Suicide

[Keit]

Thanks for your response Ana.

It's not really easy to change one's view on life. Especially when one has to deal with weird and scary stuff that comes along with being psychotic (this disease is attacking everything that I hold dear). But I realize that it is important to think more positively once in a while because life is never one sided and seeing things through dark lense is often caused by linear thinking. If we always thought linearly, there would never be any chance of change. Atleast, that's what I'm thinking about it.

Then how about making an experiment and set a goal to find something that will make you experience positive emotions? Perhaps this is something your inner child wants and also most afraid of? Feeling happy about something, about yourself, about something around you. It can be something small, like sitting outside on a bench, enjoying the sun and watching birds fly around and picking food. Do something that will bring a smile on your face and a bit of joy in your heart by observing these small things in the world around you. Maybe it will help you see that you are not that isolated as you think, and that there is life beyond feeling attacked.

 

[Smallwood]

I will try it Keit. I'll report if something cool happens.

 

[Buddy]

I agree with Nienna Eluch that "Everybody is different and their tolerances to pain and suffering are different."

If a person is at the point where they have decided to take their own life, that pain is not 'only temporary'. It is an all-encompassing experience from which there is no relief, thus the 'exit'.

True. And I hope that any one who has not already been there does not have to reach that point in order to understand it.

In the early 80's, I did reach that point where I not only considered suicide but was already set up. Long story short, considering my state of mind at the time I agree with smallwood's comment that "the usual ways to talk someone out of it are pretty useless."

If I had truly committed to the follow through and someone tried to "prevent" it, I probably would have "snapped" and who knows what would have happened then. I think what I needed more than anything, was some time alone away from other people's intense negativity, so I took it. Plus, once I got that time alone, there was that remarkable state of mental clarity and activity that came with the attitude of no longer fearing death.

For me though, once I had straightened some things out in my mind, I fully intended that somehow, someway, come hell or high water, I wasn't going to check out before at least doing one thing to make the world a better place for someone else so that they wouldn't have to feel what I was feeling. What kept me going was the mystery of figuring out what that thing was meant to be.

 

[go2]

I was planning suicide before going under medication. In that pain you don't think about how your family might feel about your decision, and I think that the usual ways to talk someone out of it are pretty useless. I decided that I will try for two more years and then see if there is any chance for me. I will do my best for two years and see if the hope returns. After that I don't know what I'll do.

The decision to live two more years is hope, Smallwood. It is not yet, time to die.

 

[The Mechanic]

From this experience and having talked to people who have lost their friends and loved ones (because of suicide) I would say that when you are deep enough in that dark tunnel killing yourself feels like the most natural and logical solution, once you've 'discovered' this option you actually feel happy about it.

I remember seeing the movie The Bridge (imdb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0799954/ ), a documentary about suicide, some time ago and this was one of the things that struck me, that some people who had decided to commit suicide seemed happy about it.

I can really follow this logic but I've never experienced that darkness you describe myself, although I've been close to it. I used that experience to actually get some help going for myself, by plainly telling my doctor that I was contemplating killing myself and that that scared the hell out of me. It actually worked wonders because suddenly I could get the all the help I needed, as opposed to before where I was stuck in the bureaucratic medical system not getting any sufficient counselling or drug rehab or whatever.

A side-note: I was thinking today about how to feed my inner child, you know, trying to listen to it's needs. I was trying to do it in solitude and I wasn't going anywhere. But then a nurse came in my room and we talked by the side of this issue and it seems to me now that it's not the right approach to try to shut the world out when trying to interact with the inner child. You have to think in terms of what IN the world can bring it satisfaction. I hope that makes sense.

Maybe you can try to change the old school/life view for a new one, take this forum for example a school where you decide, you give and you receive, you are free to move at your own pace and you are loved, a school/life you are part of.

Yes, this is good advice, this is a forum where you are loved wherever you are in life. And you can trust that you won't get bullied here. When someone still tries to do that they'll quickly get banned by the moderators and their bullying posts deleted.

 

[Keit]

I remember seeing the movie The Bridge (imdb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0799954/ ), a documentary about suicide, some time ago and this was one of the things that struck me, that some people who had decided to commit suicide seemed happy about it.

Nancy J Napier in her book "Getting Through the Day: Strategies for Adults Hurt As Children" mentioned about many adults abused as children contemplating about suicide as a sort of fail-safe mechanism. I don't have the book at the moment, but what she said was that sometimes the feeling of having no control over situations is so overwhelming, to those people the option of a suicide gives a twisted sense of hope and control over their lives. It's like a comfort blanket, that if life will ever get really bad, they can choose to end it. Reading this really shocked me because this is exactly the kind of thinking I had during overwhelming periods and when fear of the future had a grip on me. Then I thought that it gave me confidence and strength to deal with the situation at hand. But now I understand that it was a confidence born out of desperation, helplessness, and victim mentality, where I was making myself feel stronger by knowing that I have a choice of death instead of realizing that all this time I've been denying myself the choice to live and live happily. Which is harder but obviously much more rewarding.

Nancy J Napier also said that even if it may appear that those people want to die, what they really want is to live, but to live without pain. And that's why they have to go through the healing process and realize that they have the power and strength within them to end this pain.

 

[Buddy]

Nancy J Napier also said that even if it may appear that those people want to die, what they really want is to live, but to live without pain. And that's why they have to go through the healing process and realize that they have the power and strength within them to end this pain.

Wow. Sounds like someone who understands what it's like.

For me, the option (of suicide) felt like the last great act of defiance against the threat of total loss of autonomy.

While I was young, dumb and believing in most of the propaganda and social conventions, I was able to feel, but not quite conceptualize, that "means-end" reversal that I was living. I was constantly paying 'more' to have 'less'.

IOW, I thought that the more we work... the more we give of our time, energy, friendship, obedience, dedication, devotion, etc,(means)... the more we are supposed to receive of values like safety, security, reciprocal friendship, financial earnings, etc, etc (ends). But, we know that in pathological society it doesn't work that way. Instead, the more we give, the more is demanded, (as Gurdjieff points out). Everyone demands "more" of us. And what is the payment? The actuality of having less and less of what we believe we are earning until we are completely used up.

I could sense and feel all this but not fully express it. And it is a very painful condition to be in, as all my perceived failures in life happened to be rolled up in it too.

So, the suicide option seemed like the last possible way to have a say in the matter and the final rebellion against being a slave to pain - a slave having no other choice left that he can make of his own volition.

 

[anart]

IOW, I thought that the more we work... the more we give of our time, energy, friendship, obedience, dedication, devotion, etc,(means)... the more we are supposed to receive of values like safety, security, reciprocal friendship, financial earnings, etc, etc (ends). But, we know that in pathological society it doesn't work that way. Instead, the more we give, the more is demanded, (as Gurdjieff points out). Everyone demands "more" of us. And what is the payment? The actuality of having less and less of what we believe we are earning until we are completely used up.

Hi Bud, I think you might have misunderstood what Gurdjieff was saying when he said that the more a man does, the more is expected of him. He was speaking of the fact that in the Work, one cannot rest on one's laurels - the more a person does and can do, the more is expected/required of him. The more awake he becomes, the more he must do because he is capable of it. In other words, to those who much is given, much is required. This dynamic never results in being 'completely used up' - it results in ever-increasing growth and awareness - expansion of Being. The more a man does, the more is expected him. For those who have done nothing, nothing is expected. I hope that clarifies that one aspect of things a bit, as it relates to Gurdjieff's point and the Work.

I agree that society will use people up, but that's actually the opposite of what Gurdjieff was talking about. fwiw.

 

[nwigal]

Nancy J Napier also said that even if it may appear that those people want to die, what they really want is to live, but to live without pain. And that's why they have to go through the healing process and realize that they have the power and strength within them to end this pain.

While I was young, dumb and believing in most of the propaganda and social conventions, I was able to feel, but not quite conceptualize, that "means-end" reversal that I was living. I was constantly paying 'more' to have 'less'.

Paying more to have less. Less for whom? Maybe we should pay everything, having nothing-but lessons. Maybe there is no ending of pain, only a change of perception of the landscape of self-centered pain.

Maybe some who opt out are really trying to avoid the second death. Maybe 5D lets the dreams teach more clearly, with less noise, for a moment. Maybe those who have been there, and back again, find that nothing has changed, except the perception of the terror of the situation and the choices that increased knowledge brings (hopefully, with a better sense of humor).

There are philosophical musings, and there are hardcore realities, there can be a difference, OSIT.

 

[Buddy]

I agree that society will use people up, but that's actually the opposite of what Gurdjieff was talking about. fwiw.

I searched through my collection of G's books but can't find the quote I'm looking for. Now I'm not sure of the source, but it started out something like this (probably awkward) paraphrase:


Do one thing for a man and he will thank you profusely,
Do a second thing for a man and he will be thankful,
Do a third thing and he will simply take it
From here, you continue doing and then you can't stop because now the giving is expected, even demanded, and you find yourself in that downward spiraling feeding loop.

 

[anart]

I agree that society will use people up, but that's actually the opposite of what Gurdjieff was talking about. fwiw.

I searched through my collection of G's books but can't find the quote I'm looking for. Now I'm not sure of the source, but it started out something like this (probably awkward) paraphrase:


Do one thing for a man and he will thank you profusely,
Do a second thing for a man and he will be thankful,
Do a third thing and he will simply take it
From here, you continue doing and then you can't stop because now the giving is expected, even demanded, and you find yourself in that downward spiraling feeding loop.

Yes, he was talking about mechanical human behavior in that instance, and how people are mechanically ungrateful (increasingly so as they become accustomed and feel entitled to the gifts). That is unrelated to the idea that the more a man does (or is capable of), the more is expected of him.

 

[Buddy]

Paying more to have less. Less for whom?

The sleeping man trying to believe in and live the dream of the conventional reality.



Also:

Thanks, anart.