h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A bit of a serious topic. I've attempted suicide a few times in my life and I think about it a lot. The thing is that this is not the same thing as being suicidal as a result of depression. I am sometimes depressed to the point of suicidalness, but also I'm sometimes suicidal without being depressed. And I can't talk about it because this is the thing people cannot understand. I can be suicidal while generally being very happy, because of the different view I have of the world and myself. I see myself as being connected with everything, and therefore this particular body I am is not so important. I don't have a dread of death. Thus I can very easily be moved to suicidalness; a very small reason (for someone else) would suffice for me. I might want to kill myself just to test my ideas of life and death. I might want to kill myself to clear the way for other people because the world is overpopulared and we are competing against each other and this is something I do NOT want to do (I mean I don't want to compete with other people). I might want to kill myself so as not to be a financial burden sometime in the future on anyone. All of this while still being happy. The only thing holding me back from suicide is the idea that other people will feel sad if I do so. This creates a dilemma because I actually am a friendly person who wants to be social, but now a part of me wants to push people away and alienate them so that I can commit suicide without making anyone sad.

Morning Willem

I understand that.

Do you know why you are thinking this now, you have given reasons why you feel what you feel, has something prompted it at this time?

I am afraid that alienating people won't work. I feel a bit bad writing that because on one hand I don't want to guilt trip you,on the other I don't care, I'll do anything if you are considering this as an action, rather than just talking it over, but it just won't work, that is just a statement of fact

You have attempted suicide before, how have you felt about that afterwards?

love Peanut

Hullo Willem

I'm glad that Peanut answered your posting, because I don't know what to say, really. If you're needing to communicate to us how it feels to be on the verge of suicide, well, that's OK friend, you're doing that.

You are choosing this rather open online context to speak about it, which makes me a bit nervous, because, although I have been involved in the field of mental health, it was only ever as a layperson, I'm not a trained therapist or psychiatrist.

So I get scared when you post like this. What happens if I say the wrong thing and you go do it? Are you receiving professional help?

So, I'm going to speak openly now. The mods can yikes this posting if its too uncompromising.

I have lived around suicide, attempted and actual, although I myself am neither schizophrenic nor suicidal. In the 80s I had a bit of a breakdown and lived in a sheltered community for a while. A lady I lived with there, a friend of mine, killed herself in the night. I was the last person to speak to her the evening before. She left two young daughters, and a loving husband.

I spent years being unsure about suicide and confess to feeling angry at that time.

Two other people I knew from this era also took their lives, although not in the community. My mother was a sensitive person, and shut people out. I had fears in childhood, of finding her. She had made attempts in her young life.

I don't know, Willem. I don't know to say. Of course I want you to be OK, to be happy, do your wonderful art. It does affect me when you post like this, although I'm not saying it's wrong. Especially if I'm the last one to post. Now I beg that someone will come in after me and post. Help!

Hey CC, it is ok, what you posted, that you care come through loud and clear. I think that is important

And it perfectly ok to feel scared and concerned. I am too but I hope I am right that at this time I think Willem wants to talk and be listened too and that where we can step up

I worried that I didn't come across as emotional but that is because right now I am shoving my feelings aside because I think it is important that Willem can feel like he talk to me without my feelings getting in the way, because you can, you know Willem and I hope you do

Although expressing your feelings is equally as fine CC, you are not doing anything wrong, sweetheart

Oh gawd, thanks love.

Sorry, Willem, I shouldn't have posted. I have too much to forget right now. I do care about you though. Listen to Peanut, please, not me.

I'm nervous now, I want to withdraw my posting, I feel too exposed, and I've done the wrong thing, and haven't helped Willem.

This is what I mean, I'm not a pro, can't keep the detachment.

hmm. wah. cc

Please don't remove it will cause more confusion with a modded post in here.

It is alright love, Willem knows that you are his good friend and will understand if you unsub, which for you I think would good

OK love I'll do that, but please don't think I don't care, Willem, and you're not wrong to post here. It's OK to raise these issues. Good in fact. I just hope you will be alright. Listen to the folks round here, they are wise.

I need them, too, to make me banana and chocolate teapot sandwiches. .

Cactuscafé you've done nothing wrong! Folks I'm not going to kill myself anytime soon but I want you to know that I might and that for me it wouldn't be such a big deal, it'll just be one of those things. People die all the time, why make such a fuss about suicide? Nobody is going to 'cause' me to kill myself. But this is a real risk of my condition. I'd at least want my friends to understand it. Most of all that if I kill myself it is NOT necessarily because I was feeling depressed or unhappy.

CC, there are many of us here who are unable to reply to Willem, not that we don't care about him, but more because we 'do' care, and like you, feel we haven't got the right words to say.

Willem, you know you have many, many friends here who hold you in very high esteem. You have touched us in ways you probably never thought about. Just viewing your pictures and reading your works in The Post is a privilege for us.

You have touched so many lives, each with their own memory of you


lil xx

Do you know what I really respect that Willem, I was thinking that it might be a shread of comfort while I grieved for you , and to have lost you in such a way, that at least I understood

I say might, I don't know how I would feel, it is very diffuclt to think about, to imagine how I might feel, it makes me feel stuff.
And right now I don't really understand because I don't feel that I know enough to be able to, I have questions but they are a bit of a jumble

I want to have this discussion, not just to be a listener,a discussion as friends. It is thought a terribly difficult discussion to have, precisely because you are my friend

*goes to think a bit about putting questions into words*

you ask why all the fuss about suicide I don't think I am making a 'fuss' about suicide, there are lots of aspects to that question, under what sort of circumstance individuals think that is ok to do that,under what sort of cirumstances in which it happens and you can't get away from the fact that a suicide impacts on family very differently from another circumstances
Commiting suicide is an 'extreme action' to take, although not necessarily 'wrong' in my mind.

There is taboo about suicide, that is of a an conceptual human thing that is part of our nature as humans and how we realte

Also might be instinctively felt that it goes against the grain our nature

Hi there! Again I want to say I'm not in any danger of committing suicide right now. But *if* in any of the infinite parallel universes I'm involved in I do end up doing it people deserve an explanation.

I do not think suicide is good because it's not good for anyone to die in itself. But what is so great about dying of hunger and exposure? I'd rather kill myself at a period when I'm still relatively happy rather than wait until I'm a hobo on the street and starving or freezing or slowly drinking myself to death.

But the thing is if we want to save more people's lives there are different things we can do. If really we want to save lives then we have to go against the world that doesn't appreciate people's lives. But not only that because it's possible to feel appreciated and still be suicidal. I know that I am appreciated but it makes no difference to me because I'm not suicidal because I think I'm unappreciated. I'm suicidal because I'm not really anchored in this world. I belong to a different sort of world and in this world I'm already 99.99% a ghost. I could slip out of this world with extreme ease. That's the real thing. I'm a sort of a free spirit and most of the things that tie other people to the 'real world' are things I don't have. Literally the only thing holding me here right now are my friends, and there aren't many of those.

You are not anchored down to this world, so then first question what do you mean by that? Followed by which other world do you think you might belong to after that

And what do you think really ties people to this world?

Friends is not top of my list but guess which person that I gave birth too is?

I like being tethered by my list of love and friendship and experiences to come,

I am still free just not bound, just held on too

I think one reason suicide is such a big deal is the purposefulness of it. To make an analogy (probably a flawed one, though is any analogy perfect?)--if you lose something important to you, it's annoying. If someone steals it from you, it's much more upsetting.

I really had to think about this, friends. It worried me. I'll tell you why in a minute.

Theoretically? I recognise valid reasons for suicide: King Saul in the Bible (he was going to get killed, anyway, and wanted to prevent his enemies from doing it), the couple who took poison as the Nazis beat down the door (ditto), and my great-aunt, who calmly took her own life when she realised she had a terminal illness (she was weighing cost/benefit for her loved ones).

That being said: those of us who, like me, can feel frantic one moment and relatively sane ten minutes later, shouldn't make decisions based on current state of mind. I woke up in a tizzy this morning, but I seem to be feeling better now - see what I mean?

I really recommend the websites of the Samaritans. They are professionals, and can discuss this a lot better than I can.

Now, I hope what I've said makes sense.

The thing is I just don't feel as if I really exist. I'm like a ghost. I don't interact with the real world of other people. Other people in my 'real life' (except that I don't have such a thing so what could it mean?) act like I don't exist, they don't see me, they don't hear me, they want nothing to do with me. I feel like Gordon Way in 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' after getting shot. I cannot get through to anyone or anything. I'm locked in a kind of solitary confinement; I can't reach out, I can't communicate. I can't contribute. Despite whatever talents I might have, I'm unable to employ them effectively in a way that other people can benefit from. I even feel guilty about trying to contribute to this little site. Since people in my 'real life' who know me better know that what I 'contribute' is actually worthless or worse ... I am indeed doing you all a disservice. The stuff I send in for The Post must also be contaminated with whatever it is that makes me a complete persona non grata in the 'real world'. You see? I DON'T WANT TO HARM PEOPLE. But if my very nature is harmful to others, what then? Despite EVERYTHING I'm trying to do to be or become better, it doesn't seem I'm making any progress. I'm still happy enough for my own sake but I'm questioning the wisdom. If I am really bad for people and the world then for everyone's sake I WANT to remove myself from this world, because I DO NOT WANT to do anything bad to anyone else. But if I am so crazy that I am unable to understand what it is that I'm doing that is so bad, then there is nothing left that I can do.

Are you worried about harming someone Willem?

You are not bad, or harmful person

if you would to be feeling that way it would still not a reason to remove yourself through suicide

and you can reach out and communicate, and have other options to deal with that

mmm, that sounded direct, harming someone, it is a question

but I also meant are you very worried about harming people in general?

But Peanut if I am harmful it means I'm harming others! What on earth could justify harming other people? It is bad to harm people! I do not want to be a bad person ... I cannot stress this enough! It is not worth it! It is not possible to go through life and face oneself in the mirror thinking, let alone knowing, that one is a bad person when one has nothing but love for other people!

Sorry simulpost. Yes I am concerned that I am harming other people! If I am insane with a kind of insanity that can negatively affect other people in any way whatsoever, that is it. It means I will have wrong ideas that will cause damage to other people. It means that I have negative feelings that would negatively affect other people. Right now I feel bad even about contaminating my cat Poplap with my own troubles. In the end if I am WRONG about things then I'm doing harm because we already have a world that is torn up because of people's wrong ideas. I absolutely, genuinely want to help! The world is bad enough without making it worse. Making things worse to me is a crime that is beyond awful and I want no part of it.