Letting Go

[the_final_countdown]

Health has deteriorated. Perhaps it'll improve. Perhaps not. I'll do what I can to improve it. The past three months have been the most challenging of my life. It brought me here. Like watching Mr. Rogers beg for mercy, all of this feels surreal and unexpected. Like a dream I've yet to wake up from.

I try not to frame my situation anymore negative than necessary. I find that's a good way of causing yourself unnecessary suffering. Painting every moment and situation as if it was the worst. Training yourself to see a distorted view of reality until you can't even imagine another outcome.

For a while, suicide was a coping mechanism. Something I could do, if things ever got too challenging. But when I was pushed, absolutely pushed to try, I found myself nearly going psychotic from the thought. Whatever ancestors I had, their survival instinct must've been absurd.

It scares me. I'm not sure I could kill myself even if I was tortured daily. I lack the impulse required to do risky things. Perhaps if I meditated on death daily for several years, I could muster the courage to do it. I've never been so low, never abandoned more of my future, and couldn't even get the materials ready to kill myself. The stark reality hit me hard. I'm going to have to live with my suffering. I can't think of any way of overcoming SI.

But living with suffering is not so intractable. It's possible. Laying on the floor of my room for two days, not moving, you hit a meditative state. I realized if someone gave me $100 million, I could effortlessly endure my health problems. I could rest easy on my couch, watching Netflix, ordering food, letting the days pass in idle "bliss". I could do that for decades and abandon the life I had known.

No, the reason why I wanted to die is because I can't bear the thought of living with my "potential" halved. The shame of it would be too much. That's why I wanted to die. And why I couldn't do it. Because it seemed like such a silly reason. And I knew it. I understood it.

Maybe if my pain was greater. I'm not sure.

Some days I think about Socrates and how he drank the hemlock poison. I never thought how challenging that must've been. How much courage that took. He was an incredible human being.

I'd like to end my suffering. But the survival instinct is a monster greater than any suffering I've endured. Some ancient, Promethean force compelling me to stay alive.

I'm not sure where to go from here. All I know is that I tried to end my life three times and couldn't even will myself to get close enough to do it. That I stood in my kitchen, a broken man.

I knew on the second day. That suicide was just a coping mechanism to escape the suffering. I knew it then, the same way a mother understands her love for a son. There's no need to explain. You just know.

There's no escape. If peace is to be found, I'm gonna have to find another way.

So nowadays I pray for an aneurism. And I meditate. I meditate like a monk on fire. I meditate for salvation.

I'm running away from this pain. The reality of it is overwhelming.

Maybe one day I'll get better.

Maybe one day I'll develop the tools necessary to endure suffering with equanimity.

 

[Intotheflames]

If you meditate then you would understand that one cannot will a state, the more you long it, the more it got pushed away from you. Instead all you could do is wait for it to come to you. The same apply to overcoming si. There is absolutely nothing wrong sitting on the fence no matter how long.

I know all this because I went through the same. There was one time after being kicked out, I walked three hours in the night to the reservoir. Except for a few cars passing, I was absolutely alone. When I reached it, I just couldn't do it. I remember vividly how I laughed at myself, thinking how pathetic it was for a damn stray dog like me couldn't even end my own misery.

Eventually, a moment will come where a decision, be it one way or another, will be made without you making it.

 

[ihavetoleave]

Living is all we know. Death is an unknown no matter who tells us what it is, there is no certainty until it happens. I'm sure it is a "natural" thing as we all have to end at some point, but that doesn't make me feel better really. Even if it is an eternal sleep forever, it still sounds terrifying. What is sleeping without dreams or to help continue some kind of journey. TLDR I feel the same way, I get so distressed about the choices I have and yet I can't make the final choice. So many here do without any trouble it seems, we are all so different from one another with how our minds and the ability to make decisions works.