Discussion For those for whom suicide is impossible / not advisable - how do you push through?

[idiot_dad]

I'm married with three kids living at home with me. There is nothing I would like more than to kill myself right this very minute, but I know that doing that would set up my kids for a lifetime of suffering.

I'm broke, and can't afford anything beyond the basics (rent, food, insurance). I know I need to keep going for my family's sake. For those in a similar situation, how do you do it? I will try literally anything. I'm already cutting back my drinking, and that's helping with my sleep.

 

[Maravillosa]

Congratulations on cutting back on your drinking! That should help you. I am 55 and help take care of my bedbound 81-year-old mother. I have been on SSI since 2004 (I have a history of severe depression with psychotic features) and receive a bit less than $600 a month. Because I do not want to devastate my mother, I am staying alive (although I would like to kill myself on a landmark birthday — 60, 65, 70 — after my mother's death). What keeps me alive besides that? Well, I am active in my church. I am a lector and Communion minister. I also serve in the baptism ministry. I am an active Lay Carmelite and am resuming helping with Masses at a couple of local nursing homes (they were all closed to volunteers during the height of the COVID pandemic). I am writing an alternate history novel and somehow have parlayed my research experience into writing for the British peer-reviewed academic Journal of Liberal History. That is how I am pushing through. Are you willing to not only regularly attend religious services but also volunteer for the religious entity and pray every day (morning and/or evening)? Are you willing to write a novel or memoir? You could try those things.

 

[idiot_dad]

Are you willing to not only regularly attend religious services but also volunteer for the religious entity and pray every day (morning and/or evening)? Are you willing to write a novel or memoir? You could try those things.

I supposed it's something worth trying. I do enjoy writing. Sometimes I feel too tired at the end of the work day to do anything but zone out, but maybe that is part of my problem.

 

[LivvenDe]

I'm married with three kids living at home with me. There is nothing I would like more than to kill myself right this very minute, but I know that doing that would set up my kids for a lifetime of suffering.

I'm broke, and can't afford anything beyond the basics (rent, food, insurance). I know I need to keep going for my family's sake. For those in a similar situation, how do you do it? I will try literally anything. I'm already cutting back my drinking, and that's helping with my sleep.

If you were not broken, would your will to ctb completely vanish?

 

[idiot_dad]

If you were not broken, would your will to ctb completely vanish?

I don't know, I've been broke / poor my entire life. I suppose if I were more stable that might make things a bit easier to manage. I have no idea how to make money. I work, and I've been employed my whole life. I'm just not a huge earner, and there are a lot of people I need to house / clothe / feed. Good question though, I will think more on that.