gothbird
πΏπππ πΆπππ
- Mar 16, 2025
- 304
There's something devastatingly cruel about being asked to stay alive for someone else. At first glance, it seems loving. Noble, even. But when you strip away the sentiment, the message beneath is far less kind. What it often means is: "Carry this unbearable pain a little longer so I won't have to feel mine."
That isn't compassion. That's guilt pretending to be concern. And for many suicidal people, it's the moment they realise their pain is not being heard β it's being redirected.
We don't like to admit it, but this world maintains a strict hierarchy of pain. Grief, loss, and physical illness are acceptable forms of suffering β they garner sympathy, they're given structure. If you break your leg, you're allowed to say it hurts. If you're dying of cancer, people gather around you and say you're so brave. But if your mind is breaking down slowly under the weight of trauma, of mental illness, of chronic emotional fatigue, of invisible illnesses? If your agony comes without a visible wound? You're expected to endure it quietly. To show up for work. To reply to texts. To smile just enough that people don't worry. Because to say you want to die without an "acceptable" reason is to breach a social contract most of us never agreed to.
And when someone does break that silence β when they finally say I don't want to be here anymore β the response is rarely tell me what's hurting. It's think about your family. What if someone finds you? You'll destroy the people who love you. The grief of others is immediately elevated above the suffering of the person speaking. It becomes about the fallout, not the fire. The suicidal person becomes a vessel for other people's emotions like a risk to be managed, a potential tragedy to be prevented, rather than a person in need of dignity and understanding.
Sometimes, people stay alive. But not because they want to. Not because anything got better. They stay because they are afraid of what their death might do to others β to their parents, to their partner, to the friend who said I don't know what I'd do without you. And that's not healing. That's emotional hostage taking. It's asking someone to bear a level of pain they no longer consent to, because your grief would be inconvenient.
And pain is a complex thing. Some of us live with it daily, not just in our heads, but in our bodies. Not that it is comparable. I have spent years living inside a body that feels more like a punishment than a home. A body wrecked by fibromyalgia, persistent abdominal issues, and all the unspoken things that fall under "women's health" and get brushed aside. I have sat in waiting rooms with a pain that doesn't scan, doesn't bleed, doesn't show up on lab results and been told to drink water, take a bath, meditate, go for a walk, call my therapist. I've spent more time managing symptoms than I have living. And I have done all of it while trying to be a good daughter, trying to justify the weight of my existence for a beautiful, loving father I have lived for, in one way or another, for half my life.
If and when I go, I want him to understand this: it wasn't a forum that failed me. It was the system. It was the doctors who didn't listen. It was the therapists who ran out of time. It was the years I spent asking for help and being told it wasn't bad enough yet or there was no research available. The world demanded that I endure pain that it refused to validate, and then shamed me for considering an end to it.
But here's the truth: no one should have to live a life just to ease someone else's mourning. No one should be told their existence must continue purely because someone else has decided their death would be unacceptable. That is not love. That is control.
It is entirely possible to love someone and still want to leave this world. To feel care and connection and also deep, immovable exhaustion. To know that your absence will hurt someone and still recognise that staying will destroy you. These are not contradictions. They are the brutal truths of living with pain that doesn't get better. And it is not selfish to know your limits.
Suicidal people owe no one a performance. Not of progress. Not of positivity. Not of "trying harder." If they choose to stay, it should be because they feel some sense of ownership over their life, not because they were manipulated into holding on for someone else's comfort.
Some people want to leave quietly. Without spectacle. Without note. Not because they're impulsive, but because they are tired. And that is valid. And no one, not your family, not your doctor, not a stranger online, has the moral right to demand your survival as a condition for their peace of mind.
You can care deeply for someone. You can love them. You can mourn them before they're even gone. But you do not get to own their choice. You do not get to appoint yourself the keeper of their suffering, while still asking them to bear it.
And we need to stop pretending that we do.
That isn't compassion. That's guilt pretending to be concern. And for many suicidal people, it's the moment they realise their pain is not being heard β it's being redirected.
We don't like to admit it, but this world maintains a strict hierarchy of pain. Grief, loss, and physical illness are acceptable forms of suffering β they garner sympathy, they're given structure. If you break your leg, you're allowed to say it hurts. If you're dying of cancer, people gather around you and say you're so brave. But if your mind is breaking down slowly under the weight of trauma, of mental illness, of chronic emotional fatigue, of invisible illnesses? If your agony comes without a visible wound? You're expected to endure it quietly. To show up for work. To reply to texts. To smile just enough that people don't worry. Because to say you want to die without an "acceptable" reason is to breach a social contract most of us never agreed to.
And when someone does break that silence β when they finally say I don't want to be here anymore β the response is rarely tell me what's hurting. It's think about your family. What if someone finds you? You'll destroy the people who love you. The grief of others is immediately elevated above the suffering of the person speaking. It becomes about the fallout, not the fire. The suicidal person becomes a vessel for other people's emotions like a risk to be managed, a potential tragedy to be prevented, rather than a person in need of dignity and understanding.
Sometimes, people stay alive. But not because they want to. Not because anything got better. They stay because they are afraid of what their death might do to others β to their parents, to their partner, to the friend who said I don't know what I'd do without you. And that's not healing. That's emotional hostage taking. It's asking someone to bear a level of pain they no longer consent to, because your grief would be inconvenient.
And pain is a complex thing. Some of us live with it daily, not just in our heads, but in our bodies. Not that it is comparable. I have spent years living inside a body that feels more like a punishment than a home. A body wrecked by fibromyalgia, persistent abdominal issues, and all the unspoken things that fall under "women's health" and get brushed aside. I have sat in waiting rooms with a pain that doesn't scan, doesn't bleed, doesn't show up on lab results and been told to drink water, take a bath, meditate, go for a walk, call my therapist. I've spent more time managing symptoms than I have living. And I have done all of it while trying to be a good daughter, trying to justify the weight of my existence for a beautiful, loving father I have lived for, in one way or another, for half my life.
If and when I go, I want him to understand this: it wasn't a forum that failed me. It was the system. It was the doctors who didn't listen. It was the therapists who ran out of time. It was the years I spent asking for help and being told it wasn't bad enough yet or there was no research available. The world demanded that I endure pain that it refused to validate, and then shamed me for considering an end to it.
But here's the truth: no one should have to live a life just to ease someone else's mourning. No one should be told their existence must continue purely because someone else has decided their death would be unacceptable. That is not love. That is control.
It is entirely possible to love someone and still want to leave this world. To feel care and connection and also deep, immovable exhaustion. To know that your absence will hurt someone and still recognise that staying will destroy you. These are not contradictions. They are the brutal truths of living with pain that doesn't get better. And it is not selfish to know your limits.
Suicidal people owe no one a performance. Not of progress. Not of positivity. Not of "trying harder." If they choose to stay, it should be because they feel some sense of ownership over their life, not because they were manipulated into holding on for someone else's comfort.
Some people want to leave quietly. Without spectacle. Without note. Not because they're impulsive, but because they are tired. And that is valid. And no one, not your family, not your doctor, not a stranger online, has the moral right to demand your survival as a condition for their peace of mind.
You can care deeply for someone. You can love them. You can mourn them before they're even gone. But you do not get to own their choice. You do not get to appoint yourself the keeper of their suffering, while still asking them to bear it.
And we need to stop pretending that we do.
