Discussion Hesitations about CTB as a student

[rootlessinterloper]

Hey all, it's my first time posting on here. Apologies if I'm not doing this right.

I want to avoid doxxing myself here, but I attend a very small North American university with a very tight-knit community. Something about the student body here seems to make them especially predisposed to CTB; in the last 3-4 years, several members of the community have done it. Furthermore, a beloved member of my cohort was recently killed by a drunk driver and the community is still in mourning. There is a real sense of collective trauma with campus tragedies, and because the community is so small, the handful of deaths have been a really really big deal, hit students and profs incredibly hard, etc.

I'm not a super shy person, and have never wanted for lack of friends on campus, and because I am a senior employee at my university's library, and serve in other very public positions on campus, I am relatively well-known in this community. I've wanted to CTB since basically the moment I became self-aware, but lately it's felt more urgent, like it's inevitably coming and shouldn't be putting it off any longer.

The problem (and I really don't mean for this to sound arrogant or self-aggrandizing or something) is that I think CTB would wreak havoc on campus. People here are incredibly emotionally delicate (liberal arts college lol), and in an 'everyone-knows-everyone' type community, I fear it would really really upset things. There'd be no way to do it incognito, because no matter what the administration would send out some kind of condolences email (as they have done before), and news of it would be broadcasted to literally hundreds of people who know and recognize me. Mortifying. My dream would just be to turn into vapour and just be utterly forgotten by everyone in my life -- the idea of being remembered makes me want to vomit -- but I just know they would hold a special service in the chapel, cancel exams/assignments, etc... as they have done when this has happened before.

This might sound really stupid but it's honestly the only thing holding me back at this point. Does anyone have any personal stories from uni campuses to share? Did anyone serving a fairly public or prominent role in your daily life ever CTB? What happened afterwards? Should I be taking this hesitation that I'm not ready and maybe never will be?

Not sure exactly what I was getting at with this post, just provoking discussion I guess. Thanks.

 

[Freebandzgang]

At my uni there has been 1 suicide since ive been here and it was very discrete, there was a small memorial thing but after a couple of days everyone forgot. I go to a very populated school, most people dont know each other. It really affected me for a while. I really sympathized with him because i was struggling a LOT too. It almost made me commit.

 

[gothbird]

Your hesitation makes sense. And it's not arrogance.

You've done what a lot of people avoid: you've considered not just the pain you're in, but the social shockwave your absence would create.
Small campus suicides are rarely invisible. I've seen it before: the memorials, the emails, the professors breaking down in lectures. On campuses like yours—tight knit, emotional, and already rattled by grief—the loss of someone visible and trusted becomes collective trauma. Not because they idolised you, but because they recognised you. That makes it personal.
Your death would be dissected, if I'm honest. By your friends, professors, classmates, even people you barely spoke to. People who waved at you once in the library will spend years wondering what they missed.
That doesn't mean you're obligated to stay.
But it does mean that, yes—this hesitation is real. And meaningful.
You said something important: "The idea of being remembered makes me want to vomit."
That's not an uncommon feeling in people experiencing long-term suicidal ideation—this fear of becoming a symbol. Of being talked about in the wrong tone by the wrong people. Of your pain being packaged into someone else's grief ritual.

So what do you do?
You decide what matters more: peace, or disappearance. Some people want one. Some want both. Some wait because they want to vanish without a ripple—and they realise that might take more time, more distance, or a quieter exit than a university setting allows.
As for your final question—does this mean you're not ready?
Maybe. Or maybe it just means you want to do this with precision, not chaos. And that's a valid thing to want. There's no shame in planning carefully. There's no shame in postponing either.
You're not overthinking. You're just thinking all the way through.