How to be proven wrong when my mind is made up to CTB.

[AmIForReal]

I kind of gradually am making my mind up to CTB.
Some here are truly suffering whereas I am not. I would not even call myself depressed.
This life is just not working out. I might think of a nice future but chances of getting there are rather slim of where I stand now and who I am. At 51 I realize I have let myself stray too far from the norm (lack of social skills, anxiety, addiction, no kids, no partner … ), and I don't see myself getting back on track within a reasonable time frame.
So gradually ctb is becoming a logical conclusion.

But ... I might be wrong. That's why I am posting this in the recovery forum. I looked at the resources but could not find a resources that would help me challenge my 'logic'. I mean I feel a therapist will not engage in such a reasoning with ctb as conclusion. As they might not succeed, forcing them almost to acknowledge my conclusion (which I think they will want to avoid at all cost). Or the discussion might even help me to close holes in my argument.

It's like I still have some hope to be proven wrong. But how?

 

[chester]

It looks like your thoughts to kill yourself are driven by reason. If you're truly open to changing your mind, then it's a good thing, because it takes much more than logic to do it. And it's coming from someone who took the exit bag off of his head half-conscious, several times, so I know what I'm talking about. The best advice I can think of is give yourself time. Not a few weeks, six months at least, preferably more. I suggest it, because I'm doing the same thing. I also take into account there might be a reason for me to live, I just don't know it yet. By reason to live I don't mean a reason against killing myself but a genuine reason to want to live. I'm not sitting idly though, I'm exploring my options and trying to keep an open mind. I still wish I was dead, but it's not time to decide yet. It wouldn't be right to not give myself a chance to change my mind. I'm going to die anyway someday, so the worst that can happen is I'm gonna wait for it a bit longer.

 

[BoulderSoWhat]

So, my 30th birthday was on May 29th this year. I had settled for about two months leading up to my birthday that I was going to CTB. But I've had ideation since I was little. Succinctly, my reasoning was the same as yours, my life just wasn't working out. Life did not feel good, I did not want it to continue, and in fact my 30 years of being alive and things not working out despite my efforts, was actually evidence to me that trying to live was a mistake. I would only stop making the mistake of being alive if I just ctb.

At the moment of the attempt, if I had actually died, then everything I ever did or didn't do in my life would have been set in stone at the time of death. Coming away from the attempt, the simplicity of that has just kind of stuck with me. No matter when I actually do die, I will only ever have experienced or accomplished a limited number of things in my life. There will always be infinitely many experiences I will never have, and that holds true even now if I suddenly became immortal. As long as time still goes forward, there's still unhad experiences to be had. And anything I "accomplish" can very easily be taken away, broken, or become meaningless to me. But if I find goals that are meaningful to me and I choose to work towards them, then that is a tiny bit of evidence to me that, at least sometimes, I can live authentically, intentionally, purposefully, and not just ctb. It's a work in progress, and I may never reach the "end", but if I'm okay that eventually I will die and that will decisively set in stone all I've done and not done with my life, then I can live without pressure, no matter what. At least, I'm refusing to put that kind of pressure on myself, because I had already done that to myself for 30 years leading up to the ctb attempt. So why would I put that pressure on myself again?

Part of the difficulty is the notion of getting "back on track" or having a specific narrative about life. I don't have much going on for me right now besides a new job that I'm pursuing. I'm getting along with my coworkers, I'm seeing a therapist, I'm attending a NAMI group once a month. I don't have great social skills, but I've been working on social exposure, maybe I'll make an irl friend one day. I can look people in the eye better, I can say "hi, how's it going" and can get out a smile. Then if they say "things are good" (even if they really aren't, but this is just a passing social interaction at a coffee shop lol) and smile back, I will have considered that a good social interaction between us, no matter how small it was. It was meaningful at least minimally, even if only for a brief moment.

My mind is starting to branch in multiple directions haha, so I guess I'll sum up. Ultimately, the "proof" that value can be found in being alive is something each individual person might be able to discover for themselves. It'll probably mean different things to each person. Meh, I don't even like wording it like "meaning, value, and purpose" are things people "find" in life external to them. I might not find objective value in the world. But I can value things, as an action that I am consciously committing. I might not find meaning "out there." But I can have experiences that I could interpret as meaningful, because I choose what is meaningful to me.

I don't find purpose, but I live on purpose.

I don't know if any of this is helpful. The "proof" that there are alternatives to ctb is ultimately going to be based on you, as unsatisfactory of an answer that may be. Best regards in your searching! :)

 

[James Sunderland]

I kind of gradually am making my mind up to CTB.
Some here are truly suffering whereas I am not. I would not even call myself depressed.
This life is just not working out. I might think of a nice future but chances of getting there are rather slim of where I stand now and who I am. At 51 I realize I have let myself stray too far from the norm (lack of social skills, anxiety, addiction, no kids, no partner … ), and I don't see myself getting back on track within a reasonable time frame.
So gradually ctb is becoming a logical conclusion.

But ... I might be wrong. That's why I am posting this in the recovery forum. I looked at the resources but could not find a resources that would help me challenge my 'logic'. I mean I feel a therapist will not engage in such a reasoning with ctb as conclusion. As they might not succeed, forcing them almost to acknowledge my conclusion (which I think they will want to avoid at all cost). Or the discussion might even help me to close holes in my argument.

It's like I still have some hope to be proven wrong. But how?

It takes a lot to share where you're at, and it sounds like you've really been thinking this through.
I can understand why it might feel like you're facing a dead end, especially after so many years of things not turning out the way you'd hoped.

But the fact that you're here, in the recovery forum, says a lot, it's like a small part of you is still open to the idea that there might be another path, even if it's hard to see right now.

Maybe it's not about proving you 'wrong' but exploring what might still be out there. Have you ever thought about what would need to change, even in a small way, for you to consider a different direction? No pressure, just curious where your mind is with all of this