But here I am I guess, back again and looking through my options.
aren't we all :) sometimes we just don't know what to do, dazzled by everything before us--and that's ok; we can't comprehend everything at once, and that's ok--maybe we don't need to perhaps, maybe just considering
some of our options and trying to just choose a few good ones might just be enough to make us feel alright, just maybe
Was I born to be suicidal? Just to come back to this point again and again?
Will I finally be able to do it or will I disappear and reappear on this forum, always falling back, never sure to which side I belong in the end?
Is this how things are now?
Well, I give you good news and bad news. I say this to you out of raw truth.
No. You weren't just born to be suicidal.
You were born. Into whatever arms you were born into. Raised up and brought through this world; confusing and challenging as it is--phase by phase and year by year, all the way up to where you are now. You have walked miles and sat for hours at times; had years worth of thoughts and lifetimes worth of changes. Your literal biological composure attests to this you. It is most likely that the vast majority of your body, does not share a single cell with a version of you from years ago--. In other words, you are born; you have lived and known through life--and here you are now.
You have experienced good and you have experienced bad; in countless varying intensities and volumes of presence. You have known confusions and sparks of realization. You have experienced intense struggle and eases of peace. I cannot know what you have experienced; but I can say most surely--that it has been a whole lot. I invite you, in this moment--to remember whatever good might have befallen you on this journey thus far, this journey embarked from the first spark of sentience. Have you ever experienced anything good in your life? I encourage you to sit with a moment, with your own memories, you feel on this.
Despite whatever guilt or longing or loneliness that might accompany the fondnesses that may have been in the near past or far past; anything--I encourage you to reflect on it clearly.
...
Here we are now.
Here
you are now.
Here
I am now.
I will answer the rest of your question now.
Is this how things are now?
I have good news and bad news; once again.
Is this--the way you feel currently in your life, the way you feel about things and the emotions currently with you--how things are
now?
...
Yes--
but--
and hang with me for a moment here--
this bridge to the next word--
Yes,
but it doesn't have to be this way.
It never had to be this way.
You don't have to be locked in fear or be forced to do things you don't want to. Nor lays for you the unbearable moments of life nor the paralyzing vacuum of oblivion; you may rest in the in-between, that is fine.
You don't have to pick a side. You may feel however you like.
And that... is not only fine--but
truly, fine indeed. To be moderate, to know both sides. To not be lost in conviction to one, forgetting what pulled you towards another, at some point in your life.
It is cold here. And breathing chills here, too.
But maybe--despite how chilling this air is--and how much it freezes us to walk about here; we can find some shop to stop in. To talk and know a warm candle or two; something maybe, worth walking for.
It is cold here. And it is cold right now. But maybe, it will be less cold in the future, too. Maybe even... warm.
~
But here I am I guess, back again and looking through my options.
Was I born to be suicidal? Just to come back to this point again and again?
Will I finally be able to do it or will I disappear and reappear on this forum, always falling back, never sure to which side I belong in the end?
Is this how things are now?
You were born. You don't have to do anything anyone else told you to do.
you were born in the grasp of a mother, but now that you have grown out of crawling and slow step, now you can walk as free as you wish; run, even--maybe even take the transport to wherever in the world you like. Plane, bike, car, bus. Drift down the metro and end up where you want to, given enough time to float around.
Maybe it's ok to ebb and flow, to bob in and out of darkness and light; knowing both and swaying about.
Maybe the swaying, the alternation, the...
confusion--is part of life, is meant to be part of living here. And maybe, we don't have to hate it--perhaps it's ok to be ambivalent, to not be sure--and to accept that, to accept our feelings change with how varying life is, and that that's
okay.
Okay so, I have to get out of the bus. It didn't bring me anywhere I really wanted to be.
maybe, one day--you will be somewhere you
want to be, and be glad you were able to make it there :)
The air is cold outside and I don't want to breathe in.
Whoever made it this far, I'm so sorry.
That you're feeling the same or something similar.
I share in the grief of life with you; that not all our feelings are good, that our past and memories cannot be perfect wholly.
But I also want to share of the
joy that dances around the cold air in form of sunlight, too; the night lanterns shining down on us in the dark walks we stroll on.
I just want to say... whoever made it this far--
thank you. That we are able to join ourselves to each other's words, to such a meaningful extent. That we have not only words, but letters, too--and writing, and technology, and this forum--to share our souls to our heart's content.
I feel for you. I know how it's like to be suicidal. It tugs at me. But I feel there is... there is a great catharsis, in realizing that so, so many struggle with what we do. Not just in suicidalism, but in
life too. The confusion, the struggle to find meaning--all of it, so human, so common, so valid, and understandable, too.
I end with this quote from Franz Kafka, on one critical note, on the human condition.
~~~
You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.
—Franz Kafka
I take this one quote to mean, that accepting our own suffering--and allowing ourselves to feel it, allowing ourselves to share in the grief of others--is itself, a great relief, a grand catharsis. It enjoins us with the whole of humanity, this ability to tap into the suffering of others. I used to think grieving for others just decreased by own happiness; but now I know, it is actually a vital relief. It relieves us. It gives us breath. It is an act of love; even, towards ourselves, as well. Regarding ourselves as valid enough to interface with others in the human experience, regarding ourselves as justified enough to try and understand how things are, no matter how difficult it may be to grasp.
I encourage you to allow yourself--to allow yourself, to feel whatever you wish to feel; to feel permitted to writhe in pain with whatever you suffer right now, to feel relief in whatever joy is brought to you through
anything, anything good in life--all of it, all of it: please permit yourself to feel it. It is all human--it is all valid--I feel you, at the very least, deserve the right to catharsis and feeling, in this trying time of yours--and of ours.
...
I write more about feeling catharsis and what that meant in my own understanding--in this
forum post here. It's... (
chuckles) very long, and gets well...
very, very philosophical in it's detailing, so it's certainly not of interest to
everyone, but I just want to add that I personally invite you to taking a look at it, if you feel any part of it['s text] might bring you solace at all. My best wishes and hopes with you.
Here are the most relevant quotations to this idea, here, cited from
the comment. (text written by yours truly)
Myself, I found great solace in understanding that deciding on suicide and feeling suicidal, are two completely different things.
Myself, I found this way of dealing with my suicidal thoughts.
I just let them flow through me.
And allow myself to feel all the pain and suffering that comes with myself; to allow myself the catharsis that such intrusive thought craves for.
(...)
The way I deal with my suffering, is just to let it all flow through me. To allow myself to cry out as loudly as I wish to—in my own mind, and sometimes (if I'm in secrecy) by mouthing it out, too—for death, in wincing of pain. I let it all flow through me like a river, like a raging waterfall. And I allow myself to feel this pain to it's fullest degree, without trying to stop myself from feeling pain or thinking it's wrong to be feel pain either.
And eventually, I am able to come to days where I realize, that the sea of my mind is still and not crying out for death at the current moments.
(...)
So we realize that we don't have to be sane all of the time. It's OK to fall apart and feel fucked up for the day, to be overridden with unbearable emotions and suffering. But if it is possible for those emotions to fade, even a bit,—to experience but one good day in our lives, that we are glad to have known—then it's worth bleeding out some days, to feel the fascination of interest that life,—and only life,—can bring.
(...)
I encourage you to find joy and solace in anything you find gives you a relaxing evening. For me, that is listening to Radiohead; especially Kid A, I find that album greatly healing for myself, especially when I have a lot of suicidal feelings. (...)
It is suffering; so the only thing to do is to cling onto something and feel all the pain that is there, and to keep hanging on, until it fades even a little bit.
This is difficult. This is so damn difficult. You will have days where the pain fills you up like water from head to toe and burns that water like oil, like some intoxicating candle. But eventually, that candle's flame and heat can recede [fade] for a time—leaving a better atmosphere to breath in. Breathe in those moments. Sit back, and feel yourself—the things you like, the valid feelings you have, breathe in all of it. The things you love, the things you find beauty in—remember them too, they are part of you and are very, very, real.
...
take care of yourself :)
as well as you can
You can try the best you can
You can try the best you can
The best you can, is good enough
—Optimistic, Radiohead
