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[Sinkinshyp]

@Sinkinshyp, you are not the first mother who's been on the forum since I've been here who lost a child and as a result was considering and planning suicide.

Since their minds were set and they were inconsolable, I honored their choice and simply cared about their pain and wished them the best possible outcome.

In your case, you seem to have found a way to enjoy life prior to the loss of your son, in spite of great challenges which you overcame, and want to help others before you potentially suicide should they be younger and not able to see that life may get better and be worthwhile.

Because of that, I'm offering you something that I think could assist you in reframing and getting through your pain, and therefore finding satisfaction and value again in living. It's a letter of consolation from the Stoic philospher Seneca to a woman named Marcia (did you see the embedded link?) wose young adult son died. It is a very long letter. In it, Seneca tells her how much he admires, respects, and cares for her, and that he is making a concerted attack, not on her, but on her seemingly inconsolable grief which has gone on for quite some time. It seems like there is not a single angle he misses. Some of those angles put my hackles up. Sometimes I feel he is too harsh. Sometimes I think he would have done well to stop much eariler in the letter. But from what I understand, the letter is written in a format that was very popular at the time, including leaving no angle unmissed. I find the first parts of the letter to be very persuasive, rational and, for Seneca, compassionate and affectionate.

I have read that oftentimes, people who are older have learned to manage life better, are more grounded and mature, have wisdom, and are more accepting, patient and resilient because they have been through the absolute worst. They know that grief, trauma and major disruptions happen in life, and that recovering from them take a long approach, and can also burnish a person rather than destroy them. They are capable of riding out the storms with equanimity and are less deeply and painfully impacted by them. I myself am 49 and have found this to be true. I have more wisdom, compassion, tolerance and resilience than ever before in my life. I have suffered greatly, and I have done concerted work over decades to heal from childhood abuse. I have sought answers in many places and some gave great help, some very little, and a couple did more harm than good. I am proud of the person I at last became. I am imperfect, yet I am also more accepting of that now than I ever was when I was younger, and I have learned to love myself not just in spite of but sometimes for it. My imperfections often reveal my strengths and the things I like and admire about myself, and shine a light on what is in my best interest to improve, as well as what serves me more than I realized. I've learned that suffering and challenges are what reveal wisdom, abilities, and strength.

You may wonder, then, why would I want to suicide? I don't talk here about the reasons because I don't want input about them. I don't want to defend, explain, and argue. I know the reasons, I know they are beyond my control, they are overwhelming, and it is a rational response to exit from the party of life. I've already attempted multiple times with peaceful methods and they did not end in death. SN will not be peaceful for me, and I cannot access N, otherwise I would already be gone, so I am still working through how best to proceed. Things are barely bearable, otherwise I would go through the limited but challenging suffering of SN (I have breathing difficulties, and when I accidentally got a little in my system during blood testing, I experienced a taste of them; I am triggered by suffocation). I am also very isolated, not by choice but necessity. I am an extrovert, so the forum fills a need for me, and while I am alive, I do my best to continue to grow and heal, to have a positive impact on others, and to learn and improve from the fights and struggles that naturally occur wherever humans are together. This is exactly how I've been irl for a decade, only now even more concertedly so as I don't have anything else extraneous to focus on. The best thing I've gotten from all of these years of healing is acceptance of others and getting free of enmeshment and codepency; I cannot fix them nor control them, and I did not cause their problems. I can perhaps influence them with compassion, rationality or wisdom, but I accept them as autonomous and that they will do as they will whether I want them to or not, and only assertively seek to stop them when they are having a direct harmful impact on me. If they refuse to stop or are incapable, and if I have the capability to do so in the situation, I sever contact with them, retaining my wish for their well-being and equanimity, and my compassion for them, and I move on. Brené Brown says the most compassionate people are the most boundaried, and I find this to be absoultely true, because it's possible to maintain compassion for them when there is some kind of a buffer or distance, when their stuff is not coming inside nor being physically imposed such as hitting, or being in the same place with them and not being able to leave.

I sincerely wish for your well-being and equanimity. Please let me know if there are any other resources I can help you with, or look at the threads I've posted. I'm sorry for your suffering and for your loss. I wish you the best regardless of whatever decision you make. I appreciate and respect that you want to have a positive impact on others and help them; my intentions are the same, and I hope you receive as much benefit from others as you seek to give.

Dear friend GPE
someone hugged this today and brought me to re-read this thread. I miss you, as do many others. I retagged the Marcia letter from GPE. It will remind me to read it. I'm self banning today. WHat a way to go-having read your wonderful replies. I always looked up to you and appreciated your advice.. <3 ya Shyp