “it’s not so bad” is just another way of saying “I don’t understand what you’re going through”.’
‘For our OPs who are in the lowest and most dangerous state of mind, simply seeing one of these message can make their sense of alienation and failure worse, because they are not remotely able to believe that it’s true for them. Anything meant to be universally “uplifting”, including the overuse of the “It Gets Better” message, which originated in the specific context that adults aren’t usually as emotionally immature as teenagers, tends to backfire.”’
This part of your post initially made me feel worse because being suicidal is a considerable part of my identity (I’ve been thinking about it for the past 7 years). Making assumptions about a person you don’t know makes the other person feel kinda bad. It’s a bit unfair because you can say the same thing about every person who is still alive and suicidal. Every live suicidal person has something to cling to because otherwise they would have seriously attempted suicide already and would mostly likely be dead—or in the process of committing suicide.
I’ve had some comfort from suicide, but it has been from a state between “abstract” and “practical”. Not from a state “I’m gonna do it a few hours from now”.
In your case, you’ll find that, when staying alive becomes a conscious decision, it gives you an added strength that most people aren’t familiar with. Instead of just living because it’s what’s supposed to happen, you will feel that you decided to stop inertia from pushing you (as it does to all of us) and instead stepped up to own your life.
I’ve used that kind of rational to think of myself as a “better person” but it hasn’t worked. Or I don’t know, maybe it has. And maybe I don’t really want to die. Can you taboo the concept “resolved to suicide”? Maybe I’m not actually resolved to suicide, but I’ve thought about it a lot and made plans. Only time will show if I’m actually gonna do it.
What I can say to you is something that both LW rationalists and suicide counselors say: question what your mind is telling you. Especially if it’s telling you that you need to harm yourself; in that case you should not believe it at all.
But questioning my mind is one of my problems to begin with. Other people have told me that “I should be more confident” and I “should trust myself more”. Being suicidal is such a big part of my identity that I should basically question everything I do, and then I’m not at all sure what I should do which leads to further problems.
I hope I didn’t come out as trying to tell you things weren’t so bad, because that was not my intent. I’m not inside your head and I have no right to explain your feelings to you. I don’t, and won’t, question your circumstances, which are very real. What I’d like to help you focus on is what you decide to do about those circumstances, because that part of your personal story isn’t set in stone yet.
You probably know it’s not a healthy sign that suicidal thoughts have gotten so deep that they’ve become a core part of your identity. However, what we often cling to as our identity is more flexible than we’re willing to admit. If you’ve ever changed religions or dealt with unconventional sexual feelings, you know that the way we’ve grown used to define ourselves may in fact evolve continually.
Perhaps I ought to have been more detailed with the questioning part, but I didn’t want to cross a line where I would begin dictating to you what you should do. Questioning your mind also involves learning to distinguish which thoughts are reliable and which aren’t. Examine where a thought leads you, trace the consequences as fully as you can before you judge whether that thought serves you or not, and by “serve you,” you may insert whichever you like from “makes me stronger,” “makes me happier,” “calms me down,” or whatever priority you have set for your life. You won’t always want to ask yourself what’s the use of every thought, because it gets tiresome at times. You’ll need to set criteria that work for you so you’re free from both carelessness and overthinking.
Okay, I haven’t done the first two. I’ve made a couple posts on www.reddit.com/r/suicidewatch during the past few years but then I started harassing the people of that subreddit for reasons I’m not exactly sure of—I encouraged them to commit suicide, like this—then my whole IP got banned from reddit about a week ago.
I’m not sure if I’d call me “rational”, I’m not sure if a rational person would consider suicide, but I’m a bit out of the ordinary for sure.
Okay, I promise to call to a suicide hotline before I attempt a suicide (confidence, 90%).
I don’t live in any of those countries so that didn’t help me very much,
I’m not sure if that’s a good thing to say for a person frequenting LW forums who probably has some level of self-awareness, but it surely isn’t for a general suicidal person. I quote SQLwitch, the mod from /r/suicidewatch, who’s been helping suicidal people for decades:
‘Don’t disagree with suicidal people about how bad things are. It’s not about their circumstances; it’s about their suffering, and you can’t measure that from the outside. A message that in any way tries to tell or show the suicidal person that “it’s not so bad” is just another way of saying “I don’t understand what you’re going through”.’
‘For our OPs who are in the lowest and most dangerous state of mind, simply seeing one of these message can make their sense of alienation and failure worse, because they are not remotely able to believe that it’s true for them. Anything meant to be universally “uplifting”, including the overuse of the “It Gets Better” message, which originated in the specific context that adults aren’t usually as emotionally immature as teenagers, tends to backfire.”’
This part of your post initially made me feel worse because being suicidal is a considerable part of my identity (I’ve been thinking about it for the past 7 years). Making assumptions about a person you don’t know makes the other person feel kinda bad. It’s a bit unfair because you can say the same thing about every person who is still alive and suicidal. Every live suicidal person has something to cling to because otherwise they would have seriously attempted suicide already and would mostly likely be dead—or in the process of committing suicide.
I’ve had some comfort from suicide, but it has been from a state between “abstract” and “practical”. Not from a state “I’m gonna do it a few hours from now”.
I’ve used that kind of rational to think of myself as a “better person” but it hasn’t worked. Or I don’t know, maybe it has. And maybe I don’t really want to die. Can you taboo the concept “resolved to suicide”? Maybe I’m not actually resolved to suicide, but I’ve thought about it a lot and made plans. Only time will show if I’m actually gonna do it.
But questioning my mind is one of my problems to begin with. Other people have told me that “I should be more confident” and I “should trust myself more”. Being suicidal is such a big part of my identity that I should basically question everything I do, and then I’m not at all sure what I should do which leads to further problems.
I hope I didn’t come out as trying to tell you things weren’t so bad, because that was not my intent. I’m not inside your head and I have no right to explain your feelings to you. I don’t, and won’t, question your circumstances, which are very real. What I’d like to help you focus on is what you decide to do about those circumstances, because that part of your personal story isn’t set in stone yet.
You probably know it’s not a healthy sign that suicidal thoughts have gotten so deep that they’ve become a core part of your identity. However, what we often cling to as our identity is more flexible than we’re willing to admit. If you’ve ever changed religions or dealt with unconventional sexual feelings, you know that the way we’ve grown used to define ourselves may in fact evolve continually.
Perhaps I ought to have been more detailed with the questioning part, but I didn’t want to cross a line where I would begin dictating to you what you should do. Questioning your mind also involves learning to distinguish which thoughts are reliable and which aren’t. Examine where a thought leads you, trace the consequences as fully as you can before you judge whether that thought serves you or not, and by “serve you,” you may insert whichever you like from “makes me stronger,” “makes me happier,” “calms me down,” or whatever priority you have set for your life. You won’t always want to ask yourself what’s the use of every thought, because it gets tiresome at times. You’ll need to set criteria that work for you so you’re free from both carelessness and overthinking.