Thanks to LongRoad95 for the quote!

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Valteron

Well-Known Member
#1
I should preface my remarks by saying that I am a cranky, depressed, anxiety-ridden probably mentally ill (or at least neurotic) old bastard in his mid-sixties who is still alive because I do not have the courage to catch the bus.

Also, I have been banned from the chat room, perhaps forever, because I get sick and tired of the people there discussing trivialities and small talk that have nothing to do with a forum for suicidal people. For some reason I am still allowed to post here, although it remains to be seen how long that will last.

At any rate, I was reading through another thread when I came across this quote in a posting by senior memeber LongRoad95. It is by the dark humour comedian Doug Stanhope. I quote it here because nothing sums up better how I feel about my life. Stanhope said:

[B]"Life is like a movie, if you've sat through more than half of it and it's sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. No one should blame you for walking out early."[/B]

I have never seen a quote that so perfectly sums up how I feel about my own life!

Every time I hear the old Chestnuts about "seek professional help, there are other answers, life will get better" and all of that similar bull crap, I will remember Stanhope's quote.

The simple fact is, I am in my mid-sixties and therefore I have already lived about 80% of my expected life. I have been suffering from anxiety, panic attacks, depression, uncontrollable fears and general mental malaise for 55-60 years. Over the years, I have seen some 5 or 6 different psychiatrists, tried as many meds, and I am currently seeing a cognitive therapy psychologist. I take an anti-anxiety drug, but it makes me depressed. I quit drinking 18 years ago and smoking 15 years ago. I do not want substances to control me.

I am sick of being constantly anxious about nothing, worried about trivialities, or depressed for no reason. I am sick of being me.

I am sick of the well-intentioned jerks who tell me "things will get better". How the f... do they know? If my mental problems have resisted 60 years of medication and psychiatry, is any rational person going to tell me the last 10 or 20 years of my life are going to suddenly turn better?

For the opponents of Catching the Bus, I have one question. If you talked someone like me, at my age, out of "doing it" and I live another 20 years in continued misery, will you have the impression that you "suceeded" or that you did something good?

Or do you not care how unhappy my life is, as long as I don't take the easy way out? Can you admit that there may be times when talking someone into staying alive is NOT doing them a favour? Or are you so brainwashed by your pro-life stance that you can't admit any other possibility?
 
#2
Isn't it funny, though we humans expect others to think the same way as we do, we all think differently!
Loving yourself, or at least trying to is the first step to contentment, be you 16 or 96, forgiveness and control of our own emotions not others is also a help too.
Im not "brainwashed" but i guess i could ask you the same from your stance?
 

TooShyToScream

Well-Known Member
#3
I should preface my remarks by saying that I am a cranky, depressed, anxiety-ridden probably mentally ill (or at least neurotic) old bastard in his mid-sixties who is still alive because I do not have the courage to catch the bus.

Also, I have been banned from the chat room, perhaps forever, because I get sick and tired of the people there discussing trivialities and small talk that have nothing to do with a forum for suicidal people. For some reason I am still allowed to post here, although it remains to be seen how long that will last.

At any rate, I was reading through another thread when I came across this quote in a posting by senior memeber LongRoad95. It is by the dark humour comedian Doug Stanhope. I quote it here because nothing sums up better how I feel about my life. Stanhope said:

[B]"Life is like a movie, if you've sat through more than half of it and it's sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. No one should blame you for walking out early."[/B]

I have never seen a quote that so perfectly sums up how I feel about my own life!

Every time I hear the old Chestnuts about "seek professional help, there are other answers, life will get better" and all of that similar bull crap, I will remember Stanhope's quote.

The simple fact is, I am in my mid-sixties and therefore I have already lived about 80% of my expected life. I have been suffering from anxiety, panic attacks, depression, uncontrollable fears and general mental malaise for 55-60 years. Over the years, I have seen some 5 or 6 different psychiatrists, tried as many meds, and I am currently seeing a cognitive therapy psychologist. I take an anti-anxiety drug, but it makes me depressed. I quit drinking 18 years ago and smoking 15 years ago. I do not want substances to control me.

I am sick of being constantly anxious about nothing, worried about trivialities, or depressed for no reason. I am sick of being me.

I am sick of the well-intentioned jerks who tell me "things will get better". How the f... do they know? If my mental problems have resisted 60 years of medication and psychiatry, is any rational person going to tell me the last 10 or 20 years of my life are going to suddenly turn better?

For the opponents of Catching the Bus, I have one question. If you talked someone like me, at my age, out of "doing it" and I live another 20 years in continued misery, will you have the impression that you "suceeded" or that you did something good?

Or do you not care how unhappy my life is, as long as I don't take the easy way out? Can you admit that there may be times when talking someone into staying alive is NOT doing them a favour? Or are you so brainwashed by your pro-life stance that you can't admit any other possibility?
I agree with you about the chatroom. I went in there once and then never again because it was totally stupid.

If you're absolutely certain that there's no way to make you happy, nobody is stopping you. I believe that every person should have the right to decide for themselves. I, too, think it's stupid when people say things will get better. They don't know. The question is, do you still have hope that they could get better? What if there is something out there that will help that you haven't tried yet? If the risk of searching and never finding it isn't worth it, then that's up to you. In the end, it's your decision, not anyone else's. People will talk their meaningless positive crap, but only you know what's best for you. But if you still have hope, which I think you do, being that you're still here for the moment...hang on and keep searching.
 

Lestat

Well-Known Member
#4
Most people I know right now are complete ass***es. Why are they like this? Because its how they cope and make up for their own insecurity problems. Its what all bullies do.

By letting them effect you you give them power over you. I know its so easy to say it, but doing it is harder. I just don't let them know they effect me.
 

solutions

Well-Known Member
#5
Hey, I've said this before, suicide's always an option for anyone, and whether or not they decide to do it is ultimately their choice. For some, it's just a matter of when. And in much of that same population, the "when" never comes. Not hard to understand why, suicide's very difficult to pull off, and it's frightening for all but the most severely fixated, those who have tunnel vision, who literally are thinking about absolutely nothing except I have to end this pain right now. But most people remain ambivalent throughout their lives with a chronic wish for death in the backs of their minds.

I have never condescended someone on this forum by offering false hope. Sometimes things don't get better. And it has to be acknowledged that sometimes they do, too. It's a rule of thumb in suicide prevention to always take suicide threats seriously. Sure, that makes sense, you can't really weed out those who are serious versus those who aren't. Crisis hotlines have this problem. Extremely few people who call crisis hotlines are suicidal. Instead, they're usually despondent and desperate to talk to someone.

But the bottom line in THIS place is that it's a pro-life forum. If you come here, that's what you should expect. Now, some people are better at suicide prevention than others. Some do what you mentioned--they say little other than, "Hang in there and things will get better," which typically just invalidates someone's feelings and makes them feel patronized. Others try to come up with solutions. Others just try to be empathic. It's my experience on this board that the people who spend the most time responding to suicidal crises all have different styles. But however we handle a crisis, we still have to be pro-life.

With all that in mind, I'm offering to you the exact same thing I offer to every person who makes a thread here that either asks for help or threatens suicide: my own ability to find solutions other than suicide for someone whose range of vision is getting constricted. Because you're an older adult, I'm at a disadvantage. I don't know the particular difficulties of being an older adult as well as others do, despite my father threatening suicide on several occasions. I prefer the younger demographic.

I've wanted to die for ten years, tried once, and was always sorry I didn't succeed, which remains true today. Obviously, I'm being totally hypocritical by trying to prevent suicides on this forum. I do it because it's a hobby, both to study and practice it. I've had a fascination with suicide ever since I became initially ill with manic-depression. Much of the literature is naturally about suicide prevention. I've memorized it by now, so I just try to use it and see if it works, along with my own ability to empathize.

Suicide prevention goes both ways. If you don't want it, nothing I say is going to affect you.

So, again, you can always choose to kill yourself. But an important question is, Is there a reason to do that today?

That's all I have to say.
 
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Terry

Antiquities Friend
Staff Alumni
#7
Having once had to sit with the phone pressed to my ear as someone died, I was working for the Samaritans at the time and the person was determined to die but didn't want to die alone; so I just talked to them till they passed, I will continue to try to prevent someone's suicide even if I agree that their life is shit.
The reason is there's always the hope that things will get better for them, or, as I have experienced whilst nursing; someone attempts, fails, is glad they failed only to find the damage is irreparable and they die.
Yes I'm sure sometimes I sound patronising, but its a desperate attempt to reach out and help.
If that's wrong then I'm wrong, but I won't stop trying.
 

Valteron

Well-Known Member
#8
How badly do I want back into chat?

i hope to see you back in chat.
Thanx, jxdama, but apparently I am still banned. I think it may be a permanent thing. Then again, how badly would I want to get back in? Are they still having all-night discussions about how much air there is in a bag of potato chips?
 

Valteron

Well-Known Member
#9
Having once had to sit with the phone pressed to my ear as someone died, I was working for the Samaritans at the time and the person was determined to die but didn't want to die alone; so I just talked to them till they passed, I will continue to try to prevent someone's suicide even if I agree that their life is shit.
The reason is there's always the hope that things will get better for them, or, as I have experienced whilst nursing; someone attempts, fails, is glad they failed only to find the damage is irreparable and they die.
Yes I'm sure sometimes I sound patronising, but its a desperate attempt to reach out and help.
If that's wrong then I'm wrong, but I won't stop trying.
Well, you remind me of a conversation I had with my psychologist. He argued that suicide does not procure relief, since relief is a feeling that can only be felt by the living. He also said that interviews with failed suicides showed they felt fear, not relief, as they were dying.

The flaw in his logic is this. Nobody has spoken to a successful suicide, have they? There is also a supposition that the only two options are misery and happiness. Since I am pretty certain there is no afterlife and that the dead feel nothing, there is another option. An end to pain and suffering. In my case mental, but in other cases physical. Happiness would be my number one choice. (So would being young, rich and beautiful, but that ain't gonna happen, is it?). Relief from my anxiety and depression would be a no. 2 choice. 60 years of trying does not seem to have succeeded in that. Cessation of ALL feeling in death (good and bad alike) would seem a logical third option, but my traitorous body clings to life.

By the way, I know there are terrible examples of failed suicides (people with ruined kidneys, etc.). Are these really an indictment of suicide or an indictment of the refusal to allow the pro-choice option and to give those who need it access to effective methods of self-liberation? I think it is the latter.

BTW, Terry, in reply to your quote that for those who do not believe in God, no explanation will suffice is a familiar but misleading argument. Rational human beings regularly allow themselves to be convinced of ideas that were previously scoffed at. A good example is continental drift/plate tectonics which was considered ridiculous when I was a child but after 60 years of accumulated evidence is now generally accepted. Your argument that there is no point in giving an "explanation" of God to non-believers implies 1) that they have closed minds and 2) that you have an "explanation" you could give them that would be convincing if their minds were not so closed. Sorry, Terry, but "I won't show you the evidence because you won't believe it" is just just too easy to say. I don't think you have proof God exists, frankly.
 

Lestat

Well-Known Member
#10
As a person who failed a suicide attempt and a firm atheist I would say for us atheists its even more scary as we have no belief in a afterlife. I'm not saying that suicide is not a good option because I am a believer in assisted suicide when needed and asked for. But when we are dead we have no awareness that we no longer feel pain or anything. So peace is never really met.
Also. When I did attempt suicide a do not remember any pain or anything. I only did when I woke up and could not sleep because of how much pain I was in. But the suicide attempt gave me no pain its like I had 1 hour of my life in a blank place with on memories. Dont do it.
 
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Lestat

Well-Known Member
#12
You cant know what nothing is. But thats what it is. You were not around 7000 years ago and you was nothing then. An afterlife is just hope and why religion always has followers.
 

solutions

Well-Known Member
#13
The problem I always had with the afterlife or no afterlife debate was with people suffering from dementia. If there's an afterlife, do they come to it suffering with the same inability to do anything? Or does some miraculous force heal the dementia? What about multiple sclerosis? Or infants that get SIDS?

Hey, maybe I won't be a psychotic manic-depressive anymore. That's appealing.

Wait, but if my suicidal impulses are because of mental illness, and my mental illness is cured in the afterlife, then I won't be suicidal anymore, so maybe it won't matter as much to me that I'm dead in that case...which would defeat the purpose.

This is complicated.

I really don't think there's absolutely nothing, though. I'd go into why, but...it would be easy to pass off my reasons on being a naive child.
 
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Valteron

Well-Known Member
#14
As a person who failed a suicide attempt and a firm atheist I would say for us atheists its even more scary as we have no belief in a afterlife. I'm not saying that suicide is not a good option because I am a believer in assisted suicide when needed and asked for. But when we are dead we have no awareness that we no longer feel pain or anything. So peace is never really met.
Also. When I did attempt suicide a do not remember any pain or anything. I only did when I woke up and could not sleep because of how much pain I was in. But the suicide attempt gave me no pain its like I had 1 hour of my life in a blank place with on memories. Dont do it.
Once again, you are speaking of a person who suffered because their suicide failed. If I were to sucessfully end my life, I would feel no more anxiety, no more fear, no more depression.
 

Lestat

Well-Known Member
#15
Your wrong. You said you would feel nothing. You would not know to feel. You would not exist to feel or know your not feeling. You would not get peace. You would just not exist. Thats not good because you would not know.
 

Valteron

Well-Known Member
#16
I really don't think there's absolutely nothing, though. I'd go into why, but...it would be easy to pass off my reasons on being a naive child.
There it is again! The old argument that "I have good evidence God exists but since you are an unbeliever I will not present it to you because you are too small-minded!" What a crock! I don't believe you have convincing evidence. Nobody has been able to prove the existence of a God in thousands of years of trying. What secret do you have?
 

Valteron

Well-Known Member
#17
Your wrong. You said you would feel nothing. You would not know to feel. You would not exist to feel or know your not feeling. You would not get peace. You would just not exist. Thats not good because you would not know.
My point exactly. I would feel NOTHING. Do you agree that the word "Nothing" includes "no more fear, no more anxiety, no more depression?" If so, then we agree.

As Mark Twain (an atheist) said : "Death holds no terror for me. I was dead for the billions of years before I was born and I experienced no inconvenience from it."
 

Lestat

Well-Known Member
#18
Lol. Love that quote. I do not know if I fully agree. I dont thing you will know anything. You will not know you do not feel fear or sadness because your dead. No soul (not that there is one anyway) so no way of even thinking "this is much better now".

I love this scene from blade runner known as tears in the rain. Hope this link works but it may not as its mobile version. If not type "blade runner tears in the rain" and watch the 4 min one. m.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&client=mv-google&hl=en-GB&v=a_saUN4j7Gw
 

solutions

Well-Known Member
#19
There it is again! The old argument that "I have good evidence God exists but since you are an unbeliever I will not present it to you because you are too small-minded!" What a crock! I don't believe you have convincing evidence. Nobody has been able to prove the existence of a God in thousands of years of trying. What secret do you have?
Easy, killer. I said nothing even close to that. Breathe for a few seconds, you're making everyone around you feel uneasy.

Better? Good. Now, I'm not proving the existence of God. I'm saying why I believe in the afterlife. Crazy, but they can be mutually exclusive. To explain that, it's this simple: When I was very young, a small child, I saw ghosts often. That's all there is to it. Now look what you got all bent out of shape about.

But since you clearly love to hear people talk about it, I'll have a little fun. I find this to be convincing of a higher power so long as chaos theory is wrong. If it's right, then this theory is bunk. But you know how one thing in history leads to another? Or in our own lives? We don't really have control over what affects us, we just react to that which happens around us. Our future is decided by luck, the instant we're birthed into a terrifying place, covered in blood and screaming. Still, we can go back and say "X caused Y" ad infinitum. Well, almost. I think there is what Thomas Aquinas called the "First Cause", kind of like the hand that sends a line of dominoes toppling. We can't go back infinitely to causes of things that have happened. Hence, there has to be a First Cause that set it all into motion. Thomas Aquinas called that force, succinctly, God. I call it a creator. In fact, I separate the creator of the universe with the creator of humanity. I think the former is all-powerful but has nothing to do with life on earth, whereas the latter created life on this remote planet, then left it on its own. Maybe it was space aliens, who knows.

Here's something else. God or whatever you want to call it isn't necessarily benevolent, malevolent, all-powerful, or at all capable of meddling in human affairs. My belief is that there is a limited higher power, one that exists but is incapable or unwilling to do anything with anything that happens. I think we were created with a purpose, not necessarily a grandiose purpose and more likely a malicious purpose, sent into motion, and left to fend for ourselves.

And there you go, my opinion on the matter in a little nutshell.
 
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Valteron

Well-Known Member
#20
Still, we can go back and say "X caused Y" ad infinitum. Well, almost. I think there is what Thomas Aquinas called the "First Cause", kind of like the hand that sends a line of dominoes toppling. We can't go back infinitely to causes of things that have happened. Hence, there has to be a First Cause that set it all into motion. Thomas Aquinas called that force, succinctly, God. I call it a creator. In fact, I separate the creator of the universe with the creator of humanity. I think the former is all-powerful but has nothing to do with life on earth, whereas the latter created life on this remote planet, then left it on its own. Maybe it was space aliens, who knows.
You realize of course that the "ultimate or first cause" explanation of Aquinas has repeatedly been shown to be in error? Read Richard Dawkins for the most recent refutation. The problem is that the person making the argument suddenly stops the chain of cause-and-effect arbitrarily. Who created God or your "creator"?

I believe the universe has always existed because matter exists. It cannot NOT exist. You believe the universe was created by an uncreated creator. I believe in an uncreated material universe . I can prove the material universe exists. The computer you are sitting in front of is part of it.
You believe in an uncreated Creator who went on to create the material universe. But there is not a stitch of proof outside your imagination that such a being exists.

If you use the concept of Occam's Razor, you can see that my solution is preferable. We know matter and energy can change form, but that they cannot be created or destroyed. So they just exist. Simple and easy, right?
 
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