Venting suicidality & guilt for feeling it.

[desiderium]

This is a weird topic to talk about, let alone admit.

I lost a good friend to suicide four years ago. He was a few years younger than me and in my younger brother's grade. I was pretty good friends with him, but this guy was my brother's absolute best friend. They did everything together, and the three of us hung out sometimes at the county fair and at our house just goofing off. I was used to having him around, and having him be a part of my life.

My friend was bullied pretty badly in high school. At 17, he ended up taking his own life in his dad's garage with a shotgun bullet to the head. It was unexpected. Unannounced. It came out of nowhere, and that's saying something considering I've struggled pretty heavily with suicidality & adjacent tendencies for most of my life. Even I didn't recognize any of the signs. One moment he was there, hanging out with my brother after school, and a few hours later his dad found him dead and crumpled on the garage floor with his brains painting the concrete like a sick fucking mural.

It was devastating. When I say that my brother lost his spark that night, I mean every word. I remember being in complete and utter shock to learn that my friend was just fucking.... gone. He couldn't even have an open-casket funeral, since there wasn't much left of his head for people to wish goodbye to.

His death ruined those close to him. His family never recovered. It took over a year for my brother to learn how to smile again, and I myself couldn't stomach driving by his parent's house anymore. Not knowing what happened in that damn garage. His death left a very visible, very tangible void that still to this day remains gaping and raw. I don't think it'll ever heal.

Now comes the part I struggle with the most:

I still want to kill myself.

There, I said it. Despite seeing the damage suicide causes first hand, there's a selfish part of me that doesn't care. You can kind of brush off the knowledge that your death would hurt those around you. I mean, you'd be dead- it's not like the aftermath would be your problem. However, it's another thing to stare face-to-face with the damage and still admit that you want to cause it anyway. Even worse, there's a disgusting part of myself that's almost envious over the fact that my friend had the balls to pull the trigger. I know how badly my friend's death impacted those around him. I know how devastated and ruined his parents were, my brother was, how heartbroken and numb I was after getting the news.

I've always felt guilty for being suicidal, but now that guilt is all-consuming after my friend's passing in 2022.

I feel guilty for wanting to commit. I feel guilty for KNOWING that my death would ruin those closest to me without repair. How can I sit here and rot in my own plans, my own suicide letters, my own self-hatred when I know that finally pulling the trigger would destroy my family from the inside out?

I'm such a selfish, uncaring, lunatic. I can't pretend that my death wouldn't affect those around me. I see so many threads on this site asking how they can 'ease the grief' loved ones would feel if they went through with committing.

You can't ease that grief. No stupid letter, diary, or declaration will ever mend the damage you'll leave behind if you decide to take yourself out of a world where others are used to having you around. I've been on the receiving end of a successful suicide and the ruin it leaves people in.

So why can't I stop myself from wanting it anyway? How could I possibly, morally, put those around me through that again? Do you know how utterly fucking selfish I would have to be in order to commit and leave everyone else in shambles for the second time?

I'd have to be one selfish bastard. Unfortunately, it appears that I am one.

 

[Gild-Holm-’Ur]

Well, if you were truly selfish you wouldn't struggle with it. It sounds like you have the ideation but don't want to do it.

Have you tried the therapy and maybe talking to some of the people in the recovery subforum?

 

[desiderium]

Well, if you were truly selfish you wouldn't struggle with it. It sounds like you have the ideation but don't want to do it.

Have you tried the therapy and maybe talking to some of the people in the recovery subforum?

I've been in therapy for.... going on ten years now. I've been medicated, unmedicated, with and without therapists and psychs. I've been in recovery and out of it, but the ideation and urges have never once gone away. I live in a cycle of self-harm and active intent, only to violently swing back around and sit in ideation and half-assed clean streaks without self-harm or risk.

I have plans, but they sit without intent (for now). I have one failed attempt under my belt, and the experience of losing a friend to suicide has made me less certain that I want to truly attempt. You're right, I do have ideation for sure. I can't say anymore if I truly have the urge to commit or not. Some episodes it most certainly feels that way, but the guilt claws back in whenever that episode dies down.

I feel just as guilty for having suicidal ideation. It feels filthy to crave suicide when I know how desperately others want to live, how lucky I am to have a life when others have it taken away with no choice.

It's just a bizarre situation to be in, sometimes. I feel selfish for craving it, but also feel that others are selfish for expecting me to stay.

 

[Gild-Holm-’Ur]

Yeah, I kind of felt like you might have already tried those things but felt it was still worth mentioning.

Over the summer, I was having discussion with a couple of friends - one who had clinical depression issues and the other was very much suck it up philosophy. My point is 'suck it up' is fine if you're spiraling because your mom bought you yellow ultra mega man, but you wanted red ultra mega man. But if your body is just producing enough depression chemicals to take down an elephant, there is not much you can do.

I don't know you well enough to say for certain, but I feel like in your heart of hearts you do not want to do it.

 

[desiderium]

Yeah, I kind of felt like you might have already tried those things but felt it was still worth mentioning.

Over the summer, I was having discussion with a couple of friends - one who had clinical depression issues and the other was very much suck it up philosophy. My point is 'suck it up' is fine if you're spiraling because your mom bought you yellow ultra mega man, but you wanted red ultra mega man. But if your body is just producing enough depression chemicals to take down an elephant, there is not much you can do.

I don't know you well enough to say for certain, but I feel like in your heart of hearts you do not want to do it.

Right now I agree. Right now, I do not want to do it, simply because I think the guilt would take me out. I can deal with living a miserable existence; I do not want to commit badly enough to ruin the lives of those around me. I used to, for certain, but for now I'm okay clinging onto my meaningless existence if it means sparing my loved ones that grief a second time.

I can't say it'll stay this way. I've been described as a pendulum swinging violently from one extreme to another. Most of the harm I've done to myself has happened during these episodes (diagnosed psychotic disorder among other things), but the guilt itself is enough to make me not want to try again once I get my shit together.

If my friend hadn't taken his own life, I can say with 100% certainty that I would have tried to commit again. It's wild how much grief and circumstance can change an outlook that was (for many years) set in stone. For now, I can hope that some accident takes me out. It would be delightful to have my life ended by hands that weren't my own, as that guilt wouldn't be there. Until that happens, however, I'll bask in my ideation and daydream about the reaper.