I've seen a few posts about this and I'm in the same boat. Suffering alive but too afraid to CTB. In my case it's fear of pain and failure. The pain problem can probably be lessened with medications or whatnot but the fear of failure is difficult to manage. I've been thinking about it a lot.
Obviously many many people ctb and with the shittiest resources and yet here we are, many of us with money to spend on the method of choice but still we're afraid. And here is why I think this is. When we imagine our CTB there is no way for us to know the outcome. And because it's a mystery it kind of frazzles our brain. Let me try to explain a bit better.
Our brain is a pattern recognition and problem solving machine and it does not do well with uncertainty. It doesn't do well with not knowing so it often fills in the gaps for us and most of the time it does a convincing enough job. For example none of us know what will happen tomorrow but based on previous experience we can form a basic idea. E.g you'll go to work, you'll have dinner, you'll watch tv etc. But when we're faced with novel situations that we have no personal reference for it goes into overdrive trying to come up with possible scenarios.
Imagine you're walking down the street and someone stops you and points to a hole in the wall just enough for your hand to fit through and it's all black inside, you can't tell what's behind the wall. You have no idea what's on the other side. The person tells you to put your hand in the hole. Of course the vast majority of people would hesitate. Your brain is probably coming up with horrible scenarios like someone will injure your hand or do something nasty to it. Of course there could be absolutely nothing on the otherside or maybe someone will hand you a wad of cash but you don't know. You've never seen this building or wall or person before.
When our brain doesn't know for sure what the outcome will be it tends to think of the worst scenarios. In psychology this is called the negativity bias and it's hypothesised that this is an evolutionary trait that helped is survive.
When you think about CTB you don't know what the outcome will be because you've read about failures. So now when you think about CTB even if your method is sound and well planned your brain gravitates towards the negative outcome. Any time there's uncertainty most people will tend to err on the side of caution.
Sometimes we talk about how the hell do some people just go and hang or shoot themselves? I think that these people who just go and do it probably haven't been researching for months and years, they just 'know' that hanging or guns are lethal from the way media portrays suicide so they don't have near as much uncertainty as someone who's researched and read the horror stories. Of course some of these people do mess up and get it wrong and are worse off but I'm talking about the actual determination to go and do it in the first place. They do it so easily because in their mind they're sure this will kill them because hey, in the movies it always works right? In this sense ignorance is bliss.
I believe many of us are paralysed by negativity bias. So many times I've read of people who have meticulously planned but still think they will fail. I'm one of those people. We give our brain and impossible puzzle to solve and it starts to spin on its head trying to solve it. It does not know what will happen for sure once you pull the trigger, or step off the chair, or drink that mixture so it tries to come up with every possible scenario no matter how unlikely it is. And the scarier the scenario the more it puts us off CTB because emotions are stronger than reason. This is why scaring children and even adults with hell is so effective. We might know as adults that the whole notion is ridiculous but the fear stays. We are primal creatures still in some ways.
If you've planned well but are still afraid to fail, this is normal. But if we do want to take that final step and get it over with we're somehow going to need to overcome that emotional negativity bias.
Oh I wanted to add an example...the other day I made a post about the plastic bag and sleeping pills method (not with gas). And someone said 'that will surely fail don't do it' even though I described how you could restrain yourself to prevent taking the bag off. So I asked how in this specific situation would it fail if your hands and feet are constrained? And I wasn't able to get an answer. Just 'don't do it you'll probably fail'. I feel like this becomes a kneejerk reaction often here. Some methods are going to fail like OD but sometimes I see people will describe a method or their modifications of a method and they just get told it will fail without actually being told how it might fail because we're not thinking about it practically anymore, just with our fears.
Obviously many many people ctb and with the shittiest resources and yet here we are, many of us with money to spend on the method of choice but still we're afraid. And here is why I think this is. When we imagine our CTB there is no way for us to know the outcome. And because it's a mystery it kind of frazzles our brain. Let me try to explain a bit better.
Our brain is a pattern recognition and problem solving machine and it does not do well with uncertainty. It doesn't do well with not knowing so it often fills in the gaps for us and most of the time it does a convincing enough job. For example none of us know what will happen tomorrow but based on previous experience we can form a basic idea. E.g you'll go to work, you'll have dinner, you'll watch tv etc. But when we're faced with novel situations that we have no personal reference for it goes into overdrive trying to come up with possible scenarios.
Imagine you're walking down the street and someone stops you and points to a hole in the wall just enough for your hand to fit through and it's all black inside, you can't tell what's behind the wall. You have no idea what's on the other side. The person tells you to put your hand in the hole. Of course the vast majority of people would hesitate. Your brain is probably coming up with horrible scenarios like someone will injure your hand or do something nasty to it. Of course there could be absolutely nothing on the otherside or maybe someone will hand you a wad of cash but you don't know. You've never seen this building or wall or person before.
When our brain doesn't know for sure what the outcome will be it tends to think of the worst scenarios. In psychology this is called the negativity bias and it's hypothesised that this is an evolutionary trait that helped is survive.
When you think about CTB you don't know what the outcome will be because you've read about failures. So now when you think about CTB even if your method is sound and well planned your brain gravitates towards the negative outcome. Any time there's uncertainty most people will tend to err on the side of caution.
Sometimes we talk about how the hell do some people just go and hang or shoot themselves? I think that these people who just go and do it probably haven't been researching for months and years, they just 'know' that hanging or guns are lethal from the way media portrays suicide so they don't have near as much uncertainty as someone who's researched and read the horror stories. Of course some of these people do mess up and get it wrong and are worse off but I'm talking about the actual determination to go and do it in the first place. They do it so easily because in their mind they're sure this will kill them because hey, in the movies it always works right? In this sense ignorance is bliss.
I believe many of us are paralysed by negativity bias. So many times I've read of people who have meticulously planned but still think they will fail. I'm one of those people. We give our brain and impossible puzzle to solve and it starts to spin on its head trying to solve it. It does not know what will happen for sure once you pull the trigger, or step off the chair, or drink that mixture so it tries to come up with every possible scenario no matter how unlikely it is. And the scarier the scenario the more it puts us off CTB because emotions are stronger than reason. This is why scaring children and even adults with hell is so effective. We might know as adults that the whole notion is ridiculous but the fear stays. We are primal creatures still in some ways.
If you've planned well but are still afraid to fail, this is normal. But if we do want to take that final step and get it over with we're somehow going to need to overcome that emotional negativity bias.
Oh I wanted to add an example...the other day I made a post about the plastic bag and sleeping pills method (not with gas). And someone said 'that will surely fail don't do it' even though I described how you could restrain yourself to prevent taking the bag off. So I asked how in this specific situation would it fail if your hands and feet are constrained? And I wasn't able to get an answer. Just 'don't do it you'll probably fail'. I feel like this becomes a kneejerk reaction often here. Some methods are going to fail like OD but sometimes I see people will describe a method or their modifications of a method and they just get told it will fail without actually being told how it might fail because we're not thinking about it practically anymore, just with our fears.
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out. I know that will help me succeed. If you have no one but yourself.. You will be a prisoner of that place and REALLY BAD THINGS AND DO CAN HAPPEN IN THERE.. Not to mention if you are "lucky enough" to get in one. There may be a waiting list, etc. Research all this ....will lessen your problem with decisions on what to do.
