Do Your Homework Before Deciding To Take Your Life

Many people who have tried to kill themselves regretted the act just after reaching the point of "no return."

One fine case in point: A man from San Francisco tried jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. He was very sure that he wanted to end his life, and for what reasons I don't know.

Upon his final leap right after he left the railing and passing the point of no return HE INSTANTLY REGRETTED IT while a voice inside him kept saying that he made a huge mistake - and he kept hearing this voice telling him he a made a huge mistake while he was falling towards the water.

Fortunately for him he lived, but a lot of people are not so lucky. He was very grateful to have gotten a second chance at life and became a changed person for the good.

If you think for one moment that by virtue of taking your life all of your problems and pain are gone you're fooling yourself - BIG TIME. Once you pass the point of no return you will regret it, trust me - you will find yourself in a realm that you never known existed and it will not be pretty.

If you think killing yourself is the answer read the many stories that are out there from people who tried to kill themselves but got a second chance to live and were grateful for it.

This fourm is wonderful, and a great tool in helping one overcome suicidal thoughts - I know, i've been there.

Sorry to sound like I'm preaching - I was one of those who got a second chance.

Peace
Gerry

 

So what was your story? If you don't mind me asking.

 

I'm battling clincal depression, ADD, OCD and Bipolar II.

One day I decided that I would be better of dead so I tried to take my life (out of respect for the nature of this board I will not go into detail on how I tried to take my life).

I was flat line for about 6 minutes - clincally dead.

I didn't find relief while I was dead - all my worries, problems, pain were right there in full force but I was in a different realm - one I cannot fully describe but one that was dark and not pleasant. All I remembered was that while I was dead I was wishing to almighty heaven that I was still alive and wanted a second chance (I very much regretted my decision to take my life).

There is a Website (I won't post URL 'cause I don't know if policy allows me to) that talks about near death experiences and there's a suicide category on there that talks about people who tried to take their life and were able to live to talk about it - and how grateful they were in getting a second chance.

It's best for one to really try not to dedicate too much attention in trying to find ways in killing themselves or thinking about how they want to kill themselves. It's a very dangerous habit to harness the mind on concentrating on such negative thoughts - soon this thought will be so engrained in your psyche that you will go through the steps in taking your life even if it's against your will - it's that powerful. It's best to find ways to eradicate those negative thoughts and find help. Life is hell in many ways but there are professinoal aveneues that can significantly help you.

I am so, very, very, very, very happy to have gotten a second chance, and prior to getting this second chance I was very, very, very, very determined to end my life.

Trust me, what waits for someone on the other side who takes their life is far more hellish than what they are going through right now while they are living.

Peace
Gerry

 

Ok I don’t normally respond to posts but this one got under my skin by what it implied. Now that may be me looking too deeply into your words but generally I am doubtful my response will be the only one you get. Firstly I have no doubt that some people who survive after thier attempt are grateful often it is an accumulation of desperation and not a want to die but to escape the intolerable situation they may find themselves in.

However not every one is the same and if you read a lot of people who survive wake up very angry indeed and feel more devastated than before. I know this because I am amongst them.

This is a terrible assumption to make I will point out why in a moment. I have further read your post and your near death experience. I have also read the site you refer too it is most interesting yes. But you have clearly chosen parts from that site that illustrate your own bias view point. If you read them all you will find that very few suffer terribly but the experience is more muted and less ‘heavenly’ but there are some who go through ‘hellish’ experiences.

Now I don’t advocate this as a good reason to go commit suicide as truthfully it is all a huge unknown. By virtue of you surviving and being able to consciously reconstruct what you ‘theorize’ happened at death is proof of very little. This is simply by virtue of the fact that you are no longer dead and your consciousness is able to fill in the gaps. Much like awakening from a weird dream your mind seeks to sort it out and put it in a linear more understandable fashion.

Trauma also causes releases in chemicals which try and limit the trauma of dying, if you oded or hanged yourself these often have hallucinatory effects starvation of oxygen or the myriad of chemicals flooding your brain and so on. In the process of dying your consciousness is still active for a time. The term clinical death does not mean brain death it is in reference to the stopping of the heart. If you had recovered from ‘biological death’ I may be more accepting of your ‘personal experience’ but six minutes of brain death would most likely leave you with brain damage.

Also the machines that measure brain death can only pick up so much; it is not all that unlikely that activity still continues on at a cell level. It also takes quite some time for true brain death to occur and when it does it results in brain damage. There is no solid verifiable proof that consciousness continues on when you die; there is interesting anecdotal evidence but nothing more. It is a huge unknown whether what you experienced is real, or it is the brains natural defenses kicking in to make the process of dying more pleasant. There are interesting studies on Ketamine and how that stimulates the area of the brain that have been recorded as active in the process of dying. In these studies it has been found that people have similar or near identical experiences.

Does this mean then that ketamine is a window into these other dimensions or is it all a brain thing?
The only conclusion you are left with is what you personally believe in. I have nothing against your beliefs until you peddle them like facts and use them as a scare tactic.


The short hand version of what you are saying is, don’t commit suicide or you will go to hell, I know as I have been there.’ It is this I take offense too.

Because you may be well meaning but what your saying to me is my loved one who was horribly abused and chose to escape the pain she was in is still suffering! Your saying that the person who chose to stop eating because she was drowning in her own bile is still suffering. Your saying the seven year old who could no longer handle her father touching her and subsequently hanged herself is still suffering. Your saying that person who has tried help and found it has caused them more grief, who has lived on for countless years and truly tried then comes to hopeless point and sees no way out is still suffering.

In this context your post angers me and no doubt will anger others and I ask that you refrain from further discussing this in this forum and move it instead to where religious talk is allowed.

Thank you

 

thankyou adam!!!

 

I seemed to have struck a nerve with you Adam.

Frankly, I don't care of your assessment of my post - I died, I was dead, my brain was dead, I saw after life, and I am explaining my experiences here in this thread.

I have no desire for your to subscribe to my "theory" as you labled it. What I experienced was fact from my experience. Who are you to try and reason with un-proven babble that you freely spit out of your mouth?

I will continue to share what I went through and will do so with a chipper smile on my face because I am still alive!

If you have a problem with this you are free to express your views, but don't disect mine for your egotistical pleasure.

If you can't handle someone sharing their experience because you have some deep seeded fear of death that's fine, but don't crucify them for sharing.

Tell me Adam, have you died and came back? If so please share your story... that's right, I don't think Athiest believe in life after death... my bad.

"I ask that you refrain from further discussing this in this forum and move it instead to where religious talk is allowed"
- ummmm, sorry, won't happen.

Peace
Gerry

 

You know what I can tell you took all of five seconds to read what I wrote so I will quote the words of a higher authority and not once did I stoop to calling names but that reflects more on you than it does on me.

Also this one I think you should pay particular attention too when you get offended.

Thank you.

 

excuse me!!
i know adam very well and he is most certainly not someone who says or does anything for egotistical pleasure!!
i think his response was well worded and fair, it is his opinion and he has as much right to have posted it as you or anyone else has to post theirs, furthermore, if you did not expect to recieve responses that did not agree with your opinion you are very naive, and maybe should not have posted anything in the first place?

 

And My Dear Adam....

Shall I "cut and paste" the freedom of speech section too?

Move on my dear friend, you're time is better spent trying to find yourself than to criticize others....

Peace
Gerry

 

Is this comedy hour? Someone pass the popcorn...

 

Joy2BeWith, for disrespecting the other members of this forum, in this thread and in PM, i am going to place you under moderation, continue to disrespect them and ill and close this thread and you could face being banned, this is your final warning

the suicide forum is not a place for religious discussion if you wish to continue along that line please take it to the soap box

 

Joy2 be with - for all your trials and supposed triumphs - you are ANYTHING but your name. You are pompous and arrogant, and no one here NEEDS that.
NO ONE here is superior to the lost, for we all have taken false steps or have been pushed towards them. Perhaps it's your COMPassion needs a boost and not your self-righteousness...

 

Joy2BeWith as I'm dearly happy that you're still around of course:smile: ,In terms of being dead and coming back it was a matter of seconds or minutes at best right?So I don't think it's fair to say you lived in a real after life and was able to come back to this earth and compare a real difference.Sorry I just think that's clearly an unfair comparison.

 

Adam, that was a beautiful post. Thank you.

 

Glad to hear you speak of your own experiences, rather than just paraphrase that long story out of the SF Chronicle. We can all work Google, too.

But note that the moderators will usually allow some brief, general mention of what you did to yourself.

Pity you can't be more specific about your near-death experience. It's an interesting story. Very few people here have them at all, even though plenty of people here have very close shaves with death.

But you'll forgive me if I don't take your NDE as valid evidence of the nature of the afterlife. By definition, death is permanent and irreversible. So despite what the medical societies have chosen for their definitions of 'clinical death,' you obviously didn't die.

Only two people have ever died and come back--Jesus, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. You don't seem much like either of them.

Again, we're all able to google 'suicide near death experience'. No need to spoon-feed us. And there's no need to take their anecdotes as evidence of the nature of the afterlife, either.

Finally, you start making sense. Yes, habits of mind are important. That's why cognitive therapy is effective.

 

joy2beWith: the freedom of speech act does not rule over these forum since they are privately own they can be governed as the admin wish and in this case they wish you to not talk about religion here.

Which i totally agree.

 

scare tactics and veiled threats of eternal hellfire don't work for me. and I seriously doubt such clumsy antics work for anybody truly on the edge.

as far as regret, I've attempted suicide three times in my life and I regret that I was not successful each time. ymmv.

 

the person had the thought of not doin it after he jumped thats real hard to believe .. i heard about ur whole life flashin before yours eyes but this is a first