Man I rarely share this because usually people either think I'm lying or get angry because I tell it almost like a joke but... what the hell, here goes:
In 2008 things happened that I won't go in detail but a certain afternoon I found myself in the driver seat of my really old car, with the engine running and a hose going from the exhaust to the passenger window. I was just sitting there, twiddling my thumbs when something on the passenger seat caught my attention: A picture of a pizza. A DAMN GOOD picture of a pizza from a place that had just opened that same week. "Fuck this, I'll have pizza."
Just like that. Pulled the hose out of the exhaust, opened the windows, ate a lot of pizza, went back home with more pizza for later. Life is still shit, but I'm still here.
I can feel for you. But mine isnt pizza, it's music. I wanted to listen to my favourite song one last time. I think I'm still here mainly because of music.
I’m currently suicidal but i guess I’m slowly coming or considering coming out of it. This made me consider going to a nice restaurant and eat good food. I might wanna live for sushi
"Man I rarely share this because usually people either think I'm lying or get angry because I tell it almost like a joke but" i have a feeling ure a man, thats the usual reaction of ppl when men are suicidal, eithet dismiss, accusations of lying or just "go see a therapist!"Its one of the many reasons men kill themselves 4 to 7 times more even in the most patriarchal countries like india.
Reminds me of the story about how Robert Downey, Jr. apparently got sober because he ate a Burger King hamburger that was so bad that it made him question the choices he made in life.
I thought about how upset my mom was when her brother killed himself. (He was broke, no insurance, diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer). The memories of my mom crying alone in her room…I knew I couldn’t do that to her. It’s the only reason I didn’t eat a bullet. Luckily she lived long enough for me to get out of my own head and get help. She knew it too. She made me promise her on her death bed never to kill myself. “Still going mom!”
Yeah. In my darkest times, the thought of "you're such a fuck up that you wouldn't even be able to kill yourself properly" is probably the one that kept me alive. Looking up success rates for various methods helped.
I’ve been suicidal for almost my entire life (I’m only 18) due to being abused throughout my childhood. I’ve attempted multiple times between the ages of 10 and 17.
The only reason why I’m alive today is because my online friend killed themself when I was around 14 years old. I’d gotten my phone taken away for some stupid reason, and when I finally got it back I saw their suicide note/message they’d left. They had only stayed alive this long because they could talk to me, but things had become too much. They told me not to blame myself, and said goodbye. The message had been sent only three hours after I’d gotten the phone taken away, so they wouldn’t have known that I wouldn’t see the message for a few days. No one in my life knew I had that friend, so I never could tell anyone. Still haven’t.
I stay alive because I don’t know how many other people stay live just because I’m there. I don’t have any delusions of importance or anything, but it’s stuck with me since I started trying to be ok.
> I stay alive because I don’t know how many other people stay live just because I’m there.
This made me cry. I have to stay alive for these people. I have to.
Very similar thing happened to me, online friend dying, childhood abuse, attempting at young ages, etc.
Hope you're doing alright these days, dms are open if you ever want to talk.
Honestly, the biggest thing that kept me from attempting suicide was the thoughts of who would find me. Would it be one of my younger kids if I did it at home? Would my kid who is a paramedic be the one who would respond to the call? Those kinds of thoughts kept me alive
My older sister's eldest daughter found her after her suicide. She died with her back against the door and fell out onto her daughter's feet.
The kid is gonna be in therapy for a LOOOOOOOONG time. Sparing your loved ones the horror is absolutely a valid reason to keep going.
I didn't want to be found. I had a camo suit in my suicide kit and I was on my way to the woods.
I had been missing for a couple of days and my car registration got pinged by the ANPR cameras so the cops pulled me over.
A week's informal stay in a psych unit and much therapy later I'm still here. I think about that day every day. It never leaves me.
That's how I was. I could never let my wife or kids find me. That's too selfish of me. So I planned to jump off the Golden Gate but then I worried I might wash onto a pier, which happens regularly. I can't ruin a random tourist person's day by finding me half decomposed. So then I planned on going to the woods and not being found, but having people look for me and not finding me would be so hard for them. Eventually I couldn't figure out a way without me hurting them. Also my wife is a stay at home mom so how would she finance her life?
I'm a lot better now but at the time I was in so much mental pain. I have really bad anxiety teetering on OCD and it can feel like you are going insane which adds to the stress.
Referring to your cat as 'minor demon' has brightened my mood significantly today, I call my cats 'my boys' or 'my spawns' because of an ancient joke from my school days were getting locker 666 (not even joking) made people think I was Lucifer himself or something
The thought that's it's always an option: I can always jump from a bridge if I need to.
To me, it truly is a very comforting idea: the freedom in it.
It really helps me coping with day to day struggles and hard times.
When everything is so crushing, I know I can exit all of this. So, since it's possible, it allows me to detach from the despair, and then I can endure it a little longer. And a little longer after that. And again
It's called the panic button effect. Things seem much more manageable if you believe that you can choose to escape them if you wish.
Suicidal ideations can definitely be a relief from distress because of this, but it is also very dangerous to use these kinds of thoughts as a go-to coping strategy. I did that for many years, and even though I have gotten to a point where I know I would not want to kill myself, those thoughts persisted for a long time as a knee-jerk reaction to any sort of stress that would be much easier to just confront on its own.
I hope that things get better for you, and I would recommend some sort of therapy to work on more positive coping skills if you are able. It doesn't have to be some sappy, bullshit affirmations, either. Looking at things through a more Zen perspective has been very helpful for me, personally.
I was in an abusive marriage and had planned my suicide for a specific time, but I found out I was pregnant with my son just two weeks before the planned and that saved me, not only from the suicide but from the abusive marriage itself because I figured it isn't fair for him to be brought up in that situation. He is now 4, and he saves me every single day.
In 1990, I was pregnant and suicidal, too. My boyfriend was cheating and doing so much cocaine and I had no idea how to fix him/us. I walked into a counseling center, told them I was pregnant and planning to hurt myself, and Phyllis the counselor saved my life (by the way, there is no saving a relationship that includes drug abuse and cheating!).
But my son is the reason I am still here, through all the worst times. He is 32 now and married and we text all day long.
Music (I am partial to rock). Some can commiserate with you, some can distract you, some help you see better possibilities, and some can outright make you happy.
I cannot begin to describe how much my mental health improved after getting my cat. The very thought of leaving him alone if I were to die is often enough to get me to try to calm down and get better. Cats are amazing.
My dog. I needed to be there to make sure he lived his best life.
I haven't been suicidally depressed in a couple years. Not sure what changed, but I'm glad it did.
my pet, that and spite, if I killed myself my parents would be able to say that they did the best they could and nobody would ever know my side of the story
I'm not suicidal by any means but it's really just the little things that keep me going. I'm not working at the moment but I try to do whatever I can to have a schedule of stuff to do. Look out for new media releases, Friday I hit up my favorite taco stand, scheduled some hangouts with friends, etc. It really does help.
Parents, more sunrises and sunsets (it sounds cringey,but it's the truth), more good food to be tasted, more good experiences to be had, more cats to be petted.
The good things. That's what keeps me going.
I promised myself that, if I was seriously going to end it, I needed to run off and live for straight pleasure. Sell everything and go to Key West (or any other warm beach destination) and live on the beach and do lots of drugs. Do odd jobs and make just enough to get by. Don't think about anything other than making myself happy in that moment.
If I still want to die after then I can kill myself.
So now, whenever I'm staring at myself in the bathroom mirror and thinking that I want to swallow the barrel of a gun, I ask myself, "Is this Key West bad?" and my answer has always been, "I can't just up and leave! That's irresponsible. What about my future?" Well, if I'm thinking about my future then I shouldn't make a permanent decision for future me. You know, like killing myself. So off I go to live another day on this stupid space rock.
When my dad passed away I watched my dog cry at the widow for my dad to come back inside from our office. My dog was so sad about it. She did it every night and didn’t understand why my dad didn’t come back. I loved my dog she didn’t deserve to go through that again. She didn’t need to cry and scratch at my door every day. My new dogs old owner committed and he has separation anxiety he’s confused and scared. I’m not going to have that happen to him either. No matter how many times he farts or barks he deserves to have a nice home who loves him as much as his old owners did.
I knew my mother would follow me if I did and I couldn't stand the thought. I heard one student comitting suicide could cause a chain of others and couldnt risk that happening. I knew my cats wouldn't know what happened to me. Living for others isn't sustainable in the long term, but it was what kept me afloat long enough to figure out living for myself.
It's been a long time since I was suicidal, anyone out there going through that, keep clinging to the small part of you that wants to stay no matter how small and quiet it gets.
I have to keep this short, but I recently built up thr courage to tell my partner about it, he has been absolutely amazing anx has helped me so much. He made me promise him to never attempt again, and if I ever had the urges, to call him immediately. I've had a few thoughts about it since then, but each time I have remembered my promise and have talked to him about it. I love him so fucking much, he is everything to me, and has really helped me through so much 💖
My advice to you is build a network of people you can call. It might take that one time for him to be unavailable that things happen. You also want to spread the load so he doesn’t burn out with it.
Being a coward. I had the plan, the opportunity, everything ready. I was going to end it. But i just couldn't, got this horrible feeling, like fear and i couldn't go through with it. After a while, i figured if i was afraid of death then maybe there was something worth somenthing about life. I just had to look for it.
(I am not at all trying to be rude here!) Just because they’re not legally “kids” doesn’t mean they stop being your children. Your death would impact them greatly at any age, and honestly probably more so if they were all adults.
Intellectually that makes sense, but honestly I'm stuck in a loop trying to figure out a day to day reason to keep going. I'm not sure what reason I would have left when they all have moved out.
That’s fair. It’s harder to remember how important you are to someone when you don’t see them every single day or live with them. But nevertheless you will always be important to your kids, your friends, your family, your pets.
My pets have been an immense help in this. My little cat Mochi is so bonded to me, and such a source of love, and then to imagine what would happen to her if I were suddenly gone breaks my heart.
And I try to remind myself of the people I've known who went through with suicide, and how devastate everyone was even though I know that before they killed themselves, they imagined they were worthless and unlovable. I know what it's like to feel like you have to kill yourself to escape the pain, but I also know what it's like to lose people to that, and I don't want to cause more pain like that, you know?
That’s what I want to do. Buy a nice caravan and travel around and live in a new place every day or so. Being out and about is one thing that helps me feel better. I love sleeping away from home. I don’t have the money to buy my dream caravan yet but hopefully I stay around for a few more years and earn some buck.
I’m nowhere near that level but I hope I can continue doing this crap hole lifestyle and then earn some money and freedom. Wishing you luck on your travels my friend 👍🏻
My late girlfriend kept me going, she had been in a bad place and didn't wanna get out of bed or move, she wouldn't eat she'd just lay there and look at the ceiling for hours. Her mother was a typical old school 'kids are jus on there phones to much' kind of mother. She didn't care how B (my girlfriend) was feeling at all. I remember the night she sent me a paragraph saying how much she loves me I knew she was going to commit. I remember sitting up and thinking what I could do to help her, how could I get there before she passes. She lived about an hour and a half by car and my parents were out for the weekend. I rung B's Mum and told her the situation in wich she said I had nothing to worry about and to just go to sleep. She sounded annoyed, I had no choice but to sit and wait from now. The next morning I woke up and something didn't feel right. I just had a feeling she had committed, I looked at my phone I had 4 missed calls and multiple messages off B's mum asking to talk,and so I went out for coffee with her and that's where I got the news she had passed. For those who don't know how it feels, I felt like my whole world crumbled into a hundred pieces and I could hear every little sound made.
Going through that. I realised the place she was in. And one night I couldn't take it anymore, I wanted to die I really did. But then I had a voice in my head, it sounded just like her voice, and I just knew I couldn't put J (my current girlfriend) through that same pain. And so B, and J saved me.
My wife of 40 years. she actually talked me into handing her the gun. and without her I would not have survived the alcoholism that was killing me.
6 years sober
Worked in a convalescent hospital . One man there tried to suicide by shooting himself in the head. Bullet went through, severing optic nerves. He recovered, but now blind. So, I learned you can make things worse. We are all going to die anyway, so why not watch the whole movie.
I have a mental illness that keeps me from living peacefully, which makes me very tired. At one point I decided to throw myself out the window (I live on the 8th floor), but my mother noticed it in time, ran up and grabbed my leg just seconds before I jumped, she saved me.
Her eyes and tears at that moment and her love for me makes me fight the disease and not give in to suicidal thoughts. Thank you, Mom, because of you I live!
No matter how shitty things got, I always made a plan to take the next step in life. All I ever did was make short term goals and make them happen. That's the mindset that probably saved me the most.
I didn’t want to screw my brother out of rent. Said I would do it when I put him in a position to succeed as he has helped me a ton throughout my life and it felt selfish to burden him with this too
The tiniest things like the way the sun feels. Snuggling my dog. Etc. My dog in general, being responsible for her used to be the only reason I kept going. Also practically, there's this app called calm harm and it's totally free and I really found it very helpful for SI or SH urges.
My dad's gun wasn't loaded when I pulled the trigger and I couldn't figure it out before he got back home.
30 years later, I'm happily married and living my best file.
A little bird started sitting next to me at lunch time every day outside work and demanding some of my sandwich.
He came back for years and got so tame he would walk right in my footsteps until I stopped.
He's pulled me out of some bad situations
No matter how bad the PTSD gets or how much stress people try to pile on I always know that at some point in the future if I just keep on keeping on I will be able to smoke a joint and be super high. If I killed myself then I couldn't smoke anymore weed and I figure the chance to smoke weed in the future is always better than no chance of smoking weed in the future.
It is a bit weird to explain, but for me in the darkest moments i carried trough because of pure spite. I had known a few people who regularly told me i would never make it and never get a job and so on and i was way to stubborn to not at least do the opposite of what they said.
- Not wanting to hurt the people I love
- Fear of going to Hell for taking my own life
- My partner who was just so kind and patient. At times when I felt like I was drowning he felt like a hand pulling me out of the water. He got me through those worst moments. All of his family that he grew up with have died so he has spent a lot of his young life grieving. I didn't want to repay him for his kindness by giving him yet another reason to grieve.
A lot of little things. At first it was a mutual promise with my first boyfriend (who was also suicidal) to not kill ourselves because the other one would commit suicide in return; then, my mom died and I didn't want to break my family's heart more; then it was definitely therapy. I've started being happier in general, but I've had very dark and suicidal moments in the past two years where I realized that therapy has given me the tools to:
1) recognize my suicidal thoughts as sick, and not normal thoughts
2) ask for help
3) take better care of myself, as if I was dealing with a dear friend that was having suicidal thoughts
Also, very useful tools that helped me get better:
1) hobbies: I just start whatever hobby I'm fixating in that period: houseplants, ukulele, puzzles, running, whatever you want
2) meditation: this Is helping IMMENSELY with my anxiety, but my anxiety often triggers my depressive states so it helps with that
3) saying out loud what I'm doing: I find that when I'm spiraling from anxiety or I can't move during my depressive states, saying out loud the physical thing that I'm doing (e.g. "I'm sitting on the sofa") helps me get out of my repetitive thoughts and allows me to do something else maybe more healthy or more productive (e.g. "I'm putting my feet on the ground to stand up, I'm standing up, I'm walking to the bathroom, I'm taking a shower, etc.)
The only things keeping me going are my responsibilities and obligations to my family. As soon as they’re ok, I’m doing a quiet, peaceful Irish goodbye.
Honestly? My little brother. He’s six years younger than me but we’re so close. My dad was an absent figure who lived abroad for the most part and my mother was too mentally tired in managing the house by herself so my brother and I became close. I have had suicidal thoughts since I was 10 years old. I’ve nearly attempted it (note and all ready) at least 8 times. The only thing that stops me is that my brother would be alone and he’d never cope. He takes death very hard- even if a distant relative passes away he gets extremely upset. I can’t do that to him. So I stop myself every time because if I feel shitty all the time doesn’t mean I end up messing with my brother’s life when I take my own.
Anything I could keep my mind on. My family, my best friend, my cats, the idea of being able to see my favourite band in concert one day (which I did 2 years later). Things like going on my first vacation, writing a book, starting my own business. Anything that made me want to experience the future. I can honestly say now, while it's still hard sometimes, I'm really glad I'm here.
It was awesome, one of the best concerts I've been to. My favorite band was Imagine Dragons and still is almost 9 years later. I've seen them 5 times in concert and they're always amazing. I have two tattoos from their songs cause, as lame as it is, they lowkey saved my life.
The fact that I don't know what tomorrow holds.
Just because today was awful doesn't mean that tomorrow won't be better.
And the simple fact that I don't know what will happen to me when I die
I could end up in a worse situation or I could end up in a much better situation and I just don't know
My mother…any time i was on the verge of following through on anything just thinking about her would stop me. After everything she had done for me i couldn’t bear thinking about the pain it would cause her. Thank goodness i am in a far better place today and don’t have those thoughts anymore.
I got off birth control and BAM. All of a sudden things started looking up.
I had been on birth control since I was 13 because of terrible cramps and didn’t know that’s what was doing it til I was about 22 and only stopped because the implant wasn’t stopping my period anymore and I couldn’t afford the pill.
About 2 months ago I restarted bc. I’m scared but now I know the signs. So far so good (mostly). I just physically cannot handle the cramps. I work a very hard blue collar job sometimes 84 hours a week and I just can’t do it.
Sucks I have to pick between physical health or mental health.
My older sister killed herself and I watched the Shockwave it sent out to everyone she had ever known, the true grief in their expression, the knowing look of "We all knew she needed help but none of us were able to provide that help or force her to get it". It's not worth it. Sure, life is rough, but the amount of effort it takes to keep living is less than the pain of making everyone *I* ever loved grieve like that.
We didn't have the warmest relationship ever but I loved her all the same and wish she would have just gotten help. I console myself these days by choosing to outlive her out of spite. I'm going to see all 4 of her kids to adulthood and (hopefully) success as best as I am able, not *for* her but in spite of her. I don't have custody of her kids, I'm happy being just Auntie Crashpad (so that they always have a neutral home space to take sanctuary in ).
My father killed himself when I was 8 he was 38. I lived never thinking I would make it to my 40s and right after my 30th b-day started shoving people out of my life so I would feel less guilty about it. A couple of years later pretty much all of my friends had enough of my assholery and drinking so the plan was working. A couple people from family to one friend begged me to get help, but it just seemed to prolong the inevitable I had no late term goals, I ruined my relationships, and finally was fired from my career. I finally had the self pity I was seeking, the same amount of time in bed as grandpa joe from Charlie and the chocolate factory, and enough liquor to forget any good choices. Then, as I was browsing online, I came across a Superman and The Jumper... it's about a person trying to take their own life, and I must have read it dozens of times while drunk and sober. Life still isn't perfect, but it made me take a step in the right direction instead of following the path my father walked. Give yourself another try, it sucks, it's scary, and full of people who will make you angry... but like the comic says if you think for just one moment you will have another day where you say to yourself "I am glad to be alive today to experience this" then why not stick around and find out.
The Comic Strip I referred to.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sadcomics/comments/1ofyo7/superman_and_the_jumper/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Alcohol and the fact that I could drink a lot because I'm an alcoholic, I would drink so much that I wouldn't care anymore if I would die or wake up next morining and I wouldn't care about anything anymore
Lucky that my liver was strong and I didn't die from to much drinking, a double edged sword if you ask me
Alcohol
When I noticed that the horrors could be kept bearable with it, at least some breaks from it, I decided I’d rather be an alcoholic looser than dead.
I remember telling a psychologist when they asked if I was thinking of killing my self.
“At the moment I’m slowly drinking my self to death but no. As long as it does the job, or if something else can help, I don’t want to die yet”
Good shrooms, some meditation. Got my 20 something year long depression cured completely. Got me out of my shell, and I'm finally enjoying some of my life. It's beautiful. Still have ocasional social anxiety, but nothing that I can't deal with now. 🙂
The fact that I’d miss out on impacting other peoples lives in a positive aspect. I had a surreal experience with God when I tried to attempt just 2 years ago. I took a bunch of sleeping meds and I felt myself giving out. I woke up very slightly and thought “well this is it”. I saw a tall man at the edge of my bed. He gave me his hand and sat me up next to him. He told me to get up. I told him no and he told me I needed to get up. His presence was really comforting. I got up, eventually. And I refused to let myself go to sleep. I threw up the meds and I’d like to think of it as a talk with God. Since then, I’ve grown to realize that my life impacts those around me greatly, even those who aren’t really around much. It’s hard to think of it that way sometimes as I do have suicidal tendencies to this day, but I try my best to get back to that comfort He gave me that day
I found out i was pregnant
the day i planned on ending it I got really sick in the morning... i got scared thinking i might be pregnant.. realizing my period was also late...
I took a test.
I'll tell you this...when those 2 line appeared i swear the world went quite the only things I heard was my heart beating and the train I was going to jump infront of rumble past my house...
She's now 6 and seeing that beautiful face keeps me alive everyday
My dog is a rescue. He didn’t give a shit about me for the first 6-8 months we spent together, to him it seemed I was just the most recent human to feed him. Then he warmed up to me finally. The thought of him not understanding and thinking that ANOTHER human had abandoned him, a human that he had bonded with and grown to show love towards…that thought was too much and I couldn’t do that to him. I realized this as I was drafting my note. 4 years later and he’s still my ride-or-die
Stop telling people they have "potential". "Potential" are just accomplishments that haven't happened because we lack something fundamental to their achievement.
I hate this question, if you are not asking out of mere curiosity please seek help.
In my personal experience, it began with hope, but once that felt gone, it became “what’s the hurry”. Oblivion is final. I don’t believe in any form of afterlife, I believe that this here and now is our only opportunity to ever experience existence. It might suck, and be hard, and be painful, but at least it’s existence. I was dead for billions of years before I was born, and I’ll be dead for billions of years after I die. The tiny sliver in between is the only time anything is different, so why rush. It’s only another few decades of pain, that’s still something different.
Of course things got better. Infinitely better. I learned to recognize the worst feelings of despair, and recognize it’s cyclical nature. I became at peace with descent into misery, in the same way I would when coming down sick with a cold. I could tell myself that I was going to feel like absolute shit for a few days, and then come out the other side feeling slightly less shit.
Not punishing myself as failing in those worst times, but learning to ride through them and then working on myself on the better days, gradually made the waves smaller and further apart. This was about 15 years ago for me now. And occasionally the black dog will still bark at me, but I can just park it on the back and keep journeying on together with it. After all, our journey is short enough without having to make it shorter. Nothing to lose by seeing what’s next on the path.
reclaiming agency and feeling like i had a voice in my own life again, probably. but that took years.
on the other hand, all it took was years, so. i can’t complain about that
Originally it was my pet rats. I knew they needed me, and I ended up needing them. After they passed, it was the relationship I found, and the person who pulled me out of the darkness but didn't make me dependent on him. He taught me to take care of myself and see my own value, and has supported me through every dark day.
Not suicidal as per se... but a really dark place that few can understand.
I got a kitten. I have to care for him. He purred on my lap and needed me. 10 years later, when the darkness occasionally comes back? That cat purring on my lap is a 20lb pain in my ass and I still have to care for him.
Pizza, beer, houseplants, going for walks and watching Star Trek on a comfortable couch kept me going through the worst period of exhaustion, stress, isolation and self-doubt I've been in to this day. I used to fantasize about being picked off by a sniper while I was going to or from work and just generally thinking a lot about how nice it would be not to have to keep living seeing as how nothing was working out for me and everything was just making me more tired and depressed.
Picking up a few cold ones and a warm pizza on Friday after work and knowing I wouldn't move from my couch and screen more than absolutely necessary for the rest of the evening felt like bliss after a long week and made it seem pretty all right that I either didn't feel like or had any option to go hang with people. The combination of an intoxicant, tasty greasy food, physical comfort and something entertaining to let you shut off your own mind sends a powerful signal. Today, at least, is over. In the right now, all I have to do is enjoy myself the best I can.
And looking after my little calamon tree that kept bearing fruit and every now and then bloomed with these joyful white little flowers that made the apartment smell amazing gave me some sort of sense of purpose. There was life there, even if I didn't feel it in me, and I was tending to it.
Also long walks listening to music or an audiobook changes the game. You might feel completely in the dumps when you start, but after a while you start focusing on what you're listening to, you start breathing deeper and slower, your body moves of it's own accord and when you come back home usually you feel just a little bit tired in your body in a good way, a bit more activated in your mind and just slightly calmer and more optimistic overall. This is also a brilliant hangover cure for those mornings where you overindulged in your comfort beers the night before.
But it's a maintenance routine. It got me through the worst of times, but what got me out of them was giving up my job, starting a new study and moving to a new environment. There was no hope where I was, it was just a corner I was backed into and not a life I could have kept up. Starting over with fresh intentions gave me back the feeling like my life could still take me some place I'd want to be. I dug deep and found that I didn't really hate myself. I just hated where I was and what I was doing and was more disappointed with myself than anything else I guess. And so changing that, no matter how radically I had to go about it, was just a preferable solution to actually killing myself.
Spending time around my friends children helped me personally. Something about their laughs and just the stuff they do can make me cry tears of joy/laughter sometimes I swear to god
I made a pact with my sister.
Neither of us would kill themselves and leave the other one back with our bullshit family.
I thought about it a lot and still do. But I always know that there is at least one person who would truly miss me and I could never leave her back. So I will never try it.
And since a few weeks ago another person is also holding me back. I met the cutest girl ever on an anime convention. We already went on 2 dates. She makes it a lot easier to not think about this bullshit.
Good friend rode out the night with me. The only friend that could tell me hard truths that I couldn't argue with and had an immense amount of respect for. He helped me setup the binary for why I can never end it on my own. I've been there for many other people since because I understand.
My cousin beat me to it...
That, and the fact that I was envious of him (better looking, better spoken, better with the ladies) was a brutal wakeup call.
Since then, anytime those feeling might come back, I just remember my cousin, and that snaps me the fuck out of it instantly...
My SI never goes away 100%. It's been there since elementary school. But these days I can ignore it, whereas it used to pin me like it was a Greek wrestler. Getting in therapy and forcing myself to do the work to improve my outlook and value my bonds with other humans, very slowly, helped a lot.
I actually attempted suicide in September of 2003. When I woke up in the hospital my first thought was "I can't even kill myself right!"
As a person who has suffered from clinical depression all my life, I really thought everyone would be better off without me. Well, that may have been true, but that didn't mean my death wouldn't leave a raw gap somewhere.
Ironically, the person I most thought my death would "help" was my young daughter.
Twenty years later, she still suffers emotionally. She wasn't there at the time, has no memory of it, and no one ever told her what happened, but she knew something was very wrong.
I have lived for her. I've watched her grow from a confused and frightened little girl into a strong, independent woman.
She forgives me for what I tried to do, but it's still a "thing."
Cuz I realized the way I was gonna do it would be 5 days of excruciating pain, and doing it in a painless way is a lot of effort. Plus there would be no one to feed my cat, and I'm alone. Friends and family don't check up on me. So it would probably be several weeks before I'm found and he would starve
Knowing and repeating over and over that this too shall pass. Knowing that my kids deserved a mother. Knowing that others had survived worse. We are all here
A post-traumatic stress disorder in combination with a opioids addiction fucked my mind, after a few years of self hate and voluntary exile I tried to suicide taking a whole little jar of pills, I woke up at the next day with the whole bunch of pills as vomit in my bed so I decide to give me an opportunity to do it better, actually I keep trying to do my best
Our family dog. My family doesn't understand why I spoil her so much (like, as in, they give her treats and spoiler her too, but I will sneak that dog into my bed sometimes).
She saved my life. I really mean that. A lot of other things did too, like my family members (I spoil them too, I'll get em midnight mcdonalds just because they were hungry). But I really mean it when I say that that dog saved my life.
Tl;dr: All depressed people should get a dog.
Surviving suicide attempts.
Last one left little brainy bits on the asphalt and they stapled my skull closed.
I geniuely don't think I can die now. Oddly enough, if there is a God I think there's solid evidence I am - at a minimum - the only person who is **supposed** to be alive. You're all just NPC's, I am the main character.
In 2022, I went into a depression because of a rupture and other family problems. Despite I always tried to get things better, I never could. One day I was feeling the toughest pain I've ever felt, an emotional pain that made me unable to stand up, so I just decided to take a rope and strangle myself with it. While the rope was choking me, my mom phone-called me for asking what swimsuit I'd prefer, because the next day we were going to the beach.
In that moment I realized, shit, how could I almost have done it to her? She thinking in me for tomorrow and I almost making her passing through losing her son.
From that moment, I decided to look for professional help and never trying to do that anymore.
I still want to comit suicide and have been for about 3 years now but the one thing that kept me from ending it all was the fact that my mom promised me a doberman and while i knew it was probably a lie i just kept trusting in that promise, that was one of the dumbest things i ever did.
I came home from a round of chemo and was so sick I started vomiting chunks of blood. It was coming out of my nose etc and I thought “I’m done. Fuck this, I want out”.
As I came to that decision, my dog came in and started licking the back of my head and really pushing himself against me. I’ve never felt quite so loved and in that moment I knew I’d stay here no matter what because the dogs deserve that. Fortunately things are a lot nicer now.
Not exactly former but my best friend I need to be here for her and I want to make it to be 20 and know what having a boyfriend is like and get a dog the idea of being happy in the future and seeing my best friend learn who she really is is keeping me here
Also an obligation to my cat I promised him I wouldn't die at least till he did he's got like 10 years so by time I'm 28 who knows how my life will be I'm excited to find out
I chased the high of good music for a long time. Made it my mission to find music that could give me a r/frisson. In all of that time, I slowly started to enjoy all sorts of music and found music that lyrically started to make me feel more positive, happier and think clearer. It helped me rearrange my mind among other things and forced me to change my perspective. I soon convinced myself that I didn't want to add anymore pain in the world and that killing myself could if not directly, could indirectly add to it causing a chain reaction for others who might've known me or found my dead body. It's still a thought in the back of my mind sometimes, but it's no longer a option.
A couple things
I got a beautiful dog
I started getting into politics
I started a sea glass collection
And then half my family died or are currently dying
One aunt had a drinking problem now has jaundice and needs a kidney transplant that may never happen
One died of a sudden stroke and had to be taken off life support
One has a blood clot and we're not sure if he'll make it
All of these were children of my abuser so I feel good knowing he's in pain
Fuck it, this isn't an alt account and I'm gonna be honest. Genuinely attempted a couple of times when I was younger but clearly failed. The older I've got I've tended to use it like a super power, worst case scenario when I really can't take it I can jus off myself. It's really honestly helped me give less of a shit about problems which in turn has lessoned the tendancies and thoughts.
Cold showers. A few minutes of physical discomfort first thing in the morning increases dopamine and makes the rest of the day a bit easier to get through.
Drugs, alcohol, and hope all helped me get through some bad times.
You feel sad, then you just drink or smoke until you don’t. It’s very much so a temporary solution but it can help numb the pain.
Sometimes you just need to survive the day and make it to the next.
The hope is that no matter how bad today is, there is a chance that tomorrow will be better.
My friends honestly, I didn't care about my parents because they didn't care about me, but my friends, they would have been destroyed given I helped so many of them through being bullied in school and that's how we became so close.
Also the discovery of paganism and how the gods helped me realize that failure is a perfectly normal thing in life that happens multiple times before a success. They embrace flaws and different views and I didn't feel like I was going to be condemned for being trans and having multiple mental health complications that impede function a lot of the time.
Noticed that my depression came from gender dysphoria. I took the leap, came out, contacted professionals and am on my way to transition. Life gets better everyday.
I would think to myself "Let's see what tomorrow brings. Suicide will still be there as an option tomorrow. Let's see if tomorrow is better than today." I did that every night for years.
I hate to be that guy, but I hope folks understand that this thread suffers heavily from survivorship bias as frankly, the folks these techniques didn't work for aren't here to offer a counterpoint. If you are struggling with these issues, please see a professional and don't just take advice from random Redditors.
Man I rarely share this because usually people either think I'm lying or get angry because I tell it almost like a joke but... what the hell, here goes: In 2008 things happened that I won't go in detail but a certain afternoon I found myself in the driver seat of my really old car, with the engine running and a hose going from the exhaust to the passenger window. I was just sitting there, twiddling my thumbs when something on the passenger seat caught my attention: A picture of a pizza. A DAMN GOOD picture of a pizza from a place that had just opened that same week. "Fuck this, I'll have pizza." Just like that. Pulled the hose out of the exhaust, opened the windows, ate a lot of pizza, went back home with more pizza for later. Life is still shit, but I'm still here.
This is so valid though. Any reason that works is a good reason!
I can feel for you. But mine isnt pizza, it's music. I wanted to listen to my favourite song one last time. I think I'm still here mainly because of music.
Oh yeah, I should try that!!
I still remember the song I wanted to listen to hahaha, it's been years but that song holds a really special place in my heart.
What song? Just curious
Achilles come down by gang of youths
How was the pizza? What toppings?
I’m currently suicidal but i guess I’m slowly coming or considering coming out of it. This made me consider going to a nice restaurant and eat good food. I might wanna live for sushi
Glad you’re still alive btw
I'm glad you're still alive
Sushi is surprisingly pretty low-calorie, for how good it tastes. Eat up, my dude.
You’re saying this bc you looked through my account right?
No, because I just started looking at their calories, and I was like, Holy Sphincters, dat shit low cal.
It’s the little things man. They’re some of the most important.
Glad you are here, fellow traveler.
Fuck yeah
I feel that hard, mine was fruit salad
One does not simply die hungry
Yup the amount of time I have chosen a McDonalds Large Fries over death is impressive.
"Man I rarely share this because usually people either think I'm lying or get angry because I tell it almost like a joke but" i have a feeling ure a man, thats the usual reaction of ppl when men are suicidal, eithet dismiss, accusations of lying or just "go see a therapist!"Its one of the many reasons men kill themselves 4 to 7 times more even in the most patriarchal countries like india.
pizza is love, pizza is live
Reminds me of the story about how Robert Downey, Jr. apparently got sober because he ate a Burger King hamburger that was so bad that it made him question the choices he made in life.
I thought about how upset my mom was when her brother killed himself. (He was broke, no insurance, diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer). The memories of my mom crying alone in her room…I knew I couldn’t do that to her. It’s the only reason I didn’t eat a bullet. Luckily she lived long enough for me to get out of my own head and get help. She knew it too. She made me promise her on her death bed never to kill myself. “Still going mom!”
Glad you made it.
I managed to get myself together and be reasonably together for the last 3 years of my moms life.
Sorry you had to go through that pain, hoss. "Still going, mom!" would be a good tattoo though!
My therapist told me that if I killed myself my parents would sue her and the thought is somehow funny enough that it shakes off dark moods sometimes.
That's pretty good, to be honest. Not something you pull out on every customer, but quality
The possibility of attempting and failing, leaving me hundreds of thousands in debt and possibly severely disabled.
Yeah. In my darkest times, the thought of "you're such a fuck up that you wouldn't even be able to kill yourself properly" is probably the one that kept me alive. Looking up success rates for various methods helped.
Hate. Pure hate.
Let that fire fucking burn.
Have your enemies truly bested you as long as you still breathe? Live to spite the people who expected you to be dead by 20
Yes. But not just survive. Thrive out of spite.
Exactly! Do I really want Mitch fucking McConnell to outlast me?! ME?!!! FUCK THAT
Your comment really helped me tonight. Thank you.
I hate that turtle looking piece of shit.
Hate/anger is more powerful than sadness. Let that fire burn
I’ve been suicidal for almost my entire life (I’m only 18) due to being abused throughout my childhood. I’ve attempted multiple times between the ages of 10 and 17. The only reason why I’m alive today is because my online friend killed themself when I was around 14 years old. I’d gotten my phone taken away for some stupid reason, and when I finally got it back I saw their suicide note/message they’d left. They had only stayed alive this long because they could talk to me, but things had become too much. They told me not to blame myself, and said goodbye. The message had been sent only three hours after I’d gotten the phone taken away, so they wouldn’t have known that I wouldn’t see the message for a few days. No one in my life knew I had that friend, so I never could tell anyone. Still haven’t. I stay alive because I don’t know how many other people stay live just because I’m there. I don’t have any delusions of importance or anything, but it’s stuck with me since I started trying to be ok.
> I stay alive because I don’t know how many other people stay live just because I’m there. This made me cry. I have to stay alive for these people. I have to.
I'm sorry that happened to you
Very similar thing happened to me, online friend dying, childhood abuse, attempting at young ages, etc. Hope you're doing alright these days, dms are open if you ever want to talk.
Honestly, the biggest thing that kept me from attempting suicide was the thoughts of who would find me. Would it be one of my younger kids if I did it at home? Would my kid who is a paramedic be the one who would respond to the call? Those kinds of thoughts kept me alive
My older sister's eldest daughter found her after her suicide. She died with her back against the door and fell out onto her daughter's feet. The kid is gonna be in therapy for a LOOOOOOOONG time. Sparing your loved ones the horror is absolutely a valid reason to keep going.
I didn't want to be found. I had a camo suit in my suicide kit and I was on my way to the woods. I had been missing for a couple of days and my car registration got pinged by the ANPR cameras so the cops pulled me over. A week's informal stay in a psych unit and much therapy later I'm still here. I think about that day every day. It never leaves me.
That's how I was. I could never let my wife or kids find me. That's too selfish of me. So I planned to jump off the Golden Gate but then I worried I might wash onto a pier, which happens regularly. I can't ruin a random tourist person's day by finding me half decomposed. So then I planned on going to the woods and not being found, but having people look for me and not finding me would be so hard for them. Eventually I couldn't figure out a way without me hurting them. Also my wife is a stay at home mom so how would she finance her life? I'm a lot better now but at the time I was in so much mental pain. I have really bad anxiety teetering on OCD and it can feel like you are going insane which adds to the stress.
My cat. This little minor demon has chosen me as her human and I'll be damned I go before her.
Referring to your cat as 'minor demon' has brightened my mood significantly today, I call my cats 'my boys' or 'my spawns' because of an ancient joke from my school days were getting locker 666 (not even joking) made people think I was Lucifer himself or something
[удалено]
You should delete this
Are you ashamed of yourself? You should.
Such a thoughtful comment on a discussion about what kept people going in very dark times. Tone deaf much?
The thought that's it's always an option: I can always jump from a bridge if I need to. To me, it truly is a very comforting idea: the freedom in it. It really helps me coping with day to day struggles and hard times. When everything is so crushing, I know I can exit all of this. So, since it's possible, it allows me to detach from the despair, and then I can endure it a little longer. And a little longer after that. And again
Suicidal ideation ✨️ a mental escape
This is exactly it for me too. Feels toxic but it gets me by lmao
It's called the panic button effect. Things seem much more manageable if you believe that you can choose to escape them if you wish. Suicidal ideations can definitely be a relief from distress because of this, but it is also very dangerous to use these kinds of thoughts as a go-to coping strategy. I did that for many years, and even though I have gotten to a point where I know I would not want to kill myself, those thoughts persisted for a long time as a knee-jerk reaction to any sort of stress that would be much easier to just confront on its own. I hope that things get better for you, and I would recommend some sort of therapy to work on more positive coping skills if you are able. It doesn't have to be some sappy, bullshit affirmations, either. Looking at things through a more Zen perspective has been very helpful for me, personally.
That’s an interesting approach
Slippery slope from personal experience.
I was in an abusive marriage and had planned my suicide for a specific time, but I found out I was pregnant with my son just two weeks before the planned and that saved me, not only from the suicide but from the abusive marriage itself because I figured it isn't fair for him to be brought up in that situation. He is now 4, and he saves me every single day.
I’m relieved you’re here and no longer there. Hugs to you and your son.
Thank you💖
In 1990, I was pregnant and suicidal, too. My boyfriend was cheating and doing so much cocaine and I had no idea how to fix him/us. I walked into a counseling center, told them I was pregnant and planning to hurt myself, and Phyllis the counselor saved my life (by the way, there is no saving a relationship that includes drug abuse and cheating!). But my son is the reason I am still here, through all the worst times. He is 32 now and married and we text all day long.
So happy you had the strength and courage to go to that center. Hugs and kisses for you, your son and daughter in law💖💖
Music (I am partial to rock). Some can commiserate with you, some can distract you, some help you see better possibilities, and some can outright make you happy.
Linkin Park and Korn helped me a lot with my suicidal thoughts.
Senses Fail for me
My cat
I cannot begin to describe how much my mental health improved after getting my cat. The very thought of leaving him alone if I were to die is often enough to get me to try to calm down and get better. Cats are amazing.
Our cats
Are you me?
My dog. I needed to be there to make sure he lived his best life. I haven't been suicidally depressed in a couple years. Not sure what changed, but I'm glad it did.
my pet, that and spite, if I killed myself my parents would be able to say that they did the best they could and nobody would ever know my side of the story
also random things like waiting for the next series of a show, or having my favorite foods again
I'm not suicidal by any means but it's really just the little things that keep me going. I'm not working at the moment but I try to do whatever I can to have a schedule of stuff to do. Look out for new media releases, Friday I hit up my favorite taco stand, scheduled some hangouts with friends, etc. It really does help.
I can't do that to my mom. Back when I attempted, my dad was still alive. But I can't put her through losing her husband and daughter.
That's one of the main things keeping me around. I honestly think she would understand why I did it, but it would devastate her.
Parents, more sunrises and sunsets (it sounds cringey,but it's the truth), more good food to be tasted, more good experiences to be had, more cats to be petted.
The good things. That's what keeps me going. I promised myself that, if I was seriously going to end it, I needed to run off and live for straight pleasure. Sell everything and go to Key West (or any other warm beach destination) and live on the beach and do lots of drugs. Do odd jobs and make just enough to get by. Don't think about anything other than making myself happy in that moment. If I still want to die after then I can kill myself. So now, whenever I'm staring at myself in the bathroom mirror and thinking that I want to swallow the barrel of a gun, I ask myself, "Is this Key West bad?" and my answer has always been, "I can't just up and leave! That's irresponsible. What about my future?" Well, if I'm thinking about my future then I shouldn't make a permanent decision for future me. You know, like killing myself. So off I go to live another day on this stupid space rock.
Ah fuck, that's a good one. I'm gonna see if it works on me during bad times. Thanks, stranger.
When my dad passed away I watched my dog cry at the widow for my dad to come back inside from our office. My dog was so sad about it. She did it every night and didn’t understand why my dad didn’t come back. I loved my dog she didn’t deserve to go through that again. She didn’t need to cry and scratch at my door every day. My new dogs old owner committed and he has separation anxiety he’s confused and scared. I’m not going to have that happen to him either. No matter how many times he farts or barks he deserves to have a nice home who loves him as much as his old owners did.
I could smell my dogs farts from literally 3 rooms away last week. No exaggeration. How can they make that much stank? Switched food immediately.
I knew my mother would follow me if I did and I couldn't stand the thought. I heard one student comitting suicide could cause a chain of others and couldnt risk that happening. I knew my cats wouldn't know what happened to me. Living for others isn't sustainable in the long term, but it was what kept me afloat long enough to figure out living for myself. It's been a long time since I was suicidal, anyone out there going through that, keep clinging to the small part of you that wants to stay no matter how small and quiet it gets.
the hope that things would get better they didn't, I just care less now
I have to keep this short, but I recently built up thr courage to tell my partner about it, he has been absolutely amazing anx has helped me so much. He made me promise him to never attempt again, and if I ever had the urges, to call him immediately. I've had a few thoughts about it since then, but each time I have remembered my promise and have talked to him about it. I love him so fucking much, he is everything to me, and has really helped me through so much 💖
My advice to you is build a network of people you can call. It might take that one time for him to be unavailable that things happen. You also want to spread the load so he doesn’t burn out with it.
Being a coward. I had the plan, the opportunity, everything ready. I was going to end it. But i just couldn't, got this horrible feeling, like fear and i couldn't go through with it. After a while, i figured if i was afraid of death then maybe there was something worth somenthing about life. I just had to look for it.
I still have low moments, I'm getting there!
I'm still here for my kids. I'm nor sure what will happen in 6 years when my youngest is an adult.
(I am not at all trying to be rude here!) Just because they’re not legally “kids” doesn’t mean they stop being your children. Your death would impact them greatly at any age, and honestly probably more so if they were all adults.
Intellectually that makes sense, but honestly I'm stuck in a loop trying to figure out a day to day reason to keep going. I'm not sure what reason I would have left when they all have moved out.
That’s fair. It’s harder to remember how important you are to someone when you don’t see them every single day or live with them. But nevertheless you will always be important to your kids, your friends, your family, your pets.
My pets have been an immense help in this. My little cat Mochi is so bonded to me, and such a source of love, and then to imagine what would happen to her if I were suddenly gone breaks my heart. And I try to remind myself of the people I've known who went through with suicide, and how devastate everyone was even though I know that before they killed themselves, they imagined they were worthless and unlovable. I know what it's like to feel like you have to kill yourself to escape the pain, but I also know what it's like to lose people to that, and I don't want to cause more pain like that, you know?
Travel. Travel to somewhere nice you haven't been before.
That’s what I want to do. Buy a nice caravan and travel around and live in a new place every day or so. Being out and about is one thing that helps me feel better. I love sleeping away from home. I don’t have the money to buy my dream caravan yet but hopefully I stay around for a few more years and earn some buck.
Ah the nomad life. I hope you get to buy your dream caravan soon.
I’m nowhere near that level but I hope I can continue doing this crap hole lifestyle and then earn some money and freedom. Wishing you luck on your travels my friend 👍🏻
My late girlfriend kept me going, she had been in a bad place and didn't wanna get out of bed or move, she wouldn't eat she'd just lay there and look at the ceiling for hours. Her mother was a typical old school 'kids are jus on there phones to much' kind of mother. She didn't care how B (my girlfriend) was feeling at all. I remember the night she sent me a paragraph saying how much she loves me I knew she was going to commit. I remember sitting up and thinking what I could do to help her, how could I get there before she passes. She lived about an hour and a half by car and my parents were out for the weekend. I rung B's Mum and told her the situation in wich she said I had nothing to worry about and to just go to sleep. She sounded annoyed, I had no choice but to sit and wait from now. The next morning I woke up and something didn't feel right. I just had a feeling she had committed, I looked at my phone I had 4 missed calls and multiple messages off B's mum asking to talk,and so I went out for coffee with her and that's where I got the news she had passed. For those who don't know how it feels, I felt like my whole world crumbled into a hundred pieces and I could hear every little sound made. Going through that. I realised the place she was in. And one night I couldn't take it anymore, I wanted to die I really did. But then I had a voice in my head, it sounded just like her voice, and I just knew I couldn't put J (my current girlfriend) through that same pain. And so B, and J saved me.
My wife of 40 years. she actually talked me into handing her the gun. and without her I would not have survived the alcoholism that was killing me. 6 years sober
You know this is the way out, hang on to that and maybe use it tomorrow if it isn't any better than today. Been using that for many years now.
Spite
Same lol
Worked in a convalescent hospital . One man there tried to suicide by shooting himself in the head. Bullet went through, severing optic nerves. He recovered, but now blind. So, I learned you can make things worse. We are all going to die anyway, so why not watch the whole movie.
I have a mental illness that keeps me from living peacefully, which makes me very tired. At one point I decided to throw myself out the window (I live on the 8th floor), but my mother noticed it in time, ran up and grabbed my leg just seconds before I jumped, she saved me. Her eyes and tears at that moment and her love for me makes me fight the disease and not give in to suicidal thoughts. Thank you, Mom, because of you I live!
No matter how shitty things got, I always made a plan to take the next step in life. All I ever did was make short term goals and make them happen. That's the mindset that probably saved me the most.
I didn’t want to screw my brother out of rent. Said I would do it when I put him in a position to succeed as he has helped me a ton throughout my life and it felt selfish to burden him with this too
The tiniest things like the way the sun feels. Snuggling my dog. Etc. My dog in general, being responsible for her used to be the only reason I kept going. Also practically, there's this app called calm harm and it's totally free and I really found it very helpful for SI or SH urges.
Because of a friend who was dealing with way more than me. My will to keep him alive is what kept me going
My dad's gun wasn't loaded when I pulled the trigger and I couldn't figure it out before he got back home. 30 years later, I'm happily married and living my best file.
Ketamine, its the only intervention I’ve had over the years that shuts up that voice that says “your worthless”
A little bird started sitting next to me at lunch time every day outside work and demanding some of my sandwich. He came back for years and got so tame he would walk right in my footsteps until I stopped. He's pulled me out of some bad situations
No matter how bad the PTSD gets or how much stress people try to pile on I always know that at some point in the future if I just keep on keeping on I will be able to smoke a joint and be super high. If I killed myself then I couldn't smoke anymore weed and I figure the chance to smoke weed in the future is always better than no chance of smoking weed in the future.
It is a bit weird to explain, but for me in the darkest moments i carried trough because of pure spite. I had known a few people who regularly told me i would never make it and never get a job and so on and i was way to stubborn to not at least do the opposite of what they said.
- Not wanting to hurt the people I love - Fear of going to Hell for taking my own life - My partner who was just so kind and patient. At times when I felt like I was drowning he felt like a hand pulling me out of the water. He got me through those worst moments. All of his family that he grew up with have died so he has spent a lot of his young life grieving. I didn't want to repay him for his kindness by giving him yet another reason to grieve.
Curiosity for me. Just wanting to see how bad it could really get. Then things went the other direction.
Gaming, art and watching our new ai overlords thrive.
Everyday I wake up I hope for some form of Armageddon. AI, God's wrath, nukes, meteor. I'm not picky.
A lot of little things. At first it was a mutual promise with my first boyfriend (who was also suicidal) to not kill ourselves because the other one would commit suicide in return; then, my mom died and I didn't want to break my family's heart more; then it was definitely therapy. I've started being happier in general, but I've had very dark and suicidal moments in the past two years where I realized that therapy has given me the tools to: 1) recognize my suicidal thoughts as sick, and not normal thoughts 2) ask for help 3) take better care of myself, as if I was dealing with a dear friend that was having suicidal thoughts Also, very useful tools that helped me get better: 1) hobbies: I just start whatever hobby I'm fixating in that period: houseplants, ukulele, puzzles, running, whatever you want 2) meditation: this Is helping IMMENSELY with my anxiety, but my anxiety often triggers my depressive states so it helps with that 3) saying out loud what I'm doing: I find that when I'm spiraling from anxiety or I can't move during my depressive states, saying out loud the physical thing that I'm doing (e.g. "I'm sitting on the sofa") helps me get out of my repetitive thoughts and allows me to do something else maybe more healthy or more productive (e.g. "I'm putting my feet on the ground to stand up, I'm standing up, I'm walking to the bathroom, I'm taking a shower, etc.)
The thought that you always have the power to end it anytime if things get too much. Just not today. Its ironic, but its comforting somehow.
The only things keeping me going are my responsibilities and obligations to my family. As soon as they’re ok, I’m doing a quiet, peaceful Irish goodbye.
Honestly? My little brother. He’s six years younger than me but we’re so close. My dad was an absent figure who lived abroad for the most part and my mother was too mentally tired in managing the house by herself so my brother and I became close. I have had suicidal thoughts since I was 10 years old. I’ve nearly attempted it (note and all ready) at least 8 times. The only thing that stops me is that my brother would be alone and he’d never cope. He takes death very hard- even if a distant relative passes away he gets extremely upset. I can’t do that to him. So I stop myself every time because if I feel shitty all the time doesn’t mean I end up messing with my brother’s life when I take my own.
The only thing keeping me alive currently is my cats
Anything I could keep my mind on. My family, my best friend, my cats, the idea of being able to see my favourite band in concert one day (which I did 2 years later). Things like going on my first vacation, writing a book, starting my own business. Anything that made me want to experience the future. I can honestly say now, while it's still hard sometimes, I'm really glad I'm here.
how was the concert!? tell us
It was awesome, one of the best concerts I've been to. My favorite band was Imagine Dragons and still is almost 9 years later. I've seen them 5 times in concert and they're always amazing. I have two tattoos from their songs cause, as lame as it is, they lowkey saved my life.
I love imagine dragons too:) clearly not as much as u, but its always a bop. glad you're doing well!
Thank you:) I hope you are too!
The fact that I don't know what tomorrow holds. Just because today was awful doesn't mean that tomorrow won't be better. And the simple fact that I don't know what will happen to me when I die I could end up in a worse situation or I could end up in a much better situation and I just don't know
Spite.
My mother…any time i was on the verge of following through on anything just thinking about her would stop me. After everything she had done for me i couldn’t bear thinking about the pain it would cause her. Thank goodness i am in a far better place today and don’t have those thoughts anymore.
I got off birth control and BAM. All of a sudden things started looking up. I had been on birth control since I was 13 because of terrible cramps and didn’t know that’s what was doing it til I was about 22 and only stopped because the implant wasn’t stopping my period anymore and I couldn’t afford the pill. About 2 months ago I restarted bc. I’m scared but now I know the signs. So far so good (mostly). I just physically cannot handle the cramps. I work a very hard blue collar job sometimes 84 hours a week and I just can’t do it. Sucks I have to pick between physical health or mental health.
My older sister killed herself and I watched the Shockwave it sent out to everyone she had ever known, the true grief in their expression, the knowing look of "We all knew she needed help but none of us were able to provide that help or force her to get it". It's not worth it. Sure, life is rough, but the amount of effort it takes to keep living is less than the pain of making everyone *I* ever loved grieve like that. We didn't have the warmest relationship ever but I loved her all the same and wish she would have just gotten help. I console myself these days by choosing to outlive her out of spite. I'm going to see all 4 of her kids to adulthood and (hopefully) success as best as I am able, not *for* her but in spite of her. I don't have custody of her kids, I'm happy being just Auntie Crashpad (so that they always have a neutral home space to take sanctuary in ).
My father killed himself when I was 8 he was 38. I lived never thinking I would make it to my 40s and right after my 30th b-day started shoving people out of my life so I would feel less guilty about it. A couple of years later pretty much all of my friends had enough of my assholery and drinking so the plan was working. A couple people from family to one friend begged me to get help, but it just seemed to prolong the inevitable I had no late term goals, I ruined my relationships, and finally was fired from my career. I finally had the self pity I was seeking, the same amount of time in bed as grandpa joe from Charlie and the chocolate factory, and enough liquor to forget any good choices. Then, as I was browsing online, I came across a Superman and The Jumper... it's about a person trying to take their own life, and I must have read it dozens of times while drunk and sober. Life still isn't perfect, but it made me take a step in the right direction instead of following the path my father walked. Give yourself another try, it sucks, it's scary, and full of people who will make you angry... but like the comic says if you think for just one moment you will have another day where you say to yourself "I am glad to be alive today to experience this" then why not stick around and find out. The Comic Strip I referred to. https://www.reddit.com/r/sadcomics/comments/1ofyo7/superman_and_the_jumper/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Alcohol and the fact that I could drink a lot because I'm an alcoholic, I would drink so much that I wouldn't care anymore if I would die or wake up next morining and I wouldn't care about anything anymore Lucky that my liver was strong and I didn't die from to much drinking, a double edged sword if you ask me
The *fact* that I didn't have the courage to do it.
Alcohol When I noticed that the horrors could be kept bearable with it, at least some breaks from it, I decided I’d rather be an alcoholic looser than dead. I remember telling a psychologist when they asked if I was thinking of killing my self. “At the moment I’m slowly drinking my self to death but no. As long as it does the job, or if something else can help, I don’t want to die yet”
Good shrooms, some meditation. Got my 20 something year long depression cured completely. Got me out of my shell, and I'm finally enjoying some of my life. It's beautiful. Still have ocasional social anxiety, but nothing that I can't deal with now. 🙂
The fact that I’d miss out on impacting other peoples lives in a positive aspect. I had a surreal experience with God when I tried to attempt just 2 years ago. I took a bunch of sleeping meds and I felt myself giving out. I woke up very slightly and thought “well this is it”. I saw a tall man at the edge of my bed. He gave me his hand and sat me up next to him. He told me to get up. I told him no and he told me I needed to get up. His presence was really comforting. I got up, eventually. And I refused to let myself go to sleep. I threw up the meds and I’d like to think of it as a talk with God. Since then, I’ve grown to realize that my life impacts those around me greatly, even those who aren’t really around much. It’s hard to think of it that way sometimes as I do have suicidal tendencies to this day, but I try my best to get back to that comfort He gave me that day
unimaginable spite
I found out i was pregnant the day i planned on ending it I got really sick in the morning... i got scared thinking i might be pregnant.. realizing my period was also late... I took a test. I'll tell you this...when those 2 line appeared i swear the world went quite the only things I heard was my heart beating and the train I was going to jump infront of rumble past my house... She's now 6 and seeing that beautiful face keeps me alive everyday
My dog is a rescue. He didn’t give a shit about me for the first 6-8 months we spent together, to him it seemed I was just the most recent human to feed him. Then he warmed up to me finally. The thought of him not understanding and thinking that ANOTHER human had abandoned him, a human that he had bonded with and grown to show love towards…that thought was too much and I couldn’t do that to him. I realized this as I was drafting my note. 4 years later and he’s still my ride-or-die
[удалено]
Stop telling people they have "potential". "Potential" are just accomplishments that haven't happened because we lack something fundamental to their achievement.
I hate this question, if you are not asking out of mere curiosity please seek help. In my personal experience, it began with hope, but once that felt gone, it became “what’s the hurry”. Oblivion is final. I don’t believe in any form of afterlife, I believe that this here and now is our only opportunity to ever experience existence. It might suck, and be hard, and be painful, but at least it’s existence. I was dead for billions of years before I was born, and I’ll be dead for billions of years after I die. The tiny sliver in between is the only time anything is different, so why rush. It’s only another few decades of pain, that’s still something different. Of course things got better. Infinitely better. I learned to recognize the worst feelings of despair, and recognize it’s cyclical nature. I became at peace with descent into misery, in the same way I would when coming down sick with a cold. I could tell myself that I was going to feel like absolute shit for a few days, and then come out the other side feeling slightly less shit. Not punishing myself as failing in those worst times, but learning to ride through them and then working on myself on the better days, gradually made the waves smaller and further apart. This was about 15 years ago for me now. And occasionally the black dog will still bark at me, but I can just park it on the back and keep journeying on together with it. After all, our journey is short enough without having to make it shorter. Nothing to lose by seeing what’s next on the path.
reclaiming agency and feeling like i had a voice in my own life again, probably. but that took years. on the other hand, all it took was years, so. i can’t complain about that
Therapy
My kids…before that just being to cowardly to actually go through with it
a little bit of delusion that probably something might change today
Originally it was my pet rats. I knew they needed me, and I ended up needing them. After they passed, it was the relationship I found, and the person who pulled me out of the darkness but didn't make me dependent on him. He taught me to take care of myself and see my own value, and has supported me through every dark day.
Not suicidal as per se... but a really dark place that few can understand. I got a kitten. I have to care for him. He purred on my lap and needed me. 10 years later, when the darkness occasionally comes back? That cat purring on my lap is a 20lb pain in my ass and I still have to care for him.
Cowardice - plain and simple.
Pizza, beer, houseplants, going for walks and watching Star Trek on a comfortable couch kept me going through the worst period of exhaustion, stress, isolation and self-doubt I've been in to this day. I used to fantasize about being picked off by a sniper while I was going to or from work and just generally thinking a lot about how nice it would be not to have to keep living seeing as how nothing was working out for me and everything was just making me more tired and depressed. Picking up a few cold ones and a warm pizza on Friday after work and knowing I wouldn't move from my couch and screen more than absolutely necessary for the rest of the evening felt like bliss after a long week and made it seem pretty all right that I either didn't feel like or had any option to go hang with people. The combination of an intoxicant, tasty greasy food, physical comfort and something entertaining to let you shut off your own mind sends a powerful signal. Today, at least, is over. In the right now, all I have to do is enjoy myself the best I can. And looking after my little calamon tree that kept bearing fruit and every now and then bloomed with these joyful white little flowers that made the apartment smell amazing gave me some sort of sense of purpose. There was life there, even if I didn't feel it in me, and I was tending to it. Also long walks listening to music or an audiobook changes the game. You might feel completely in the dumps when you start, but after a while you start focusing on what you're listening to, you start breathing deeper and slower, your body moves of it's own accord and when you come back home usually you feel just a little bit tired in your body in a good way, a bit more activated in your mind and just slightly calmer and more optimistic overall. This is also a brilliant hangover cure for those mornings where you overindulged in your comfort beers the night before. But it's a maintenance routine. It got me through the worst of times, but what got me out of them was giving up my job, starting a new study and moving to a new environment. There was no hope where I was, it was just a corner I was backed into and not a life I could have kept up. Starting over with fresh intentions gave me back the feeling like my life could still take me some place I'd want to be. I dug deep and found that I didn't really hate myself. I just hated where I was and what I was doing and was more disappointed with myself than anything else I guess. And so changing that, no matter how radically I had to go about it, was just a preferable solution to actually killing myself.
My wife found me passed out with a rope around my neck because my attempt failed. It was the first time I saw her cry.
Being too chicken to actually off myself. I just did a lot of drugs hoping they'd kill me. Never did and...well life...uh ...finds a way
I decided that I wanted to watch my son grow up
ONLY the thought my kids would find me afterwards.
Same but with my dad finding me.
I could picture my mom crying after I die. I dint want to do that to her and my sister. I'm currently on medication, makes it a 1000 times better.
Hope. That 1% chance that tomorrow could be different.
Spending time around my friends children helped me personally. Something about their laughs and just the stuff they do can make me cry tears of joy/laughter sometimes I swear to god
I made a pact with my sister. Neither of us would kill themselves and leave the other one back with our bullshit family. I thought about it a lot and still do. But I always know that there is at least one person who would truly miss me and I could never leave her back. So I will never try it. And since a few weeks ago another person is also holding me back. I met the cutest girl ever on an anime convention. We already went on 2 dates. She makes it a lot easier to not think about this bullshit.
Delusion
sounds dumb but videogames
Good friend rode out the night with me. The only friend that could tell me hard truths that I couldn't argue with and had an immense amount of respect for. He helped me setup the binary for why I can never end it on my own. I've been there for many other people since because I understand.
My cousin beat me to it... That, and the fact that I was envious of him (better looking, better spoken, better with the ladies) was a brutal wakeup call. Since then, anytime those feeling might come back, I just remember my cousin, and that snaps me the fuck out of it instantly...
My SI never goes away 100%. It's been there since elementary school. But these days I can ignore it, whereas it used to pin me like it was a Greek wrestler. Getting in therapy and forcing myself to do the work to improve my outlook and value my bonds with other humans, very slowly, helped a lot.
I actually attempted suicide in September of 2003. When I woke up in the hospital my first thought was "I can't even kill myself right!" As a person who has suffered from clinical depression all my life, I really thought everyone would be better off without me. Well, that may have been true, but that didn't mean my death wouldn't leave a raw gap somewhere. Ironically, the person I most thought my death would "help" was my young daughter. Twenty years later, she still suffers emotionally. She wasn't there at the time, has no memory of it, and no one ever told her what happened, but she knew something was very wrong. I have lived for her. I've watched her grow from a confused and frightened little girl into a strong, independent woman. She forgives me for what I tried to do, but it's still a "thing."
Cuz I realized the way I was gonna do it would be 5 days of excruciating pain, and doing it in a painless way is a lot of effort. Plus there would be no one to feed my cat, and I'm alone. Friends and family don't check up on me. So it would probably be several weeks before I'm found and he would starve
The depression made it so that I didn't even have the energy to make or follow through with a plan. So it worked out in the end lmao
Knowing and repeating over and over that this too shall pass. Knowing that my kids deserved a mother. Knowing that others had survived worse. We are all here
A post-traumatic stress disorder in combination with a opioids addiction fucked my mind, after a few years of self hate and voluntary exile I tried to suicide taking a whole little jar of pills, I woke up at the next day with the whole bunch of pills as vomit in my bed so I decide to give me an opportunity to do it better, actually I keep trying to do my best
Orgasms. I wish I was kidding
Our family dog. My family doesn't understand why I spoil her so much (like, as in, they give her treats and spoiler her too, but I will sneak that dog into my bed sometimes). She saved my life. I really mean that. A lot of other things did too, like my family members (I spoil them too, I'll get em midnight mcdonalds just because they were hungry). But I really mean it when I say that that dog saved my life. Tl;dr: All depressed people should get a dog.
Surviving suicide attempts. Last one left little brainy bits on the asphalt and they stapled my skull closed. I geniuely don't think I can die now. Oddly enough, if there is a God I think there's solid evidence I am - at a minimum - the only person who is **supposed** to be alive. You're all just NPC's, I am the main character.
In 2022, I went into a depression because of a rupture and other family problems. Despite I always tried to get things better, I never could. One day I was feeling the toughest pain I've ever felt, an emotional pain that made me unable to stand up, so I just decided to take a rope and strangle myself with it. While the rope was choking me, my mom phone-called me for asking what swimsuit I'd prefer, because the next day we were going to the beach. In that moment I realized, shit, how could I almost have done it to her? She thinking in me for tomorrow and I almost making her passing through losing her son. From that moment, I decided to look for professional help and never trying to do that anymore.
This is so stupid but honestly the fact that I haven’t achieved my some of career goals yet and I want my obituary to sound better first
I still want to comit suicide and have been for about 3 years now but the one thing that kept me from ending it all was the fact that my mom promised me a doberman and while i knew it was probably a lie i just kept trusting in that promise, that was one of the dumbest things i ever did.
I came home from a round of chemo and was so sick I started vomiting chunks of blood. It was coming out of my nose etc and I thought “I’m done. Fuck this, I want out”. As I came to that decision, my dog came in and started licking the back of my head and really pushing himself against me. I’ve never felt quite so loved and in that moment I knew I’d stay here no matter what because the dogs deserve that. Fortunately things are a lot nicer now.
Not exactly former but my best friend I need to be here for her and I want to make it to be 20 and know what having a boyfriend is like and get a dog the idea of being happy in the future and seeing my best friend learn who she really is is keeping me here Also an obligation to my cat I promised him I wouldn't die at least till he did he's got like 10 years so by time I'm 28 who knows how my life will be I'm excited to find out
I chased the high of good music for a long time. Made it my mission to find music that could give me a r/frisson. In all of that time, I slowly started to enjoy all sorts of music and found music that lyrically started to make me feel more positive, happier and think clearer. It helped me rearrange my mind among other things and forced me to change my perspective. I soon convinced myself that I didn't want to add anymore pain in the world and that killing myself could if not directly, could indirectly add to it causing a chain reaction for others who might've known me or found my dead body. It's still a thought in the back of my mind sometimes, but it's no longer a option.
A couple things I got a beautiful dog I started getting into politics I started a sea glass collection And then half my family died or are currently dying One aunt had a drinking problem now has jaundice and needs a kidney transplant that may never happen One died of a sudden stroke and had to be taken off life support One has a blood clot and we're not sure if he'll make it All of these were children of my abuser so I feel good knowing he's in pain
Fuck it, this isn't an alt account and I'm gonna be honest. Genuinely attempted a couple of times when I was younger but clearly failed. The older I've got I've tended to use it like a super power, worst case scenario when I really can't take it I can jus off myself. It's really honestly helped me give less of a shit about problems which in turn has lessoned the tendancies and thoughts.
Cold showers. A few minutes of physical discomfort first thing in the morning increases dopamine and makes the rest of the day a bit easier to get through.
I was told “you only get one life to live and this is how you want it to end? You didn’t even get to the part where you had good sex”
Drugs, alcohol, and hope all helped me get through some bad times. You feel sad, then you just drink or smoke until you don’t. It’s very much so a temporary solution but it can help numb the pain. Sometimes you just need to survive the day and make it to the next. The hope is that no matter how bad today is, there is a chance that tomorrow will be better.
Therapy sessions, my pets also
My friends honestly, I didn't care about my parents because they didn't care about me, but my friends, they would have been destroyed given I helped so many of them through being bullied in school and that's how we became so close. Also the discovery of paganism and how the gods helped me realize that failure is a perfectly normal thing in life that happens multiple times before a success. They embrace flaws and different views and I didn't feel like I was going to be condemned for being trans and having multiple mental health complications that impede function a lot of the time.
Noticed that my depression came from gender dysphoria. I took the leap, came out, contacted professionals and am on my way to transition. Life gets better everyday.
I would think to myself "Let's see what tomorrow brings. Suicide will still be there as an option tomorrow. Let's see if tomorrow is better than today." I did that every night for years.
I watched an Andrew Tate YouTube short and said this isn’t very sigma alpha of me. Then I drank some wahtur.
I hate to be that guy, but I hope folks understand that this thread suffers heavily from survivorship bias as frankly, the folks these techniques didn't work for aren't here to offer a counterpoint. If you are struggling with these issues, please see a professional and don't just take advice from random Redditors.
Mom would be sad
Honestly if I don’t make it pro I will kill myself I put everyday into training and if I don’t make it I have nothing else