Working up the nerve to end it all

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Just curious. I'm always puzzled by those who put forth the tired cliche that suicide is a permanent fix to a temporary problem. But does anyone know why that is so? Isn't willing to end ones existence the ultimate form of courage; akin to soldiers who fought in WW1 willing to brave the machine gun fire of no mans land? Isn't that the ultimate form of control over someone's body? Anyways, the good news is that I feel I'm honestly about 75% of the way there as far as closing the lights out on this existence. The whole afterlife thing doesn't really concern me as much as it used to. After all, everyone, and everything dies, so whether it's ten years from now, a hundred, or tomorrow, we're all on borrowed time. I suppose it's mainly that if somehow I mess up and have to deal with the nightmarish existence of being a coma vegetable and the pain going along with it that is stopping me at this point. Anyone else feel the same? Anyone else feeling more and more detached from this reality and the more detached the more that's going to push you to take the final step?

I think working up the nerve to continue to live and deal with/work around one's problems is better than suicide.
Perhaps that is why people think suicide is not courageous.
Dealing with one's problems and trying to make a better life for oneself seems courageous, but killing oneself does not, as it is an escape.
Also, it is usually horrible for the family and friends when a loved one kills themselves.

What if you can't deal/work around the problem? What if you've lived 38 years of people telling you that over and over, yet nothing changes? What then?

Furthermore, I'm beginning to feel it's no so much gaining courage, but just being tired of dealing with the pain for so long, you just become detached and then do it. Very calmly I suppose.

No. It's the difference between committing suicide because you've lost the battle, and being willing die to win the war.

I know how you feel,

I'm sorry you are feeling so much pain.
I always feel like somehow I have failed when someone takes their own life. I imagine the people that care about you will feel that way. You may not realize how many people care about you. Humans are kind of self absorbed and maybe the people around you haven't communicated that to you.
I believe you have a right and a choice to do with your life as you choose but perhaps too many people think of life as a search for happiness when the true focus should be a search to be useful. It's much easier to be successfully useful than happy and usefulness can make life more worth living.

I've often debated this point to myself. I agree, suicide does take some courage. Because, regardless of your beliefs, none of us KNOW what happens next, or if anything happens at all. There remains a possibility that if there is an other side, it could be much worse. We could assume death is an escape, but it may not be. It does take a lot of courage to be willing to make that decision yourself.

I'm a bitter pessimist by nature. I too am 38 and currently spending my first night back in my parents house, separated from my wife of 10 years because she says she doesn't love me anymore. I have no discernibly good future, no social skills, one friend and am in bad health of unknown origin. My problems are not your problems, and I am NOT comparing. You may be 1000 times worse off. Point is, that's who I am. And a person from that perspective is saying if you kill yourself you'll simply never know what could happen. One could conceivably argue that a man of 38 years who been evidently nothing but, or mostly s**t on, is overdue. GO play the lottery. Your luck may be ready to change... You never know who you meet in the supermarket, or if you come across money some way, maybe if you work your career path can change unexpectedly for the better.

I've been sitting here drunk and on codeine thinking on and off about killing myself and masturbating for the last two hours. But as someone who's been right at the edge many times over the last 25 years, I remember that things did come after that I enjoyed, or loved that I would have missed. It's not worth it. Probability would appear to be in your favor my firend.

I was 31 years old when I said "f*ck it" and washed down 47 sleeping pills with a bottle of Michelob. I actually had 48 pills but by the time I got to pill #48 I was too bloated to swallow it. A day and a half later I woke up in Creedmor Psych Hospital and stayed there for two months.

Here's another cliché: "Survival is the best revenge." F*ck the world if they can't conform to the way we think.

I used to be extremely suicidal, and even attempted once but failed. I hated life and being alive. I didn’t know it at the time, but the reason i was so unhappy and wanted a way out was because of how i was living. All the things i was doing didnt work for me because of how my brain works due to being autistic. I changed almost everything i was doing(job, housing, relationships, completely structured my daily life, improved my diet, cut alcohol out completely, started exercising, etc). Doing so has brought me to where i am at mentally today. I can genuinely say I love my life and have no desire to cut out early anymore. Turns out the only reason i ever wanted to do so was because i was trying to meet a standard that didnt work for me and needed to live for myself instead. This is what helped me. I hope it helps you too.

i was there this summer. for several years only fear i'd survive (and get even more disabled) kept me. untill it didnt. then it was obligations. complications. people in my way. suicide is not an ultimate form of courage, its ultimate form of desperation. of not believing ur life makes sense. of wanting the pain to end. its an attempt to escape. its when tomorrow is so terrifying, u just want to never see it. its about lacking the energy and belief u can stand up again.

i was intercepted. multiple times. people would take shifts watching over me. protecting me from me. untill that desire started to go away. untill i started learning to accept im going to be alive. i still get cramps and urges, but there is allways somebody making sure i dont go. they care this much, and i never knew they did, before i stopped hiding my pain. and every time something takes me 1 step closer to the end, they grab me and drag me back. untill i start learning to make the step back myself. untill there are moments when i can say "i want to live", rather than "i have to stay". scarse, for now. but im moving away from the edge.

there is nothing down there, unless u survive the dive, and then ur life would have that more suffering in it, and the way back up will be that longer, if even possible. the way down the slope is like - u dont realize its happening, before u see the edge itself. the way back is fighting for each and every step. slipping, falling and getting back up. sliding down and crawling back up. up. to life. each night ends in sunrise. even a polar one. i've survived enough of them to know. but u wont see the light if u are lying face down. dropping the metaphores, u need to know, to understand what is killing u, before u can decompile the urge. and u need tethers. something to hold on. take my hand. i have enough ropes tied around me by now.

It does take courage to commit suicide. To my mind it is a cowardly act if your life doesnt suck all that bad. If people are really going through hell and see no way out then they should have the right to die. Like people with terminal cancer for instance. But if your bored and think life is depressing I think suicide is stupid. Other people have to deal with your dead body after your dead.

It's pretty simple people change, circumstances change, life changes, most things in life are temporary, we are always in a current state of change as assuredly as the earth keeps turning. When you kill yourself, that stops. Everything that could have been, would have been, might have been is gone. You can never rise above a problem, you can never do anything you're dead.


Not even close. Dying for your country is to die for a cause, you go out fighting. Suicide is loosing the fight, it's running away. It's Akin to being the deserter of a battle.

There is no courage in suicide. Living beings generally have a hard wiring to survive. But People who kill themselves are in a state of such mental and emotional unbalance that their brain does not work properly so that innate need to survive gets high jacked. No courage required, just an ill mind that's reached desperation.

To another point - killing yourself dos not end pain. It might for you but when someone kills themselves it just hands the pain off to someone else.

It's a permanent fix to a wrong problem. If you seek death to regain control, it means your true problem is lack of control, and killing yourself won't solve that problem either. Because, despite of what one may think, suicide doesn't give you any control, death will come sooner or later without any help. Unless this is your true problem, lack of control over death, and fear associated with it. Thinking that killing yourself is an act of courage may prove that this is the culprit, otherwise it's always just the act of anxiety. But commiting suicide because you're afraid to die, just to overcome your fear of it, is as stupid idea as it can be, and this fear must be dealt with in some other way. And if you can't overcome it for yourself you must seek professional help.

P.S. I've noticed it's an old thread, but thought that my post may help someone else. If not, sorry.