...you tried. And you meant well. It's more then I can say for some of the people in my life.
For what it is worth, you were approaching me as if I were a problem to be solved, and it's a fine approach. But what often ends up happening is that it's incredibly easy to see only the suicide, and then forget that there's person there. Or that there's a single fell swoop that will set someone on back on the path. Sometimes it's like that but it's really hard to tell, even in person when you can read their face and body language, hear the tone in their voice. Never mind trying to piece it together from a block of text.
If you ever run into someone like me again in your life, maybe... speak a little less. And listen a little more. Don't ask yourself what you can do to fix it. Maybe instead, try asking them why. Or what is they want. Maybe they can answer, maybe they won't because they don't know or don't want to know. Maybe their problems are imagined, maybe not. Maybe the the reasons makes sense to you, maybe it won't. But I'd be willing to bet, to the person that's in the middle of it, that it's all as real as you are to yourself. And until you acknowledge that, you're going to have a bully of a time trying to connect with them.
Can't promise it will make it ever go better or that it's good advice; it's just my own thoughts on the matter.
......... and if it means anything; What this is has been central for my whole life; always there in a quiet moment. In every single night in bed before I fall asleep in bed, and there again first thing when I wake up. And always there in each quiet moment I have truly to myself. Some doctors tried prescribing different doses of anti depressants but they did little, and I knew better then to tell them what I was really thinking. Gave up after a while and ultimately it was just something I just accepted as just who I am. And for almost 10 years it was fine, it was there and then grew quiet as I got into whatever disaster or deadline that was next looming.
I honestly expected no difference between 200 to 240 hours a month focused and 160 but it seems I was wrong... and I don't know why. Or what might have changed. I'm not even sure if that was the key point. Even before the hours change there were moments in the last year where I stared over the edge of a stairwell or car park or looked into the path of an oncoming train and seriously contemplated jumping for a good 30 minutes. And honestly until now I had forgotten those moments had occurred...
You couldn't have possibly known any of that. I suspect you might've changed your approach if you did. But it took a week of you persisting, and me being slightly drunk tonight to admit this much. So don't apologize. As far as I can see, there's nothing for you to be sorry here for.
>Oh, sure. If you mean donating blood, then by all means that's great. I thought you were talking about donating a kidney or part of your liver or something that could decrease your potential to live a long and able life and which wouldn't make much difference if you donate now or later.
I was talking about organs. Kidney, liver, and at least one lung lobe, possible more then one; they're all eligible for living donation it is something that they will not let you do on a whim; interviews, psychological evaluations. I didn't try to; I might have been able to muddle my way through and tell them what they wanted to but it would've also drawn unwanted attention to myself. And that's a risk I wasn't willing to take.
Blood donation is mindlessly trivial to accomplish, all you really do is fill a questionnaire and then just lie there with a needle in your arm for an even shorter period of time. And then you get cookies.
Amusingly I did consider suicide in a hospital. Walk in the door with an organ donor card and a gun, sign it in front of the receptionist and end it with a bullet through my head let them hook up my brain dead self on a ventilator. Silly unworkable idea of course... doubt many people would react particularly well to seeing that. Not least of which the receptionist.
>I don't see how it became a trolley question. That's about valuing the lives of others relative to themselves. It's not about valuing the life of oneself relative to others. It's only in very few and exceptional circumstances where anyone would argue against always valuing their own lives above others', and even then it's always a valid choice to choose oneself.
If we follow the presumption that all people are equal, then that logically continues it is the n > 1 lives must always be more valuable then any 1 life. Under that it becomes a simple numbers question. In which case it's valid to say that I'm being selfish in valuing my own life over others. If instead we say that it is fine to value your own life over 6 others, inherently the idea of equality must be false.
>No, you're not. You're always bringing other people and society into your own life's valuation. When valuing your own life, the wants and opinions of others don't matter.
>
>You seem confused in thinking that things have just 1 value. That's wrong. Everybody puts value on things based on how much they personally gain from it. When valuing things in the interest of others and "against" one's own, one feels a personal gain through empathy, or they can feel or imagine the love from others, or they gain validation of their sense of justice or responsibility, etc.
>
>In personally valuing your own life's existence, you should only think of your personal gain. What do you gain? You gain everything! You gain the ability to gain! In not valuing your life and always bringing other people into the scope, I can only think that your sense of empathy is too strong. That it blinds you and prevents you from forming your own wants and appreciations of what you have. You should care less of others and enjoy whatever you can of the world for yourself.
Does it really matter what I want? It's always seem to prove irrelevant. Even in this thread I have to wonder because no one really stopped to asked, "Do you want to die?" Not even you.
To answer; maybe, I don't know. If the answer was yes then you would be off doing whatever it is you do on a Friday night, and I would already be cold in the morgue. If the answer was no, then why dwell on it?
But do you now why I don't typically put much thought into what I want? Would you still say I should be selfish and form my own wants if that answer started sliding towards, "Yes I want to die?"
Doesn't that come down to what the view of what someone's 'normal' palette is? We say that someone's judgement is impaired under the influence of alcohol, but say the opposite when the use of SSRI's is applied, with the only difference to force someone to conforming And at least from where I sit, the methods strike parallels to what an abuser or cultists use. The only difference I can tell is intent, but that drags into question whether or not the ends justify the means.
>I'm speaking up on behalf of the people in your life that you're currently telling yourself will be better off without you. Because they won't be better off, and they'll carry the pain of your absence as a wound that doesn't heal.
I think you underestimate the resiliency of most people. A death is a death irregardless of the cause; ultimately whether they'd want to or not, practicality forces someone to move on and the adapt to the absence as the new normal.
That said for me personally, you'd made a reasonable but incorrect assumption in this case; most cases you'd be correct. There's three people that I can name that could be directly impacted. The first one's feelings, I do not care about about. The second lives 2000 miles away and we have very sparse communication. It would be years, likely decades before that one is potentially suspicious enough to investigate more closely. The third is growing old with a family history of dementia.
I have only work acquaintances aside of those three and they have never contacted or interacted with me outside of work. But there's little reason for them to discover anything given that I would resign normally with a forward means of contact; such an action isn't out of character for me. And I have no friends. Quite literally, actually. My parents forbade friendship as a child until after I graduated university, and there was little need to change things after that.
FWIW also; yours and my experiences with anti depressants differ greatly. Three different SSRI's (prozac, paxil, and zoloft) of various doses been tried for years and as far as I can tell changed nothing except for the experience of withdrawal symptoms when I finally grew tired of the RX dance.
This isn't something that occurred over a period of years. For the part I just don't think about it, there were enough demands from me academically and professionally. And it's always been a comfort to me, know that no matter how terrible things seemed that there was at least one thing I could do.
...I just spent the last 20 minutes staring at the screen trying put into words why I went out and solidified my plans but truth be told: I don't know why; objectively there's little in my life to explain it. I just did, and I felt better once it was done.
.........
Let's say, hypothetically for a moment, your peer's alchemy kit works. What happens when they take that core piece of who I am away from me, and there is nothing else left? What then?
With all respect Doctor, but I'd rather not. Could you say you or all your peers would gladly do so in my place? What do you imagine the outcome would be?
For whatever it's worth, the testing and arrangements were to solidify method and location, whereas the timing still remains uncertain, caused by me being the fool that I am. But I can reasonably guarantee you will not be affected in either case; at some point you'll scarcely remember this conversation and soon enough you'll have forgotten it in it's entirety as just another post on the internet. So best not to think on it.
Not so much essentially as it the futility of imagining unrealized potential. In hindsight I now realize that my example was exceedingly poor, and apologize for that. Many people, including, speak to said that potential as if it were an inevitably good and I find that speculation to be someone taking a terribly romanticized view of someone. Especially after they were gone. Just as much as someone is capable of being great, so too could they be capable of being a disappointment.
And if you talk about potential, I'd also argue that no matter how much waste there is, there's enough numbers in the world to take it's place readily.
>If your health isn't so bad that you're close to dying, then that's also very wasteful in my opinion. You can achieve more with a healthy body. Leave the donation until after you die. There'll always be someone in need of an organ. Even if you provide one now, that'll just leave someone in the future without an organ you could have provided then.
Perhaps but bear in mind that it probably be just the one. Organ donation campaigners harp over and over again that one donor could give back life to multiple people. So is it a waste? It becomes more the trolley question more then anything else; if one person dying could save six others, is him not choosing the die the same as choosing to kill them?
>You seem fixated on the happiness of others. Can't you be a little more selfish?
I'm not sure what you mean. I am being selfish. A selfless man would've conformed to what others demanded and endured in solitary silence no matter what, doing all and asking nothing in return.
I think there's been some misunderstanding. If I'm understanding you correctly, you seem to believe that the issue is that I'm lonely, and it's not a bad assumption but it's not entirely correct. I grew up without friends, my parents forbade me from making friends from childhood until I was done university and by then for the most part I was, and still am, fine with being alone.
>Finally, if you must commit suicide, please do it so that it plausibly looks like an accident.
I had a few ideas, but the only semi feasible one I thought of so far was to mix heavy alcohol intoxication and hypothermia. Hypothermia is uncomfortable until you start loosing your mental faculties. The alcohol might be able to cover for the discomfort but I haven't tested that particular combination. And there's a slight concern about the poor sap that comes across my body.
Fentanyl overdose is probably the next option but I lack the necessary friends-of-friends to acquire some. And there isn't a way of testing the timing or potency against the time of arrival of EMT's that seem to carry Narcan in their pockets.
>The problem for the dead is the loss of opportunity. The waste. If I have some amount of cash in my wallet, what I'm able to do with it will depend on the market that's available to me. Maybe I won't be able to afford the same things others do in other places, but I should be able to take some advantage of it. Dying is dropping that cash down the gutter. It's utterly wasteful, to put it politely.
I disagree. Go outside someday and pick up a stone. Chances are there are no other stones exactly like it in the entirety of the universe. Perhaps someday it could inspire something great, or be used to end someone's life. But realistically it will likely just be a rock that sits there. Just like millions of other rocks.
Assuming the best is a romantic notion, but you just don't know either way. But ask yourself this... if that rock were to suddenly vanish from existence, would your life really be any worse for it? Or could you just find another rock?
>At the very least, couldn't you seek someone terminally ill and live to fulfill their dream? Live the life they wanted? It could be a simple one. Doesn't matter if you don't manage to fulfill it, just part-way is fine
...Imagine you saw someone doing something that you loved. But you could see on their face that, at best, they derived no joy from it. At worst they didn't want to be there, that it was something outside of their control that compelled them.
Forget the other person for a moment. Could you honestly say that seeing that would make you happy?
FWIW I did look into being a living organ donor. There's a rather extensive psychological evaluation that goes with it though and you need to have a fairly strong social support circle for them to even entertain the idea. Can't imagine why a bunch of doctors wouldn't want someone that has no support circle to undergo a major surgery that would leave them too weak to do much on their own for weeks and very much vulnerable to a potentially lethal post operation infection.
The dead cannot feel joy, love, pain, or sadness. They cannot perceive anything, nor can the be aware of anything; one second in time is exactly the same as a billion years to the dead. And you cannot do anything to the dead that would change that.
Barring the possibility of an afterlife, if nothing can affect the dead, and the dead are unaware of everything, what could possibly be the dead's problem?
The living on the other hand? They would be the one that would perceive the dead's absence, and mourn it. They are the ones that have to deal with the uncertainty of what death is. Or the questions of why someone would prefer death.
But there in lies the key point; someone has to perceive the death of a peer to mourn it. Let's say for a moment that there is only one person in the universe and he dies. Who mourns for him? Like wise, if someone exists, and no one else is aware, who mourns for him after he dies? In either case, he cannot mourn for himself.
So really... is being dead a problem for the dead? Or is it more the concern of those still alive?
>Do you have any kind of meaningful social connections outside of work?
No, but that's been the status quo so I was a child.
Wouldn't having a social circle that cause more problems though? Suicide's main issue is the distress it causes for social connections. No circle, no problems.
>But that doesn't mean it is a healthy way to spend all of your time.
Dunno about that.
Just a personal anecdote, but this year my boss specifically told me to work less, slashing my salary down by $10,000 a year to emphasize the point. Prior to this, 200 to 240 hours a month was pretty typical and has been for the last 8 years. (I doubt it's out of real concern for my health, my workload hasn't been reduced).
What I've found was that in the times of idleness though I've thought more and more about suicide. The Christmas holidays were some of the first I've had to have an entire week to myself and I spent most of it was spent testing methods for speed, logistics, and discomfort, as well as scouting suitable locations; somewhere that would force an EMS / police arrival on site by 10 minutes or so. Updated my will and managed to work out the logistics of transferring all my assets to to remaining family quickly when I finally make the decision to kill myself.
Never in my life has it gotten this far before; never really had time to seriously think about until now. I'd imagine that most people though would probably be more fine with a miserably but living workaholic, then a corpse dead of suicide.
As such, could you really say that is working long hours such is really unhealthy? Or such a terrible thing?
"I don't want to hear about your problem, call these other people and stop bothering me about it."
Just my guess of how some people would hear it. And honestly I find it a a little weird though; if most people calling the line aren't really suicidal, why call it a suicide hotline?
My parents forbade me from having friends when I was around 7 or 8 years old. Hit me across the head to emphasize the point; friends would distract from studying hard, and you don't study hard then you can't get into a good university. So until I was 24 I had no friends whatsoever, not even through university and not even through the time since then.
As you might imagine I'm quite okay being alone for the most part having grown up friendless. I have no idea what having a friend is like, or how you're supposed to be a fiend, and for the most part that's okay with me. Ironically, my parents are actually now concerned about why I haven't dated anyone in my 30's; they've actually asked their family friends if they knew anyone that might be interested.
And there in lies the rub. If you're really okay with being alone, why bother having anyone else in your life? It's hugely uncomfortable for someone that's used to it, for little benefit.
For what it is worth, you were approaching me as if I were a problem to be solved, and it's a fine approach. But what often ends up happening is that it's incredibly easy to see only the suicide, and then forget that there's person there. Or that there's a single fell swoop that will set someone on back on the path. Sometimes it's like that but it's really hard to tell, even in person when you can read their face and body language, hear the tone in their voice. Never mind trying to piece it together from a block of text.
If you ever run into someone like me again in your life, maybe... speak a little less. And listen a little more. Don't ask yourself what you can do to fix it. Maybe instead, try asking them why. Or what is they want. Maybe they can answer, maybe they won't because they don't know or don't want to know. Maybe their problems are imagined, maybe not. Maybe the the reasons makes sense to you, maybe it won't. But I'd be willing to bet, to the person that's in the middle of it, that it's all as real as you are to yourself. And until you acknowledge that, you're going to have a bully of a time trying to connect with them.
Can't promise it will make it ever go better or that it's good advice; it's just my own thoughts on the matter.
......... and if it means anything; What this is has been central for my whole life; always there in a quiet moment. In every single night in bed before I fall asleep in bed, and there again first thing when I wake up. And always there in each quiet moment I have truly to myself. Some doctors tried prescribing different doses of anti depressants but they did little, and I knew better then to tell them what I was really thinking. Gave up after a while and ultimately it was just something I just accepted as just who I am. And for almost 10 years it was fine, it was there and then grew quiet as I got into whatever disaster or deadline that was next looming.
I honestly expected no difference between 200 to 240 hours a month focused and 160 but it seems I was wrong... and I don't know why. Or what might have changed. I'm not even sure if that was the key point. Even before the hours change there were moments in the last year where I stared over the edge of a stairwell or car park or looked into the path of an oncoming train and seriously contemplated jumping for a good 30 minutes. And honestly until now I had forgotten those moments had occurred...
You couldn't have possibly known any of that. I suspect you might've changed your approach if you did. But it took a week of you persisting, and me being slightly drunk tonight to admit this much. So don't apologize. As far as I can see, there's nothing for you to be sorry here for.