smile418
Member
- Feb 21, 2020
- 49
dichotomy - division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups
This post is about living with suicidal thoughts especially the advantages and disadvantages that this certain lifestyle entails not about actually cbting or about completely overcoming suicidal thoughts.
I am going to go on a little bit of a tangent and if you don't care about that then you can skip right to the question(s) in the last paragraph ("Unifying the two") because they essentially summarize everything else.
the positive:
you might think "the positive?! What good does it do me thinking about suicide all day?" but there is at least one quite significant realization one can draw from this burden that has been put upon you.
The video that most impacted my life and turned it around 180 degrees (maybe for the worse since I am here now; maybe not) is the 2005 Commencement Speech from Steve Jobs:
In his speech he talks at length about "[living] each day as if it was your last" (the timestamp is 9:05 when he starts talking about death for if you don't want to watch it fully which I do not recommend despite the things I said above). He proposes that a lot of the pain and fear that most experience throughout life just falls away when you essentially stop caring about the future. An example would be if you making a driving mistake on your way to the bridge you will jump off and the driver behind you honks then you would probably not feel too embarrassed because you will die soon anyway and the driver behind you doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. To be fair this thinking strategy only woks with fairly minor problems that seem insignificant in the face of death and not with problems that seem greater than you own death (i.e. the problems that make us suicidal). Despite that it can still help you life a better life should you choose so.
I understood this concept intellectually for a long time but it was only until recently when I was utterly convinced I was going to cbt that I could actually feel what he meant and act accordingly because that was just the logical thing to do at that point. It is only now that I fully understand this video and what significance it holds.
... and the negative:
Of course as you might know suicidal people tend not to be the happiest people around. One reason for that (next to obviously the main problem that led them to suicidal ideation) is that it is easy not to care about your own well-being and become "lazy" because you might end it tomorrow after all and why then even put in the effort right now? Choosing short term comfort over long term happiness is actually completely logical if you actually die in the near future because then the investment will never pay off.
I want to make clear again that I am not saying "just don't be lazy" because of course I realize that that is extremely difficult since there is still the "main problem" mentioned above that massively stands in the way of you "being happy" anyways.
Unifying the two:
The big question now is: How does one take the advantages (not caring about the petty things in life like fear of failure or external expectations) that constantly being on the verge of death provides us and leave out the negatives by actively trying to choose long term happiness over short term comfort?
While I am in a halfway healthy mindset, not completely overtaken by suicidal ideation, it seems to me that I either can choose the "suicidal" road of not caring about anything, be it beneficial or harmful to me or I choose the "normal" road of looking out for the future but also caring about what others think of me and so on.
Is it even possible to fix this?
Have I missed anything?
Have you guys experienced similar realizations throughout your own life?
This post is about living with suicidal thoughts especially the advantages and disadvantages that this certain lifestyle entails not about actually cbting or about completely overcoming suicidal thoughts.
I am going to go on a little bit of a tangent and if you don't care about that then you can skip right to the question(s) in the last paragraph ("Unifying the two") because they essentially summarize everything else.
the positive:
you might think "the positive?! What good does it do me thinking about suicide all day?" but there is at least one quite significant realization one can draw from this burden that has been put upon you.
The video that most impacted my life and turned it around 180 degrees (maybe for the worse since I am here now; maybe not) is the 2005 Commencement Speech from Steve Jobs:
In his speech he talks at length about "[living] each day as if it was your last" (the timestamp is 9:05 when he starts talking about death for if you don't want to watch it fully which I do not recommend despite the things I said above). He proposes that a lot of the pain and fear that most experience throughout life just falls away when you essentially stop caring about the future. An example would be if you making a driving mistake on your way to the bridge you will jump off and the driver behind you honks then you would probably not feel too embarrassed because you will die soon anyway and the driver behind you doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. To be fair this thinking strategy only woks with fairly minor problems that seem insignificant in the face of death and not with problems that seem greater than you own death (i.e. the problems that make us suicidal). Despite that it can still help you life a better life should you choose so.
I understood this concept intellectually for a long time but it was only until recently when I was utterly convinced I was going to cbt that I could actually feel what he meant and act accordingly because that was just the logical thing to do at that point. It is only now that I fully understand this video and what significance it holds.
... and the negative:
Of course as you might know suicidal people tend not to be the happiest people around. One reason for that (next to obviously the main problem that led them to suicidal ideation) is that it is easy not to care about your own well-being and become "lazy" because you might end it tomorrow after all and why then even put in the effort right now? Choosing short term comfort over long term happiness is actually completely logical if you actually die in the near future because then the investment will never pay off.
I want to make clear again that I am not saying "just don't be lazy" because of course I realize that that is extremely difficult since there is still the "main problem" mentioned above that massively stands in the way of you "being happy" anyways.
Unifying the two:
The big question now is: How does one take the advantages (not caring about the petty things in life like fear of failure or external expectations) that constantly being on the verge of death provides us and leave out the negatives by actively trying to choose long term happiness over short term comfort?
While I am in a halfway healthy mindset, not completely overtaken by suicidal ideation, it seems to me that I either can choose the "suicidal" road of not caring about anything, be it beneficial or harmful to me or I choose the "normal" road of looking out for the future but also caring about what others think of me and so on.
Is it even possible to fix this?
Have I missed anything?
Have you guys experienced similar realizations throughout your own life?
