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There are still services like: http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ If you aren't in the US, which country are you from?
If you aren't in the US, which country are you from?
Didn't notice this question. I'm from Finland.
Earlier you mentioned you couldn't afford a counselor. I don't know the specifics of your country's system, but lack of money should not be a problem if you have coverage for both of your conditions.
It's not very simple. I'm not sure if I have coverage for those conditions. It could be.
Does your country provide universal health care? Or how does it work?
Does your country provide universal health care?
Yes. Why?
It's because I'm not exactly sure about it myself. I also didn't want to make it clear because I feel it's too embarrassing.
Now I'm curious than ever, but of course you're not obliged to satisfy my curiosity. In my culture there's no overlap between embarassing and very painful diseases, but I guess that in other cultures (say, Japanese) it might be different.
I'm also shooting in the dark here, but something like
so the negative/positive mental states even out and I might as well live in a normal neutral mental state
sounds odd from a person with suicidal thoughts.
Alright, my problems are Irritable bowel syndrome and borderline personality disorder.
It's probably an easier thing to do then committing suicide.
Then it's not a problem. If it's easier, then I will talk to them, if it's not, I will commit suicide. It may very well be that I will talk to them even though it will be very painful, only time will tell.
Then what about talking with your family?
I don't feel particularly close to them, so that's an even more difficult thing to do.
There are still services like: http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ If you aren't in the US, which country are you from?
Those people usually have such a different way of thinking that I feel even more alienated. I don't want to be convinced out of suicide, I'm not even sure if I want help.
It's because I'm not exactly sure about it myself. I also didn't want to make it clear because I feel it's too embarrassing.
Now I'm curious than ever, but of course you're not obliged to satisfy my curiosity. In my culture there's no overlap between embarassing and very painful diseases, but I guess that in other cultures (say, Japanese) it might be different.
I'm also shooting in the dark here, but something like
so the negative/positive mental states even out and I might as well live in a normal neutral mental state
sounds odd from a person with suicidal thoughts.
Now I'm curious than ever, but of course you're not obliged to satisfy my curiosity.
Let's see if I can muster enough courage to speak about my problems more explicitly.
sounds odd from a person with suicidal thoughts.
I've heard that one before (that I have weird issues for a person with suicidal thoughts. Even that I'm maybe even lying to myself... that I'm not actually suicidal.)
Did you speak with a professional counselor about your issues?
Nah. And I don't have enough money anymore to do that. That was probably very dumb thing to do, but whatever.
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Normally the first rule of responding to a suicidal poster on a web forum would be advising you to get professional help, call an emergency line, join a support group, all that stuff. And it's still what I will recommend you do in the first place, but we must admit that some of them may be ill-equipped to deal with the struggles of a highly rational person. On the other hand, they may try a supportive approach you haven't thought of yet. As per the posted LW guidelines, we must point you to these resources:
http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Suicide,_Self-Harm,_or_Violent_Content_on_LessWrong#Suicide_and_Self-Harm
As your medical history is yours to choose to share or not, you don't need to apologize for keeping it private. But you wouldn't need to apologize, either, if you chose to discuss it with us. You're protected behind your username. Most of us don't know you in meatspace. And even if someone dared make fun of you or say something insensitive, he/she would be downvoted to cyber-hell. One of the main priorities I've noticed in the LW forum is that its members take human survival very seriously, and we're talking your survival here.
In your post I saw several signs that suggest you don't really want to die. You postponed it out of consideration for your relative (i.e. you still care about things in this world). Every day you wake up less sure of doing it than you were the previous night. You still find the idea repulsive on a gut level. By what I'm about to say I mean absolutely no disrespect, and I don't intend in any way to minimize what you're feeling, but as someone who has been terribly depressed before, I can assure you that people who are resolved to suicide find the idea comforting, not unnerving. From your words it's clear you want the pain to end, but not to end it all.
For most of us, keeping on with life is just the default state, something that happens on its own if we don't do anything to change it. In your case, you'll find that, when staying alive becomes a conscious decision, it gives you an added strength that most people aren't familiar with. Instead of just living because it's what's supposed to happen, you will feel that you decided to stop inertia from pushing you (as it does to all of us) and instead stepped up to own your life. Choosing to stay alive will gradually change your mindset toward more self-mastery. It also comes with a number of responsibilities. You have medical issues to attend to. Eventually you'll need to face the consequences of what you did with your money, and work towards restoring your livelihood. Other LW members are a hundred times more money-savvy than I am, and will be able to give you much better advice on that matter. What I can say to you is something that both LW rationalists and suicide counselors say: question what your mind is telling you. Especially if it's telling you that you need to harm yourself; in that case you should not believe it at all.
Okay, I haven't done the first two. I've made a couple posts on www.reddit.com/r/suicidewatch during the past few years but then I started harassing the people of that subreddit for reasons I'm not exactly sure of - I encouraged them to commit suicide, like this - then my whole IP got banned from reddit about a week ago.
I'm not sure if I'd call me "rational", I'm not sure if a rational person would consider suicide, but I'm a bit out of the ordinary for sure.
Okay, I promise to call to a suicide hotline before I attempt a suicide (confidence, 90%).
I don't live in any of those countries so that didn't help me very much,
I'm not sure if that's a good thing to say for a person frequenting LW forums who probably has some level of self-awareness, but it surely isn't for a general suicidal person. I quote SQLwitch, the mod from /r/suicidewatch, who's been helping suicidal people for decades:
'Don't disagree with suicidal people about how bad things are. It’s not about their circumstances; it’s about their suffering, and you can’t measure that from the outside. A message that in any way tries to tell or show the suicidal person that “it’s not so bad” is just another way of saying “I don't understand what you’re going through”.'
'For our OPs who are in the lowest and most dangerous state of mind, simply seeing one of these message can make their sense of alienation and failure worse, because they are not remotely able to believe that it's true for them. Anything meant to be universally "uplifting", including the overuse of the "It Gets Better" message, which originated in the specific context that adults aren't usually as emotionally immature as teenagers, tends to backfire."'
This part of your post initially made me feel worse because being suicidal is a considerable part of my identity (I've been thinking about it for the past 7 years). Making assumptions about a person you don't know makes the other person feel kinda bad. It's a bit unfair because you can say the same thing about every person who is still alive and suicidal. Every live suicidal person has something to cling to because otherwise they would have seriously attempted suicide already and would mostly likely be dead - or in the process of committing suicide.
I've had some comfort from suicide, but it has been from a state between "abstract" and "practical". Not from a state "I'm gonna do it a few hours from now".
I've used that kind of rational to think of myself as a "better person" but it hasn't worked. Or I don't know, maybe it has. And maybe I don't really want to die. Can you taboo the concept "resolved to suicide"? Maybe I'm not actually resolved to suicide, but I've thought about it a lot and made plans. Only time will show if I'm actually gonna do it.
But questioning my mind is one of my problems to begin with. Other people have told me that "I should be more confident" and I "should trust myself more". Being suicidal is such a big part of my identity that I should basically question everything I do, and then I'm not at all sure what I should do which leads to further problems.