A reason... to live or to die.

[Done-With-It!]

A reason... to live or to die.
Consider this...

In the time it takes you to read this, a few others in the world have already taken their lives. You're still alive, so you still have time to choose differently. Because suicide is very much a choice you have to make. It is not a choice that can be made for you. I am not here to talk you out of it. I am here to help you make a decision that you can live or die with in peace. It's going to take about 5 minutes of your life, a life that you can't see much point in continuing. But since you found your way here, another 5 minutes probably isn't going to hurt anything.

In my many years online, I have met dozens if not hundreds of people who find themselves thinking the exact same thoughts you're thinking -- I can't go on any longer. I just feel too overwhelmed by it all. Nobody loves me, and those who do are just saying it; they're probably lying. I've gone on feeling so bad for so long, I just don't feel like I can take it any more. I give up.

If you recognize yourself in some of those words, that's good. That means that despite all of the bad feelings you're feeling, you can identify some of those feelings that have been felt by others. Trust me, that won't make anything I have to say easier. But it does give us a small reason to hope.

You are still alive. You are still reading. You are still you. One more light in a world of darkness. There is hope. So please keep reading...

The next step.

You are not to blame. You are not a bad person, nor a person who is weak. You are, in fact, a very strong person and I don't even know you. Why can I say that about you? Because you're here and you're reading this. Anybody who has gone through so much pain, torment and anguish to consider suicide is someone who is very strong because you are still alive. It takes strength to carry on, and in fact, maybe more strength than you've got right now. That's why you're here. That's why you've come to this site.

Consider this... Everyone considers suicide at some point in their lives. Everyone. Anybody who says they never have, not even for a fleeting moment, is lying. That makes what you're feeling right now completely normal. It's a part of life. I would even say that you've never really truly lived until you've confronted death in its face. Suicide is death. And you're doing that right now.

Death is a sweet end to a hard life. It is an interesting choice, and one the we only consider when life has finally just gotten too difficult. It's a dark time, and you're probably feeling pretty alone just now. I know I did. I felt like nobody else could understand. And even if they did, who cares? Life just didn't seem like it was worth it. After all, I felt like I had done enough with life, and well, I was tired of fighting the depression, the sadness and the loneliness.

But I'm still here. So I guess I found a reason to live, and after reading this, maybe you will too. If you don't, well, that's understandable. I don't know you and can't imagine the pain you're feeling right now. Sometimes we just give up. Sometimes could be now.

[Done-With-It!]

What it is

The thing is, we forget what suicide really is. It's not an end to itself. It doesn't really relieve us of the pain we're so desperate to get rid of. Instead it just transfers the pain to all of your friends and family. But that's not the real issue with suicide.

Suicide is a symptom. It's not a disorder like depression or anxiety. It's a symptom of a disorder, however, most often depression. And it strikes when we're least capable of dealing of fighting back. When the pain is too overwhelming to our coping ability, suicide becomes a reasonable option. And when I say "reasonable", I mean it seems like a decision that will really help us in the long run. It'll finally put an end to all the pain.

Suicide is right now, for you, just a thought. You haven't acted on it to any degree that you are absolutely lost yet. Just because you're thinking this thought doesn't mean you're a bad person or that all hope is lost. Remember, all people have thought about suicide at one point or another in their lives. Thinking about something and then acting on it are two different things. Just because you feel the way that you do at this moment doesn't make it inevitable that you have to act on it. We live much of our lives not acting immediately or haphazardly upon our feelings. We take time to think about what those feelings mean, and whether it's in our best interests to act upon them. Even when all that we're feeling is so much pain.

All the pain. How much pain are we talking about? For most people, we're not talking about a lifetime of pain, even though it may feel like that right now. No, we're usually talking about a specific event or a time that measures in days or weeks. But not a lifetime. So let's be real and truthful here. You haven't been hurting all of your life. If you think long and hard enough, you will recall a time when life wasn't so hard, when it was actually pretty good. Yes, that wasn't yesterday. Maybe you can't even remember a good time this past year.

But that's okay. I just wanted us to be clear about how much pain we're talking about here. For most, it's not a lifetime. But it is intense. And it is real. And it's happening now.

Where suicide comes from

Most people cope with pain okay. We don't like it, but we deal with it as it comes along. It's only when the pain is too great and overwhelming that we consider alternatives. One of those alternatives is suicide. It's certainly not the only one, but it's elegant completeness is very appealing. A simple, complete end to the pain. Finally, peace.

But at what cost? Peace comes to you, but your life is over. So you don't really get a chance to enjoy the peace. Because you're dead. You think death will end the pain. But how can we know what will happen when we die? We don't. We're making a huge assumption about the afterlife. But we're so overwhelmed by the pain and not being able to cope anymore, it seems like a reasonable choice. And a pretty damned attractive one at that.

That's what suicide is really about -- not having the ability to cope anymore with the amount of pain that you're feeling. You just can't deal with it anymore. You feel overwhelmed and hopeless. Lost. You are at the end of your rope and your coping resources have just run out. That leaves you with three choices: commit suicide, reduce your pain, or increase your coping resources.

The feeling of suicide is temporary. It's hard to understand that right now, I know that. I never felt like wanting to die would end. I really wanted to end it all. Every day was just another reason to die. I wrote endless journal entries about how good life was to me, how thankful I was, and how much I welcomed death and the peace it would bring. But the peace wasn't real. It was just something I had imagined, something I had convinced myself would be a part of the choice. So although suicide remains an attractive choice, you lose the ability to keep living or any future you might've had. I know you don't think you have much of a future right now. But guess what...? You do.

So this leaves you with finding a way to reduce the pain or increase your coping resources. Reducing pain is difficult for most people because usually the pain is emotional -- it sometimes feel as if your heart has literally been ripped out of you. Breathing is hard, eating is hard, so the thought of doing anything is darned near impossible. But there are possibilities.

[Done-With-It!]

Decreasing the pain

So how do you decrease the pain? That's the magical question. And why should you even care to? I mean, what's the point?? It could happen again. You could get hurt again. What's the point??

I can't tell you what the point is. I don't know. But one of the reasons I decided to stay alive was because I knew that life still held a lot of potential and I still had many things left undone. I never climbed a mountain, saw another country (Canada doesn't count), or found someone who really appreciated and accepted me for who I was. I wanted those things, I wanted so much more. And at that moment, I didn't think any of that was ever going to happen. Like you, I saw no point any longer. But there was a small part of me that still hoped, that still wanted, that still felt like maybe, just maybe, there was a reason to at least try to decrease the pain.

Decreasing the pain isn't easy, as one of the easiest ways to do so is simply to keep living and let time heal the raw feelings. Time. Yes, that stupid old adage. Time gives us perspective, teaches us what's important to us now probably isn't half as important when we look back at it 10 years from now. Or even 10 days. That's all you need do, is get through one more day. And the next. Don't look any further than that. If you can just give yourself one day. 24 hours. No, you're not going to feel magically better. No, it's not going to be much easier tomorrow. But one day is sometimes all it takes to get to the next day. And the next. Before you know it, 10 days have passed and these thoughts you're having tonight are going to look a little less pressured.

Just because you feel the pain doesn't mean you have to act on it today. Take a day to consider that the pain you are feeling right now is going to be just a little less intense one week from today, and even less intense one month from today. For most people, they won't even remember the intensity of the pain and feelings they experienced while contemplating suicide a year from that very same date. The pain fades away and life takes its place. If want to relieve the pain, dying is not the easiest way to do so. You're not only taking away the negative feeling of pain, but also the positive feeling of relief from pain. So whatever relief you think you may feel upon your death is not actually going to be felt. Because you'll be dead. Dead people don't feel. That may seem stupid and obvious, but we sometimes forget the obvious when the pain is so intense.

Remember, suicide is a temporary feeling and reaction to overwhelming pain. Suicide is a very permanent solution to this temporary question. Imagine destroying an entire city to rid it of a single cockroach. When we decide to actually take our own life, that is the equivalent of what we're doing. We are taking all the potential, the hope, the possible future achievements (both great and small), the creativity, the history and the life, and destroying it to rid ourselves of one feeling, pain. Talk about overkill. No, let's talk about increasing coping resources instead...

[Done-With-It!]

Increasing your coping resources

Enough about pain. You know all about pain, and it's still you that has to live with it right now.

Consider this... Another way of coping with pain is increasing the resources we use to cope with life. This can be anything. Chances are, you've given up on using coping resources to help you anymore, but I do want you to consider changing your mind about that. Friends or family can be great resources to turn to, even if they don't really understand what you're going through. They don't have to. They're not there to try and understand you all the time, but they can be there to hang out with and be reminded of why you are appreciated and loved by them.

But maybe you don't have any friends and you don't feel loved by anyone, especially not your family. Hey, I can understand that. Even if I knew (or thought that I knew) they loved me, it didn't matter. I never reached out for them before and I wasn't about to start now.

So there are other things you can do to help yourself. You can begin a new project, learn a new hobby or do something that is so totally out of character for you, others will wonder what has gotten into you. Guess what? If you're going to diei anyway, who cares? You can choose to die anytime, so why not have some fun before you go?? Live life one more time, one last chance. And maybe in that living, some small part of you will recognize that there is more to life than pain. There is more to life than what you're feeling right now.

You can do this. You don't have to, because like everything else in life, it is a choice. But it is a choice you can choose to make to give yourself another day, another week, perhaps another life. Here's how...

[Done-With-It!]

Reaching out

I'm almost done, but before you go, I am going to say this -- death is a choice. Suicide is a choice. You may feel like you've made a lot of bad choices in your life up to now. Maybe that's why you feel like you're in this situation now. Suicide would be, perhaps, the final bad choice you can make. But guess what? You're still reading this... And that tells me you still have a little hope, like I did. A little hope that maybe, just maybe, things will get better. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next week. But they will get better, if you can just hold on.

There's a saying that comes from AA, One day at a time. I once had to live every day for over a week or two waking up in the morning and making a conscious choice to live that one day. Just for one day. I would decide. I had to sit there in bed and think about it, really hard. Would it be worth it? Could I do it? I never really knew. Maybe I had faith, maybe I had luck. Maybe I was just dumber than you are. But I literally lived one day at a time for two weeks until the feelings subsided and life came back to me.

You too, now, need to live one day at a time. For today, for tomorrow, and maybe for another week or two. It's not going to be easy, I'm not going to lie to you. Some people will still not make it. But chances are, if you are still reading these glowing words, you will. You will make it. You can live.

You're online now, so maybe online is a good place to start to find a way to reach out. You can email The Samaritans, a non-profit, UK-based charity organization that is staffed by volunteers willing and ready to respond. Their email address is jo@samaritans.org. If you'd rather be more anonymous when you write them, go hit Hotmail or Mail.com for a free email address. This is about only giving you the help you want, not help you don't want.

If you'd rather, you can pick up the telephone instead. You don't need to call a suicide helpline if you don't want. Call a friend and just talk to them for a few minutes. You don't have to tell them the real reason you're calling, but sometimes just hearing that familiar voice can help. If you'd rather talk to someone anonymously (which is often easier for most people), consider calling toll-free 1-800-784-2433. This is the National Hopeline Network in the US and is staffed 24 hours a day by volunteers. They don't want to talk you out of anything, they just want to talk you into living for another day. Trust me, those are two very different things. (If you are international, go visit Suicide Helplines for a list of phone numbers in your country.)

Finally, I have only this to say...

[Done-With-It!]

Final thoughts

These really may be final if you've decided to end it all anyway. Like I said at the beginning, I can't make that choice for you. Only you can decide. That's one of benefits of life and the living -- being able to make conscious, free-will choices. But before making a choice, it's always best to understand as much as possible about that choice and its repercussions.

That's what I've tried to do here, help you understand that suicide is a temporary feeling of wanting to do something to stop all the pain, to stop the anguish, to stop the misery in your life. But these things -- pain, anguish, and misery -- they are all feelings. Relief from those feelings will come anyway, whether you choose to die or not. You don't really have a choice about that. You will feel better eventually, whether you want to or not. Because not even the kind of pain you're feeling right now is permanent (no matter how much it feels like it will never end). It will end.

So the real choice is whether to end it now, immediately, and never feel anything ever again. No relief from the pain. No possible joy in the future. No happiness. No additional pain. No love. No friendship. Nothing. Or to find a way, any way, to deal and cope with the pain for one more day. And then another. And then another. Until it starts, slowly, to subside. And you remember that life isn't just all pain. It does have friends. It does have family. It could have love again. And it might just be worth holding on to, to see what possibilities exist in your future.

Yes, end it now, and nobody will ever know. You will have made your choice, free will and all. Few will understand your choice (just like you feel like few understand you right now), but who cares? Few will respect your choice. I won't be amongst them. I both understand and respect your choice. And that's why I hope you'll make the choice to live.

Good luck with your decision. You are not alone, even now.

(If you want more assistance, read more about surviving suicide, otherwise you can return home.)