[papeda]

From the end of the article:

> To come so close to death does not provide a shortcut to wisdom or contentment. It doesn’t answer all your questions or eliminate your weaknesses. I’m fundamentally the same person I was before, but with one big difference. I’m viscerally aware how tenuous our existence is. How you can be walking on solid ground only to find it suddenly disappear from beneath you. The meaning comes in what I do from this point on. I have been given a second chance at life – and it’s up to me to make the most of it.

The article is clear that there was nothing intentional about this fall, but as a tangent, this excerpt does make me think about people who jump intentionally.

This line of thought is a bit ghoulish, but as far as I know about 90% of people who make an "unsuccessful" suicide attempt never commit suicide [1]. There are confounding variables galore here --- maybe it's the toughest cases who pick the most reliable methods; 10% is still way above the population risk for suicide --- but I've wondered if there's some way to give people that "oh, I'm going to die, and I don't actually want that" feeling that is apparently not uncommon [2] without actually hurting them.

[1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/survi...

[2] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/10/13/jumpers

[kls]

Years ago I had a legitimate attempt by taking a combination of a full bottle of opiates and benzos (A pretty deadly combination). I was pretty hell bent on being dead. I know at the time, my thoughts where use a gun (I am a big second amendment advocate, so was not going to be a statistic in the argument), carbon monoxide, pills or hanging. The reason I bring this up, is I actually think there are two main branches of why people attempt to commit suicide, neither or which is for thrill seeking. Those two branches are those that feel a tiredness that normal people just don't feel. It an unreal tiredness like you want to go to sleep and never wake up. You really don't want to be dead but you don't want to go on like you are, eventually something happens, you get overwhelmed and you see no other way. You cannot think about anything past just not being tired in your soul.

I think the second has a form of self loathing and self hate possibly combined with that tiredness. I think this reflects in the way people choose to commit suicide. I think jumpers have to be of the latter mindset, because jumping off a building was the furthest thing from my mind. When I committed to it, I just wanted it to be over. I did not want to suffer, I did not want to fall thru the air contemplating my mortality, I just wanted to not exist. I think jumping, suicide by cop and those type of attempts come from an internal anger at oneself, I did not have that anger, I was just tired. I specifically chose to OD because I figured it would do the trick and the fact that going out in euphoria seemed to me to be the next best thing from the instantaneousness of a bullet. I survived by pure chance and luck and am thankful I did and am better now, have not had a thought in years, but my point of the post was to say I think there is a pattern to the way people choose to commit suicide.

As for the experience without dying, for the particular way I felt, the only thing I could suggest is if someone offered to put me in a drug coma for 3 months then wake me up and see if I wanted to go back for another 3 months. I would have taken that option in a heartbeat. I just wanted a break from life.

[ReactiveJelly]

> I just wanted a break from life.

I feel that often.

Even a drug coma isn't enough. I'd come back to new bills and house maintenance or other little adult annoyances like that. And my friends and family would age without me.

My ideal vacation would be: Quit work at 5 pm Tuesday, do whatever I like for a year, and come back to work at 9 am Wednesday.

[kls]

Yes I agree on the bills etc. It was more of a if someone could wave a magic wand and I just did not have to deal with it for 3 months, just knowing that I would not have to deal with it, at that very moment would have been such a relief.

I had that feeling of if I could just walk away from my life for a year too, just leave it all for a year and maybe I would be better. Tired in the soul is the only way I can describe it to people. At the time I did not suffer from depression and I was not depressed, I have ADD and had a bunch of life event stack up on top of me to where my ADD was so bad that I could not put one foot in front of the other. Something as simple as washing the dishes seemed like moving a mountain.

[emptyparadise]

I wonder if there's a way to jolt one's brain into the right place for the first scenario without coming as close to death as possible. Seems like there's a lot more out there for thrill seekers than tired people.

And I have to say, having experienced the tiredness but not the "tipping over" I find myself pretty afraid sometimes.

[kls]

I can tell you after I had my attempt, when I returned to rational thought it scared the crap out of me. So when I decided that it was a done deal I took efforts to hide my body. I did not want to be found, I live in a chain of islands and went to a remote island where no one goes. My intent was that I knew that there is a lag time between drugs taking effect and the actual physical death. Anyways, I choose the island because it is not connected via bridge and no one ever goes to it. It was by pure happenstance that a young couple was camping on that island that day.

Anyways, I bring this up because there was systematic planning in my mind. If you find yourself going over the details it's time to raise your hand and tell someone. I did not really give a shit at that point so actually telling someone would have been easy but I also did not want people to thing I was seeking attention.

Anyways, when I came too I was pretty surprised to find that I was still alive and I set about a plan to ensure that I did not attempt again. For about a year, I would envision my daughters walking down the aisle without me, my sons seeing their first born. My wife, experience this all without me and growing old alone. It was enough for me to see the effect and pain my absence would cause other people. For the time, I could not live for myself, but I could live for them. Eventually I learned to live for myself again.

I find myself pretty afraid sometimes.

My contact info is in the profile, I am a complete stranger. Sometimes they are the easiest to talk to. If you ever find yourself at the tipping point, my door is always open, please contact me if you get there.

[kls]

Wanted to add, that I also ponder if Mass shootings are a form of this internal anger suicide but rather than internalizing the anger as self loathing they externalize their desire for non-existence as being the result of others actions so they want to lash out before they achieve the same results.

[admiral33]

There's a whole market for that. Roller coasters, haunted houses/corn maze etc. They get people as close to the edge of that feeling as possible. They won't get that full effect though because people know they are safe. If you wanted to get the full effect you need to break the illusion that customers signed up for midway through. Convince riders that the roller coaster is broken while they're still going full speed. While in line for the corn maze have a sociable "couple" (staff) go before you. While you're going through have one of them start screaming running back past you - you continue and find the other "dead", background music turns off, bright lights, "exit the maze immediately" over a loud speaker... cue chainsaw man.

[flotzam]

Nathan for You S01E05:

"Nathan makes a haunted house scarier by convincing visitors that they have contracted an airborne disease."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nathan_for_You_episode...

[akiselev]

Thank you for the best surprise birthday party idea ever!

[sjg007]

Go parachuting. The split second before the chute catches is something else.. terrifying. Especially if you tandem jump. I imagine bungee jumping is similar.

[flemhans]

I did a tandem in the Middle East and the instructor kept joking about how I wasn't Arab and didn't have faith and it would be so easy to clip me off the parachute :D

"Lol"

[aspenmayer]

I’m reminded of the film The Game (1997), but I won’t say more as to not spoil anything for anyone.

[yownie]

Its been 23 years I think the embargo on spoilers is up.

[aspenmayer]

The spoiler-y part is in the comment I replied to; my referencing the film in that context makes clear what spoiler I’m alluding to without making it obvious to those who haven’t seen the film or are otherwise unaware of the plot.

I try not to get in the way of a narrative just to make my own minor point, which is that it’s a good film on a hard topic, and if this topic interests you, perhaps so too will this film.

Thanks for the chuckle, nonetheless.

[yellowstuff]

I don't have hard statistics, but there's a New Yorker article about survivors of Golden Gate Bridge suicide attempts that says many of them regret the attempt and don't try again. The people who survive jumping off a bridge is probably pretty close to a random sample.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:V_siZl...

[ce4]

There's also a 2006 documentary titled "the bridge" about the same topic. The real footage is not for the faint of heart, though.

[aidenn0]

100% of the people that don't survive never try again either though.

[TaupeRanger]

What's your point? The post you replied to is just saying "of people that survive, most wish they wouldn't have tried it." If the sample is indeed random, that means most who didn't survive would feel the same way.

[raunakdag]

I think he was making a joke. :)