Despite all my plans and precautions I was found still alive and hospitalised.
At a time (a few years ago) when I really didn't want to go on, this was one of the things that prevented me from attempting suicide again: The possibility of surviving it again, knowing how negatively that would impact my life. My life was hard enough at the time without inflicting additional suffering on myself and also getting labeled "crazy" or something (plus potentially being saddled with additional medical bills, etc). A lot of people living with the kind of chronic pain and suffering (due to a health issue) that I was living with do think about killing themselves. "Bars do not a prison make". A body that tortures you ever single minute of every day is a pretty bleak prison to live with.
But I also was actively working on resolving the underlying problem that made me wish I were dead. I think that is a critical detail missing from a lot of the encouragement offered when this topic comes up. In fact, spending a year at death's door was very empowering for me in that regard because it freed me up from fear of doing something socially unacceptable. I never know how to properly express this, but I lived and began getting well because I stopped trying to dutifully keep myself alive and, instead, my one and only goal became to hurt less. I was rather annoyed when I realized that my efforts to hurt less were actually killing the infections the doctors didn't know how to kill because I realized it meant I faced a long, very hard recovery. I would have welcomed death 10 or 11 years ago because I was in constant excruciating pain and couldn't sleep and every minute of the day was torment. So in some sense I came to a point where my attitude was "fuck societal expectation -- what do I want?" Given what a people-pleasing doormat I tend towards, this had a very positive impact on my life.
What I am trying to convey is: If you are suicidal, if your problems are so bad that death is something you would consider, that fact can be used to say "well, why not also consider this long list of other stuff (ie possible solutions/options) I wouldn't normally consider because it's socially unacceptable/my mom wouldn't approve/whatever?" When I stopped being at death's door, I had to work at keeping alive that mental space for saying "fuck societal opinion -- what do I want?" because my innate wiring makes societal opinion way the hell too important to me. I made a conscious choice to find some way to keep that standard alive for myself, to say "hell, what's the worst that could happen? Oh, someone might disapprove? And that fucking matters why?"
Anyway, I hope that makes some small smidgeon of sense to someone. I find it a very difficult concept to express.
At a time (a few years ago) when I really didn't want to go on, this was one of the things that prevented me from attempting suicide again: The possibility of surviving it again, knowing how negatively that would impact my life. My life was hard enough at the time without inflicting additional suffering on myself and also getting labeled "crazy" or something (plus potentially being saddled with additional medical bills, etc). A lot of people living with the kind of chronic pain and suffering (due to a health issue) that I was living with do think about killing themselves. "Bars do not a prison make". A body that tortures you ever single minute of every day is a pretty bleak prison to live with.
But I also was actively working on resolving the underlying problem that made me wish I were dead. I think that is a critical detail missing from a lot of the encouragement offered when this topic comes up. In fact, spending a year at death's door was very empowering for me in that regard because it freed me up from fear of doing something socially unacceptable. I never know how to properly express this, but I lived and began getting well because I stopped trying to dutifully keep myself alive and, instead, my one and only goal became to hurt less. I was rather annoyed when I realized that my efforts to hurt less were actually killing the infections the doctors didn't know how to kill because I realized it meant I faced a long, very hard recovery. I would have welcomed death 10 or 11 years ago because I was in constant excruciating pain and couldn't sleep and every minute of the day was torment. So in some sense I came to a point where my attitude was "fuck societal expectation -- what do I want?" Given what a people-pleasing doormat I tend towards, this had a very positive impact on my life.
What I am trying to convey is: If you are suicidal, if your problems are so bad that death is something you would consider, that fact can be used to say "well, why not also consider this long list of other stuff (ie possible solutions/options) I wouldn't normally consider because it's socially unacceptable/my mom wouldn't approve/whatever?" When I stopped being at death's door, I had to work at keeping alive that mental space for saying "fuck societal opinion -- what do I want?" because my innate wiring makes societal opinion way the hell too important to me. I made a conscious choice to find some way to keep that standard alive for myself, to say "hell, what's the worst that could happen? Oh, someone might disapprove? And that fucking matters why?"
Anyway, I hope that makes some small smidgeon of sense to someone. I find it a very difficult concept to express.