[tw25532050]

It might help folks that can be helped by talking to someone. For someone like me, it would only make me feel bad, like I'm burdening someone else with the knowledge that I'm going to end my life; I know they won't be able to "talk me out of it".

I have no friends, no family, nor any coworkers since July. No one will notice me being dead then any more than they notice me being absent now. When the money runs out, I have the nitrogen tank ready to go.

Life isn't for everyone.

[smeej]

For some of us, it's not about changing your mind. You're right--life isn't for everyone. Death comes for everyone, one way or another, at some point. Normally we don't pick when, but maybe you're right and this is how it comes for you. That's not up to me.

If you don't want to go through it alone, though, you don't have to. We could look that mystery in its face together. See what's there. I'm not expecting to go through it myself yet, but I'd stand there with you while you do.

I'm not any kind of counselor. I'm a longtime lurker who just made an account to say your confrontation with and even path through your own death isn't a burden for everyone. If you want to talk with someone about it, that option is available to you.

[tw25532050]

I appreciate the offer. For me there's no great mystery; I die every night, and wake up every morning with that dead guy's memories. Life takes effort, and keeping that cycle going just hasn't been worth the effort for a long time. I made the decision months ago.

I think there are a lot of people who keep putting in the effort only to avoid imposing suffering on their loved ones and others. So, in a way I'm lucky in my loneliness: I'm free to be selfish.

[smeej]

Sincere question: If you already die every night and wake up with the dead guy's memories, why do you think dying this slightly different way would lead to a meaningfully different outcome? Maybe you just wake up somewhere else, with the same memories, but then without even the hope that there might be a way out.

Maybe it's just me, but on the off-chance that dying doesn't actually end any of my sufferings, I'd really rather not find that out until I absolutely have to.

[alisonkisk]

There are obvious strong scientific arguments for how sleep is different from death. If you are willing to bet on the afterlife existing, why not get their is an angry dragon hiding behind every door you open?

[smeej]

Sure, there are arguments for how it's different from the outside. From the inside? Who knows? No empirical evidence there. Not a testable hypothesis.

But I'm not the one betting. I'll find out in due time.

The fear that there might be something there has actually occasionally prevented me from making that bet, so I'm sincerely wondering why this other person is so sure it definitely won't be as bad or worse. :shrug:

[fuckminster_b]

I've been in your shoes. I had gradually reduced contact to everyone who at that point was still trying to stay in touch, getting people used to me not answering the phone or replying to their messages for ever longer periods. I figured noone would be shocked this way when they finally learned that i'd ditched life.

I was in a state of permanent daze and confusion then, lots of drinking and whatever substances I could get my hands on.

While I had plans made, I had this spur of the moment idea that seemed pretty sane while I was high: I'd at least get a kick out of my life being teh suck, so I got myself into a situation with basically 50/50 chance of dying and beyond my control. I lived and one of the worst hangovers ever. Since I wasn't exactly thrilled with the outcome, I repeated this kind of coin toss with different setups, in total two more times.

The experiences were definitely less shit than my reasons for getting to this point in the first place. In fact, I'd never felt so alive. My problems were not magically gone but now I was curious what else in life I had never thought of, what else I might be missing out on by taking an early exit. I was pretty young and suddenly realized that as of yet I had no idea what to even expect of the future.

I regard everything I've experienced since then as bonus time. I got over the reasons for everything being shit and feeling like shit. Turned out it was mental illness responding well to medication.

Since then, a lot has happened, both good and bad, but it was worth the ride. I have no more reason to fear death, a luxury few are granted early in life. I know there's always an exit option but so far, I've been too curious about what happens next to consider it again.

Now, I won't tell you bullshit like "hurr durr, life is so beautiful, don't throw it away…". The world can be an utter pile of shit and so can the people it spawned and if you go on living, the only thing certain is that you'll have to deal with more world shit and more people shit.

But consider, if you're a curious person, that you'll be missing out on a once in a lifetime experience. You'd be surprised.

I don't regret having stayed for the encore.

[4ce0b361]

I admire your composture in talking about your loneliness and your apparent reluctance in burdening other people with your problems. While agreeing with some of the other posters on the generic upside of being alive and serving others, I would also like to tell you that God himself, in the person of Christ, has chosen to share in our suffering, and lead us to hope, as a community of believers. PM me if you (or anyone else, for that matter) want.

[ip26]

You need some kind of lonely together COVID pod. Other people in the same circumstances. As long as your circle of contact is a closed loop, the exposure is not a big deal (same as with a family quarantined together).

You might not have a lot of shared interests or whatever, but there are countless others suffering exactly like you- in this, you are not alone. People feel a little better being lonely together. And you know, two key ingredients to friendship are simply shared hardship & routine interaction.

P.S. Ever consider volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters?

[throwawengo]

I feel like I might have ended up in your position if I hadn't been inoculated against it early.

I'd like to tell you how even objectively bad circumstances do not demand subjective suffering, that there exist treatments and substances that can genuinely help, to try to point you in the direction of Standard Official Resources, and that the future can be better and so on, but I also know that all of that can sound empty or even annoying.

So instead, I'm going to try something that might be unwise. I've only seen it work once.

You're not alone, in the worst possible sense of the phrase. Extreme suffering is common and nearly ignored. Through what can only be reasonably termed negligence, more people die each year to trivially preventable causes than at the peak of the holocaust. Unanswered prayers and extinguished hopes are the sum of experience for a number of people so large that we can't have a proportional emotional response to it.

You have a blessedly uncommon insight in this. Even if your experience isn't the same as all the others, you have an understanding that reality has no safety net.

So now we come to the part that I've always hesitated suggesting to anyone else:

Please help. Please take upon yourself the completely ridiculous and unreasonable burden of doing what is within your physical power, even when it means exposing yourself to even more suffering indefinitely, even when doing anything is already asking too much. It's not a matter of obligation or moral expectation, there's just the brute fact that people constantly suffer and die for no reason, and they could be saved. Just actions and consequences.

I won't tell you that this will help you. It may. I am alive right now. Therapists might suggest 'crying yourself to sleep for a year' and 'having recurring dreams composed solely of uncontrollable sobbing' are not an ideal recovery from severe depression, but if all else fails, turning yourself into a robot that tries to guide others away from the sharper edges is still better than the alternative.

Please stick around and help, because no one else will replace you.

[justathrowa]

>Please stick around and help, because no one else will replace you.

That's a touch arrogant to say, isn't it? 7.5 billion people, I'd imagine that most are not only replaceable, but trivially so.

[throwawengo]

No, absolutely not. I was not clear enough.

People are dying constantly because not enough people are helping.

Relative to the number of people trying to help, the size of the problem is nearly infinite.

If someone who could help, doesn't, the people they would have saved just die. No one else will save them.

This is the unreasonable burden. This is why I don't suggest it lightly. I'm telling a person who is already suffering enough to want to opt out, that people will die unless they choose to stay and do a truly unacceptable amount of work.

I'd certainly like to see people in better circumstances help, but there seems to be a problem of perspective. The full scope and seriousness of the problem tends to slide off and not stick for 'healthy' people. Not always, and I appreciate everyone who does even the smallest bit, but... apparently it's ignored often enough that it continues.

(To be clear, I don't really blame people who never think about it or shy away from actually engaging with it. No one can be expected to tolerate it or to carry the burden of doing something about atrocity. That the world contains these evils is not really their fault, they're just people that happen to be in slightly different circumstances than the ones currently dying.)