Something awful happened at my campus not too long ago.  A student killed herself by taking sleeping pills. The local papers didn't cover the story - I don't know why. Maybe because it's a common occurence at school? Anyway, I've been thinking about this person ever since this took place. And just haven't had the courage to talk about it with anyone until now.  I know this is extremely personal topic..but has anyone ever had these kind of thoughts themselves? I mean, do you suppose this is typical human behavior? If no one answers this thread..I do understand.

I didn't know her personally, but she was in one of my classes. And then one day an ambulance is sitting in front of the buildings. And like that - she was gone. It felt like time stood still for a few moments..where nobody moved or could speak. And then when the ambulance drove off - life resumed almost like nothing had happened. I stood there for awhile, waiting for something. I don't know how else to explain this. But, I stood there waiting and I can't even say what it was I was waiting for.

Suicide is rarely if ever reported on.  Unless the person is famous somehow.

I believe that suicide is ultimately a selfish act, as it is done for yourself, with rarely a thought for those left behind.  But I do also believe that a great many people have contemplated it.  Few act on it.

(Wrong issue. Don't read unless you're up to know fucking more than what you fucking want to know. Seriously)


Well, I'm of the suicidal kind, and I learned this earlier this year when I had serious thoughts about suicide for the first time in about 12 years.

I don't know why people suicide. I do know why I am of the suicidal kind -the sort with a serious danger to die by their own hand. I hope I will die of natural causes before that, but wouldn't be too shocked if I comitted suicide at an elder age, if I was weak and ill enough.

How it goes? If you're lucky to not have experienced it, you can't figure The Pit. The trouble is the pit. There's a pit in the middle of your soul, and it's a dark deep pit. It atracts you and your life is about how you build barriers between you and the void, and how you run in circles -often ignoring it's there. But iy's there. It can be felt. It's surrounde by a slope. The closer to the pit, the more tilted it is. If you get too down the slope you slip and fall into the pit and then you die -by your hand.

Why you have a pit in your soul? What it does there? Who put it? There's no answer. Probably something is wrong with the delicate balance of your brian chemistry. But once you see the pit and walk the slope and can't tell when will you stop, you know that the pit is there to stay.

Earlier this year I knew why I do have this pit. I found out that in a very profound level of my mind I can't stand people. Really can't. People... if I awoke tomorrow and everyone was gone, I would die happily. I mean I would suicide happily. If I just could get rid of everyone... for a while... then return to normality. There you go... gone forever... alone... and then welcome back, I had what I needed. I switched you off, and it was happiness. Now I feel like bearing you forever. But that can't be. I can't get rid of people. I just can remove my awareness that they're there. Oh, well, I can't resurrect after that. Too bad. But some day will come that this will be the only way to go. If I die of age before, lucky me. If don't... well, it's nothing personal. It's you or me and you won't go so I remove myself. So I don't have to bear you anymore... then I will get rid of the pit. Oh yes I will get rid of it. Dead don't have pits in the soul. And if they do... to hell with it. Afterlife si for suckers or people who really didn't suffered enough here.

On the other hand... why should *I* suicide when the trouble it's YOU? That's what has kept me from getting too close to the rim of the pit. I don't bloody feel like removing myself because of you... in a fine day... in the bad days I just would remove myself and to hell with both me and you.

It's nothing personal. It's the way I am, and most of time I am lucky enough to NOT face this. Then I go on with the thing we should call my life (it's not really a life) and I am the person I use to be.

As you may figure, I usually don't think often about this -just when I'm down. Now I am down eonough to remember it but not really down.


Why does people suicide? Don't know. I really have enough with my own troubles about suicide.

Major, thanks for sharing so much of yourself.  Most people can't or wont go into those depths on the internet for people that esentially are complete strangers.  Although maybe that makes it easier?

I hope you don't go down that road, but I do know what you mean about people.  I have what would be called anti-social tendencies because I don't like many people.  Strangers specially.  I can play a good front at a party and people will believe I am empatheyic and all that, but it's a front.  I tend to happiest by myself.  My son is the exception to this rule...

I know exactly what you mean Biker. Something about the peace and quiet of being alone. Sometimes when I am planning to go to a friends house or something, I will get sidetracked and start reading. Not that I don't want to see the people I'm going to hang out with or have social anxiety problems, I just really enjoy not having anyone else around sometimes.

I find that even when hanging out with other people, I often prefer small groups of people to large groups. I usually have more fun fishing with two or three other people than I do at parties, and if I'm going out drinking, I prefer a smaller bar to a club type of scene. Usually at least. I'm perfectly willing to put up with a crowd if theirs live music or something else good going on.


MZL, I know what you're talking about. I don't mean to trivialize the issue, but it is just a state of mind. I've been there before and have found that for me, I've got to think happy. It might sound dumb to say it like that, but the three things that have always brought me back no matter how down I was were hiking, music (type of music is of importance) and getting some exercise (wooded areas factor more into the hiking for me than the exercise does).

It's a lot harder for me to be down on myself after I've just gotten home from a good run through the woods and put on some Peter Tosh.




Usually I do consider suicide a selfish act, but in some cases I wouldn't think of it in those terms. In the case of someone terminally ill, or someone who feels that their mind and/or body is slipping out of their control, due to age, illness or other reasons, I don't fault them. In the vast majority of cases, it's not the path I would recommend, but I understand.

Hunter S. Thompson shot himself a few years back. He is one of my favorite writers, and I feel that American literature and journalism will never be the same. Something he used to say was that he never wanted to get to a point in his life where he was unable to shoot himself. I can understand the sentiment of not wanting to lose control. Like I said, I wouldn't recommend it, but I've never been in the situation and have no idea what its like to face losing control over myself.

Well...

Talking about this things it's easier with strangers, yes. also helps that it's a foreign language, the additional effort looking for words helps in not getting too involved in this sort of travel to the ugliest in the mind.

But, I needed to vent it out. Specially because when you first encounter what I call the pit, you really appreciate when someone else tells you he knows it too. Knowing that other survived this struggle with self-destruction is helpful. Also as illhuman says, there's safety ropes, things that one may use to drag yourself out of the pit; and things that keep you in the right side of the slope, i.e. out of it.

As for people, it turns that I have a slight social phobia. I am irrationally scared of foreigners (that's why it has taken me almost a year to resolve myself into dealing with potential employers depsite my desperate need of working again). What is funniest is that I love that people cares of me, and I care about them in return, and so I'm pretty nice... but also feel deeply hurt when people is not nice with me, and then I bite back as well as I can. Btu that doesn't helps, of course.

All in all, I enjoy beign left to my own, but only to a certain point... whenever my parents leave for holidays I am happy the first week, but the second week I begin missing them and feeling tired about being with me and myself... also ahve a tendency to lmit cotnatc with ppeopel whoc ares about me, i'm terrible for e-mails as i may write a mail interesitng myself about someoena nd then he answers and then I c don't feel liek answering, i have 2topped2 my emapthy limit and need to be left alone... which si puzzling, but I need thsoe withdraws...

As for selfishness of suicide... well, probably is the most selfish act a person can comit, because when you have the rope in your ahnd, to speak so, and have to decide wether you'll actually hang yourself or not, it's all about you. It's your life in your hands. If there was soemthign else... if there is... you won't suicide. I think this may be why lonely people suicide oftener -the chances that a foreign influence breaks the intimacy with the own life and death are slimmer. Also there's cry out suicides, suicide attempts whose aim is to draw attention. Quite selfish too, when people stack their life against release from their suffer...

Anyway, I agree with Rachel that human are connected by the thigns we share, our abbility to understand as own what is alien. As my favorite quote goes, "I am human, nothing human is alien to me" (Homo sum, nil humani alieno me puto).

Not to sound like an ass, but I'm in the same boat.
This is why I need to move off to an island so I can get away from people. Or maybe into the hills of some hick town... Work in a call center for a year. After talking to 100 ignorant people everyday you'll have to question the basic intelligence of your fellow citizens. I have to constantly mute myself because I start getting really annoyed. My patience is down to 0. I don't even bother talking to people anymore because I can't deal with ignorance.... I go to college, and simply sit quietly. I don't bother interacting with people as I always manage to find their faults. Then their faults start to eat away at me. I love it when people in my house go out of town. Then I don't have to deal with people. It's just me and my antisocial self. Anyways, not going to delve to deep into my thoughts on suicide as I don't get emotional.

Good luck to you MZL.