Suicide

[Dalmania]

Well, he shows a last login time of 5:11 PM today, so he's still around...

 

 

Hey Hi College Guy

 

Do you notice how many people have tried to show you caring? sharing their own experiences? worrying?

these same people live in the real world too - not just on line.

 

I guess I would add that if it helps you might keeping the idea of killing yourself as a extreme option and way out of the pain. In the meantime, try and exist from moment to moment and the pain does at some point go away - maybe not for ever - but each time you have more proof that you can survive during the pain and that it will end.

i have learned that depression/mental illness actually changes how i view the world and that I know now that I cannot relie on how I feel when I am down. What I feel and perceive is not accurate and I have to try to ignore the feelings and remember that I do not think about wanting to die when I am not sick.

 

i hope that you can manage too.

FM

[Matthew]

am i the only one here who's thinking, that it's been a while since we heard anything from hi_college_guy?

 

 

Well, he shows a last login time of 5:11 PM today, so he's still around...

 

Yes, I'm still around, I said I wasn't going to do anything while in Florida, and I'm barely back.

 

Hey Hi College Guy

 

Do you notice how many people have tried to show you caring? sharing their own experiences? worrying?

these same people live in the real world too - not just on line.

 

I guess I would add that if it helps you might keeping the idea of killing yourself as a extreme option and way out of the pain. In the meantime, try and exist from moment to moment and the pain does at some point go away - maybe not for ever - but each time you have more proof that you can survive during the pain and that it will end.

i have learned that depression/mental illness actually changes how i view the world and that I know now that I cannot relie on how I feel when I am down. What I feel and perceive is not accurate and I have to try to ignore the feelings and remember that I do not think about wanting to die when I am not sick.

 

i hope that you can manage too.

FM

 

It would be nice to meet someone who cared so much in the real world who isn't paid to do so, but I don't really meet people like that.

 

What if the feelings of the moment, as they often do, dictate suicide?

 

I really fail to see reasons to not commit suicide. I just don't see it getting better down the road. It's gotten a little less important, but it's still on my list of things to do.

[Masked Monkey]

It would be nice to meet someone who cared so much in the real world who isn't paid to do so, but I don't really meet people like that.

You only know how much people care by trusting them. Your issue is not other people caring about you, it is you trusting other people

 

What if the feelings of the moment, as they often do, dictate suicide?

 

I really fail to see reasons to not commit suicide. I just don't see it getting better down the road. It's gotten a little less important, but it's still on my list of things to do.

 

I haven't seen a reason not to commit suicide in 25 years (counts on fingers), yep. I've thought and planned and schemed ... even tried once (or twice). The bottom line for me is that there is nothing external to my mind that stops me ... there are no reasons other than those that I give myself. I've learned the peaks and valleys of my depression, sadness, despair, lonliness, isolation, fear ... it is almost to the point that I start laughing at the same time I am crying when I hit bottom .. it is all so familiar that I laugh at my mind for trying to do it to me again. I have gotten to the point that I just know I won't do it ... for no other reason than I just wont. It makes feeling depressed, well, pointless .. so I laugh and just do whatever it is I have planned for that day -- no reason -- just becasue.

 

and on those happy and pointless musings, I'll wish everyone (in the states) a happy Thanksgiving.

 

:king: Snow Dog

 

P.S. Pecan pie is a damned good reason not to kill yourself

[Dalmania]

So I was checking up on you and am glad to note that you were still alive and on the as of this morning.

Glad to see you are managing to tough it out.

Remember that we care and that we are real people out there in the "real' world. It may not make the pain go away but hopefully it makes the pain a little more bearable. keep up the good fight. :2hands:

[Aeroplane]

"On a different note, my mother just came up to me and we had the following dialog:

mom "when are you going to talk to me"

me "what do you mean"

mom "when are you going to realise that i'll love you no matter what and talk to me about your problems"

me "i don't know what you mean"

"

 

 

 

It sounds like you do have people in your life that do care about you and who arent paid to, im sure that your mother cares and loves you very much otherwise she wouldn't have asked how you were.

 

Recently in recovering from a bout of depression lasting much of my teenage life ive discovered that having a positive attitude is a great step forward, its not going to work all the time - I still have my lows, but so does everybody else.

Just a thought - and i dont know if you already have one - but you could talk to Myr about getting a blog here so that all the decent people who visit can comment on your day and how you felt at the end of it. I dont know if its true for you, but Ive found that discussing something over with someone can make me see it from a different perspective.

 

 

I think the key is talking to people. It was a mantra often repeated in various anti-bullying intiatives at various ages and I didnt much listen to it, but its starting to make sense and I think it applies here. Other people can be really supportive of you. And I mean Real People. Therapists have their time and place but sometimes they may not be what you need (and I am not suggesting that you stop sessions in any way, just that you broaden the number of people you discuss issues with.)

 

Hmm so theyre my thoughts, I really hope that I can help in some way. If you need to talk to someone then you can send me a private message - I may not always be online at the same time you are because of timezones etc but i'll try to reply ASAP.

 

 

 

Xeo

[Matthew]

So we're over a week into 2006 and for some reason I'm still alive. This is largely due to the communication and care that I've gotten from people who saw this thread and took a little time out of their day to say something. This has all meant the world to me.

 

Unfortunately, although you all mean the world, nothing can change the world in which I must live. I honestly know that it's awesome compared to what some people go through.

 

The problem is that I've been spending time at home and my time here over break has proven and cemented the fact that my sexuality cannot be reconciled with my faith, family, or friends. I cannot see a point in a life in which I deny myself either of those things. It's for this reason that my New Year's Resolution has been to stop procrastinating. I'm not going to do anything to myself while my mom's around, but I've promised myself that I will end my life after I get back but before school starts.

 

But none of that is really important to why I'm posting this. I wanted to thank everyone who's leant support, advice, and comfort. You've all been great and I wanted you to know that. Unfortunately, as I said before, internet friends, as comforting as they might be, cannot change the facts of life. I know you guys would if you could, and that's what makes you so awesome.

 

I didn't want to do anything without saying thank you.

 

Matthew

[DomLuka]

Okay. I think it

[Trebs]

I agree with Dom - the biggest thing to realize is that things can and will get better - but if you aren't here to be there for it, you won't realize it.

 

No one else can really know your situation - but like many others, I have been down in the past and thinking about ending it as well. Lonliness, isolation - the only good thing was also cowardice which made me put it off for "one more night." That was about 12 years ago... and just kept realizing, if I wasn't around, I couldn't see what might happen.

 

I got lucky - but I don't think its an accident. Right now - my life is pretty great. I have someone very supportive and loving in my life. Things aren't perfect - I haven't talked to my mom in about 6 years. But I enjoy every day that I'm here now... cause there are so many cool things to do, see, be a part of...

 

You have people here that know.... that care... Realize that others have gone through things as bad or even worse than you have now - and made it.

 

I hope you make it - if you need any help - we are here... Please help us by helping yourself - give yourself more chances...

[dkstories]

The problem is that I've been spending time at home and my time here over break has proven and cemented the fact that my sexuality cannot be reconciled with my faith, family, or friends. I cannot see a point in a life in which I deny myself either of those things.

 

 

Matthew,

 

I think this statement is one that is close to the heart of your problems, and one of the most common problems many people experience in their lives. Life is not an All or Nothing proposition. When it comes to matters of the heart, matters of personal belief, and the essence of what most people consider the 'will to live', others cannot solve these problems, the answers to them must come from within, from ourselves.

 

You've asked before what is intrinsically wrong with suicide, and it is a tough question to understand, much less answer. Ultimately, as someone who has far too often wanted to end his life, I have to say that the intrinsic wrongness in suicide is its ultimate betrayal of self. When a person commits suicide, he is proving to himself that he has no faith, no belief in his own ability to survive, to continue, to live a better life. Instead of facing the pain that is life, we choose to escape in the ultimate, final way, by ending that life that has been given to us.

 

Life is never easy, and the lives of gay men are most often more difficult than others because of the problems we face in rejection from society, from our friends, and even our family if they learn this one aspect of our lives. I grew up in a family that is very religious, and being gay was something not tolerated by them. My maternal grandmother is someone I love very much, but when the fact that I was gay became well known, I had to face her rejection.

 

We didn't speak for a very long time.

 

Very few in my family accepted me outright when it became known I was gay. Cousins no longer spoke, Aunts and Uncles wanted to preach at me to turn me back to the path they felt my life should take. Yet, here I am, nearly a decade and a half later, and things are different. My mother and father eventually accepted me and my boyfriend into their homes. They're dead now, but my grandmother welcomes not only me, but my partner, Robert, each and every time we visit (sometimes I think they like him better than me).

 

What it took was time, and honesty. For a long time, the pain was great as I struggled with the loss of the family at first, but they eventually came around to remembering me as a family member and treating me as such. Even my preacher Uncle, as conservative as they come, gives me a grudging respect for what I've done for my grandparents. What it took was time and perseverance.

 

Remember, whenever you're tempted to run away by comitting suicide, that when you commit that act, you will forever cut yourself off from ever having a loving relationship with your family. You will guarantee that the possibility of their ever loving you as an openly gay man will forever be gone, because you will no longer be around...

 

Only when you are dead can there be no hope for a better life, for a good change to come your way. That is why I think of suicide as the ultimate defeat...and each and every breath of life as one more step towards a better life, even if it hurts like hell each and every step of the way. We, everyone here, will always stand ready to listen, to give what advice we can, to be a shoulder to cry on, each in our own way.

 

It is up to you to continue the fight, to do what we cannot: To take the next breath.

 

Fight the good fight...

 

Dan

[vision]

If at 19 you believe life has nothing worth living for then you must not have experienced many things, because while there are shit things and people in the world there are great things and people to.

 

That said, I'm not going to say you can do anything you want if you try hard enough cause that's not true, however you can choose to not kill yourself. You can blame other people or 'faith' all you want, but at the end of the day it's your choice, you choose what you do, no one else.

 

If you're not willing to invoke changes in your life then you put up with things the way they are. No one can say that they can't cut out the negative influences in their life, because it's simply not true.

 

I won't regale you with stories of down moments in life, because if no one elses have had any effect why would mine? Life is for living, if you choose not to live it then don't complain about what could have been, you have no right to if you aren't willing to try harder at sorting things out.

 

When in tough times, tough decisions are called for, if you're not strong enough to make them, then atleast don't drag other people down with you.

 

I hope you don't kill yourself, because there is no reason to, at the end of the day death has a nasty habbit of being perminant, once you do it there is no turning back and I can think of nothing enjoyable that happens after death.

Edited January 10, 2006 by vision

[JamesSavik]

Don't quit.

 

Don't let the bastards win.

 

I have been out since I was 13 in Mississippi of all places. The only place worse that I can think of might be Iran.

 

People did shit to me that they you done it to a dog, you would have been charged with cruelty to animals. Since I was merely a filthy faggot, teachers, cops and parents looked the other way.

 

I saw the harrassment and cruelty literally destroy people and vowed it wouldn't happen to me. I was going to be steel- they couldn't touch me.

 

I played football and took the cheap shots and pain. I did the things that people told me that faggots can't do. When people put obstacles in my path, I did what I had to do going over, around or through them.

 

I fought so much that I've still got scars on my knuckles. Won more than I lost and got my ass severly kicked several times.

 

I can not say that I didn't think of suicide. What kept me from it was that how could I make the bastards who were tormenting me suffer if I was dead? Hell no. I survived on malice alone for a while because that is what it took.

 

Like it or not, we're all soldiers in a war that we didn't sign up for: it's called the Culture War. Such enlightened spiritual leaders as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell declared the war and actively work to deny our rights as human beings and forment hatred against us.

 

It is a strange war, a dirty little war that is fought more in your head than anywhere else. We must resist the voices telling us that we're shit, we're worthless and can not accomplish anything worthwhile. We have to fight, each in our own way, to be, to acheive and to survive.

 

Over the generations, freedom has been fought for over and over again. William Wallace stood in front of the Scottish Klans and said, "You can take my life but you can not take my freedom." Martin Luther King dreamed of a world in which the content of the character meant more than the color of the skin.

 

This is our time, this is our fight and we need every soldier in the fight- not dressed in thongs and acting like jackasses at a silly parade but doing what THEY SAY can't be done, doing what THEY SAY we can not do, succeeding where THEY SAY that we will fail and breaking the barriers and bonds that society has imposed upon us.

 

Don't quit. You are needed. Not as a useless, pointless activist that pisses people off but as another gay person living life and living life successfully because THAT IS HOW WE WIN.

[Wynter]

I really fail to see reasons to not commit suicide. I just don't see it getting better down the road. It's gotten a little less important, but it's still on my list of things to do.

 

Hey College Guy,

 

I just noticed this thread today or i would have weighed in ages ago.

 

Originally you asked if it was inherently wrong to commit suicide. I would have to say yes. It's not just because it will affect those who love you now. But also what it will do to those who will benefit from your presence in the future.

 

I think we've already established that you're not alone. Many of us contemplate suicide as a way out, most of us realise there are better ways to deal with it.

 

This is something that heped me in some of my darker momements

"Learn to accept that which is unchangable. Strive to change that which is unnacceptable. Learn to tell the difference between the two."

 

And finally, report that shrink who told you that you needed to become promiscuous in order to meet people and be accepted. He needs his practitioners licence revoked.

 

Wynter

[sumbloke]

Keep talking.

 

Don't go - I know that I don't have any claim on you but even so I'm asking. And I'm sure there are people who do have a claim on you who don't want you to do this thing.

 

I'm sorry that you haven't been able to reconcile yourself with your faith, your family, your friends YET. But please, the YET is important - there will be no reconciliation unless you give yourself and them a chance. I don't recall what your faith is - but if I think seriously, I know that my answer to the question What would Buddha (or Jesus or Moses...) do? doesn't come out as "he'd end his life". Can you reconcile your death at your own hand with your family, your faith, your friends?

 

James is right that we need you in a wider sense - after all we've lost so many. I'm sorry to lay this on you in such a personal way but I want to ask you something: if you were faced with a 14 year old boy - gay, maybe Christian, alientated form his family and afraid of his friends - would you recommend suicide to him? Or would you want to encourage him to believe that he had the power to live a life full of love and happiness if he could find the strength to endure? I'm not asking this to manipulate you but because Kant said something important: only act in such a way that you can wish it were a universal law.

 

The most pressing course of action I urge on you it is to find some gay friends - not in bars or night clubs but somewhere supportive where you can begin to talk about your feelings and problems. It's too easy to see your identity as just a painful problem if you don't meet people who have similar problems and see how you can help them and they can help you.

 

Against all the reasons you think you have to end your life you have to count off the reasons to live it, not least among them the possibility of love and the chance to make a difference to the world. Your biggest enemy is resignation in the face of difficulty but don't let yourself off the hook - you know you can survive this and much worse because you know that millions of people have found the hope and perseverance to do so in much much darker circumstances.

 

Stay with us. Keep on keeping on. Survive and you keep alive the hope of thriving.

 

peace and loving kindness,

 

sumbloke

[NaperVic]

..proven and cemented the fact that my sexuality cannot be reconciled with my faith, family, or friends. I cannot see a point in a life in which I deny myself either of those things.

 

Hi Matt,

 

This is just my opinion and others have given better advice, but if your current faith, family, and /or friends can't accept the 'real' you, it might be time to find a new faith & some new family and/or friends. There are people out there that will like the real you. While we are just bits and bytes on the internet, there are people just like us nearby.

 

You may have to go searching for them and make an effort, but friends are out there. Also, this sounds silly to say this, but friendship is a two way street. Some of those

[BoyNeedsTherapy]

I know that this is more or less what everyone else has been saying, but things do improve...a few years ago my life felt so awful and I thought it could never improve, but now things have changed so entirely, a complete 180 degree turn. I guess that's not really helpful, but I just wanted to let you know that changes are possible.

[glomph]

Any "faith" that you have that condones suicide is a pretty crappy excuse for a faith.

 

Our lives are not our own.

 

And if that "faith" makes the other people in your life abusive and full of hate, then it is satanic, no matter whom they are pretending to worship. My scriptures tell me that anybody who claims to love God and hates his brother is a liar and the truth is not in him, and how can you love God whom you can't see and hate your neighbor whom you can see? Somehow I can't find the place in the New Testament where Jesus told us to be self-righteous and to hate one another, and I've looked quite thoroughly.

 

Sorry about the religious rant, but it is late at night and my inhibitions are down, and it really angers me that people try to blame God for their own failings of character.

 

And anyway, you don't want to miss finding out whom Rory will wind up with. And then there's the sequel about Dennis.

[Masked Monkey]

This thread has become a virtual Who's Who at GA. I'm not gonna fill you full of crappy feel-good stuff, that just isn't my style (unless there is a chance to get you in bed). It has a place, but where you are ... isn't the place.

 

My bottom line on your last post is simple. You want both your sexuality and your 3 f's (faith, friends and family). Well, killing yourself gives you none. Killing yourself because you are gay, well, you lose the 3 f's just as if you were alive. Let me be clear, if you tell them you are killing yourself because you are gay, it will not stop them from distancing/hating you, only it will be distance and hatred of a memory. If you don't tell them youare doing it because you are gay then you deny the memory of yourself your sexuality. If you would lose your 3f's in life, you will lose them in death.

 

Either way, you have to choose ... not about who loves you or will talk to you, but about who you are. Live or die you have to choose to tell the truth and force THEM to decide if they still accept you, or Lie and let them live in the ignorance that is killing you -- they will remember someone, but it won't be you.

 

Choosing to die, means that you take away the chance that one friend or family member loves you, the real you, heck they may all surprise you.

 

I'm not gonna convince you one way or the other, nobody here will. All I can say is that, if you kill yourself, I will miss seeing you around once in a while, and in all honesty, I will lose a bit of my fear.

 

Snow Dog

 

P.S. Do not read anything into the fact that I wrote this at 4am

[AFriendlyFace]

Hey Matt,

 

I'm really sorry I haven't been online much the last couple of days. You know ya got me scared up now. Smile for me ok? Besides who could I debate "context" with but you. I'll call ya tomorrow/this afternoon, promise you'll CALL ME if you need to talk or anything before (or after) then. Take care, Dude!

 

Kevin

[Aeroplane]

Dude, if you think that you can't reconcile it with your mom and if you really are at this point ready to take that final, rather permenant, step then tell her about your sexuality. If she doesnt like it, then you can carry on with your intended course of action but if she is cool with it - then i hope it gives you reason to think twice.

 

Disclaimer and anti flame statement.. :

 

I in no way condone, or support suicide in any shape or form except for the terminally ill.

 

Suicide in itself is not wrong.

What IS wrong is the effect it has on the people who love you and care about you.

Re-reading through the thread a common theme seems to be "just give it a few more days", and thats life frankly - just giving it a few more days, and a few more on top of that...

 

I dont know you at all, but that isnt the point - You are not terminally ill, your suicide would be an unnecessary tragedy, not justified, and it upsets me that you have got to the point where you think it is the only way out.

 

There is nothing wrong with you or what you are feeling, but you have to deal with it in a different way to what youre thinking of.

[Matthew]

Don

[Bev]

To the rest of you, I do appreciate your caring, truly, but none of this seems all that new. One can only draw hope and inspiration from "it doesn't seem like it now, but it gets better" so many times. I'm tired of waiting.

 

Okay, Hi_College_Guy. I can understand that you might be getting tired of the 'hang on because it will get better' that everyone has said. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record...I'm gonna agree.

 

So, how about another take on the subject.

 

I know that you feel like you have no reason to keep living and that it is too painful for you with life the way it is. Yeah, and I agree...life is pretty painful at times. I wont lie. You aren't stupid, so there is no point in lying to you. And you aren't a child, so there is no point in talking to you as if you were.

 

Okay, the big question...If you could change your life...or if you could see any change in your life, what would it look like?

 

Would you want to be accepted for you?

 

Would you like your mum and the rest of your family to accept your sexuality?

 

Would you like God to tell you that he created you the way you are and you don't have to change?

 

Just think about it for a while.

 

If you have some definite questions you just might be able to find some answers.

 

And If you can see some sort of vision for your future, you might be able to take some steps to make that vision become reality.

 

For instance, if you want to be accepted for you...well, you have taken the first steps. You are accepted for you here. And if you look around, you might be able to find other places where you can be accepted as you. Sometimes, we have to get out of our comfort zones and do something that feels a little less safe, so we can find people who will accept and love us for us.

 

 

Bev