Suicide
So heres my experience with this whole topic:<p>When I was very young, I remember feeling trapped in life. It wasn't a particularly terrible life, but not a particularly great one either. There were times when I just didn't want it. As I got older, I spent a lot of time mildly depressed. There were expectations I couldn't live up to, it seemed my family wanted me to be perfect, and the repercussions for not being so were pretty emotionally damaging. Somehow I internalized this expectation, and it only worsened all of it. There were a lot of things that I didn't know how to do well: make close friends, talk to girls, ask for help. A lot of this was probably BS at first, and in retrospect everyone went through it. I know that for me there was a weird feedback loop tho, reinforced by craziness in my family, where they would push away my friends, and would ridicule me for needing help.<p>Anyway, all that led to this scenario where I felt even more alone an trapped. As others were working through this stuff, I couldn't figure out how to even start going with it. I wasn't a "forever alone" kind of guy, I stuttered through this stuff, but not in a particularly meaningful way. Not existing sounded amazing. I contemplated it off and on. At one point I had a serious sit-down with myself about the topic of suicide. I went over the pros, the cons, ways to do it, the consequences to others and so on. I decided, this was an option. I also realized, I only get to choose it once.<p>I found this realization very comforting.<p>Ever since, I have been slightly annoyed at the "suicide is not the answer" stuff I read. I get pissed at the people who deride it. I hate the people who talk about it as not an option. It is an option, but a pretty drastic one. (Raganwald: I like your stuff usually, but your blog post kind of annoyed me, even tho it's not terrible advice... it just doesn't work for me - nothing personal)<p>Since this realization, I have gone through some pretty down times. As I mention above, I'm a bit socially/emotionally challenged, and sometimes I just feel like I'm getting nowhere in the world of people. I see them over there doing their thing, and I just don't understand how it works. I occasionally even see them not as people, but the same way I would see a group of dogs or other animals interacting -- I notice their behaviours, I try to figure out WTF it is all about, but I just can't relate. This really bothers me when it happens. Other times I get really down over messing up with people, or not being a top 50 programmer, or not being 4 hr marathoner, or whatever else my perfectionism is going on about. In all these cases, if it's bad enough, I get this thought:<p>"You can just give up. You can stop existing."<p>I don't shy away from it, I don't push it down, that seems to make it worse. I'm not scared of it, I welcome it. Like I said above, it is a comforting thought to me. It reminds me I have some power in the world, no matter how fucked up things are at the moment. Afterwards, the next thought comes:<p>"You only get to do this once. Is this the time?"<p>And I get to decide if it makes sense. And I only need to decide for today. Do I want to do this today? Sure things are fucked up, but I sure would exit in a pretty shitty situation: things undone, house a mess, porn not properly deleted from the computer, finances not in order, etc. So I won't do it today. Maybe I'll start getting ready to do it. Tomorrow I can decide again.<p>Sometimes this goes on for a day. Sometimes it goes on for a week. But the very act of contemplating it seems to have a healing power for me. Now that I know I can at least do this, and I'm going to do it right, it reminds me that I can maybe do stuff. Getting ready for it, reminds me more that maybe I'm not so trapped, and there is a path forward, paradoxically getting me to the point where I usually put aside the silliness after a while, with a freshly organized set of life surroundings. Sometimes it's more than a while, but for me, this works.<p>I'm putting this out here, for the people who are contemplating suicide, and somehow reading these comments. Contemplate away, I won't begrudge you that. I'd like to remind you that this is a one-time deal tho, so if you're going to do it, make sure this is the right answer for you. If you are unsure, wait a while, see what else you can do also - the option doesn't go away, in fact this basic option is the greatest power you have, don't squander it.<p>Also: after this article leaves the front page, I'm going to delete this post, because while I think it is important, I don't know that having these words public for posterity is a wise decision.