How does anyone CTB? It looks so hard to do.

[axab43]

I am really struggling every day with still being here now. Just need to flick a switch and end everything. How is this so difficult?

Since being on here, I'm convinced I wouldn't be able to go through with anything, because of the state of my mental health wouldn't allow it, (overthinking, backing out/fear.) But I just can't go on either. So what do we do? How does anyone ever achieve this as lots of people seem to. This is my thought every day now, going round and round. Never used to be like this. I can't take much more.

 

[Jorms_McGander]

In order to pass into death with an unburdened heart, I feel a person should exhaust their options for living. We are bound by strong instincts, whether or not your average person is willing to relinquish the sense of mental control we fabricate for ourselves.

So think of it like that. Why is it hard to do? Be mindful. What thoughts arise when you consider your own death?

It is almost like I am saying "work on recovery first" because when you are mindful of the things that prevent you from dying, you will also have become mindful of the things which prevent you from living.

Ie: some of those things are going to be things that you can process and come to terms with, and you may decide that it represents an opportunity to recover and to live, or you may decide to take your newfound agency and apply it to the goal of dying.

The thing is, fears are coming from deeper in your personality and circumstance. If you are suffering a physical ailment, you'll never mentally process your way through that. People can and do make it through the mental aspect but it doesn't heal the physical. They redefine a body image and adapt to a new life.

Through mindfulness you will hopefully be able to release some of the grief and reluctance you experience when considering the end of your own life, and that is ultimately going to make it easier to accomplish.

 

[iloverachel]

I guess people who ctb are in extreme agony, and are desperate to end their lives and when you are at that point life sometimes you will just do whatever it takes.
An example would be, if you haven't eaten for days, you will get so desperate and hungry for food you might beg for food or steal food.

If you have been in mental or physical pain for too long and its unbearable, you could be willing to resort to extremely uncomfortable things like trying to hang yourself

 

[Alexei_Kirillov]

If someone had the answer to this, this site wouldn't exist ;)

Jokes aside, SI can be extremely powerful, you're hardly alone in wanting out but not being able to take that final step. I think overcoming SI is individual though, some people manage it by CTBing while experiencing some momentarily overpowering emotional impulse, others find methods that reduce the presence of SI (like SN), still others are able to face even daunting obstacles because the alternative--continuing to live--is so horrible that CTB is the lesser evil.

Makes me think of that quote from David Foster Wallace:

The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.

 

[axab43]

In order to pass into death with an unburdened heart, I feel a person should exhaust their options for living. We are bound by strong instincts, whether or not your average person is willing to relinquish the sense of mental control we fabricate for ourselves.

So think of it like that. Why is it hard to do? Be mindful. What thoughts arise when you consider your own death?

It is almost like I am saying "work on recovery first" because when you are mindful of the things that prevent you from dying, you will also have become mindful of the things which prevent you from living.

Ie: some of those things are going to be things that you can process and come to terms with, and you may decide that it represents an opportunity to recover and to live, or you may decide to take your newfound agency and apply it to the goal of dying.

The thing is, fears are coming from deeper in your personality and circumstance. If you are suffering a physical ailment, you'll never mentally process your way through that. People can and do make it through the mental aspect but it doesn't heal the physical. They redefine a body image and adapt to a new life.

Through mindfulness you will hopefully be able to release some of the grief and reluctance you experience when considering the end of your own life, and that is ultimately going to make it easier to accomplish.

Thank you for that detailed reply, I appreciate it. My mind had just been through so much in the past ten years, it has been like a nightmare. All my family have passed, for one reason or another including Covid. Loads of trauma beforehand. My mind just hits a brick wall, no desire to be here at all. Believe in life after death but as I said, my mind just amplifies all ctb methods and I go through everything in great detail. I keep thinking Robin Williams (my favourite actor) could do it... why can't i?

I guess people who ctb are in extreme agony, and are desperate to end their lives and when you are at that point life sometimes you will just do whatever it takes.
An example would be, if you haven't eaten for days, you will get so desperate and hungry for food you might beg for food or steal food.

If you have been in mental or physical pain for too long and its unbearable, you could be willing to resort to extremely uncomfortable things like trying to hang yourself

I have tried a rash attempt at overdose and regretted it, my mind is in agony a lot but just cannot get past overthinking about ctb. I guess I'm just venting in frustration at myself.....

 

[DepressedDude]

For about 2-3 months after getting injected with antipsychotics I wanted to badly die every single day. If I had any easy method like a gun or poison 100% I would have taken them. Even would have probably jumped off a bridge but I had no energy to leave the house let alone get out of bed.

I was really fked up like I was exhasuted and couldn't lay down and rest because the weather was like 30°C, plus I was constipated for 12 days at one point I thought I was going to die anyway.

Now the AP has worn off a bit and I'm not as tired anymore and can't go through with anything because the desperation isn't there anymore. I still want out of this shit world because I'm bored all the time and I know how bad life can get and don't ever wish to be in a situation like that again.

Until I find a 100% guaranteed easy, pain free, no damage if it fails method I'm stuck here.

 

[FuneralCry]

I guess those who managed to voluntarily end their own existence were fortunate enough to have access to reliable ways to die and they had the courage to free themselves from this cruel, pointless existence, I very much envy those people. I really wish suicide is as straightforward as just choosing to never wake again, to me the only fortunate ones are those who are now permanently not existing as now they are at peace.