you're not wrong, namaste :)

I may not have been clear. I believe that people can subscribe to the illusion that suicide is an act of self-preservation. Reality is in the mind whether we want to believe it or not, so i like to discuss perception and illusion as bearing as much weight to sway an individual as concrete and familiar things. sometimes, i'm not careful in how i express myself. sorry 'bout that.

While suicide can be perceived as an act of self-preservation, especially by an XD38, I don't believe it is the healthy choice, obviously. :) Anyone who is contemplating suicide is already in a dysfunctional situation, so rational thought just isn't going to cut it at that point. I believe.

For intelligent, generally healthy, and mature people, depression and suicide make no sense. it's more like a trend than an event, and the cure is as mysterious as the illness itself. I wish telling myself that life is a joke would have snapped me out of it. :) I tried a lot of that. hehehe That's what made the experience so damn horrible. Nothing worked.

In one of my worst moments, i sat on the edge of my bed, in the dark, and felt panic because I couldn't tell if i was dead already and in "hell." That was due, i believe,to years of loneliness, exhaustion, and isolation. My pain has never been caused by one thing. As a generally positive person, my feelings of hopelessness made no sense to me which further sent me plummeting into the depths of despair. Being depressed is a living nightmare, but you can't wake up by telling yourself it's only a dream. Problems with money and relationships were child's play. LOL Materialism isn't really an issue for me, and I wasn't going hungry. Maybe that would have distracted me.

In my case, i think the despair came from incessantly deferred hopes and a negative atmosphere for too many years, as well as other stuff. I won't go into those details here, but most people consider suicide as the last option and feel they've exhausted other options. in most, if not all cases i've ever heard of, the idea that there are no other options is an illusion. but, when you question your own judgement and can't trust yourself, how can you help yourself? All i thought about, in those worst moments, was how I couldn't bear pain anymore. How i didn't want to hurt my family anymore because they were tired, and i was making them sad. sounds cheesy, but it's truly what i believed. i was doing all of us a favor. sure, it would hurt like ripping off a band aid, but, in a sense, i thought i was betraying myself to go on living just so they wouldn't feel the pain of my death. I was feeling immeasurable and ineffable pain and believed ending my experience called "life" would also hurt everyone less in the long run. The average pain would be less. sounds silly to me now. it makes little sense, but nightmares are surreal and make lots of sense when you're dreaming and none after you wake. you still have hope, though, if you can ask yourself if you're dreaming. i thought suicide was a perfectly logical and compassionate act, for me and everyone else. Luckily, i had enough self-doubt to make me question the act. in this case, self-doubt worked to save my life. the XD38 article helped me understand why i felt those things.. that suicide was saving my life. I wouldn't do it now, but i better understand how i subscribed to the illusion.

Logically, i could tell myself that I had choices, but because of the incapacitating nature of depression, I had no strength to act upon them. It's a real sickness. Horrible. It takes a miracle to survive it. Imagine a person who is bedridden due to illness. Depression to the point of suicide is no different. It's often metaphysical, though, which is why it's so hard to understand. We can trick the body and the mind, but it's harder to heal a broken spirit.

I never want to go back there. it's a dark hallway. a bottomless pit. a suffocating quagmire. thought didn't take me there, and thought couldn't help me out. I guess it does depend on why a person feels they have no more options. Every case is different.

seems like you're in no danger, namaste :) that's goooood.

I love Wordsworth because he managed to break through his painful illusions in spite of his pain. His new illusion is much nicer. :) oh lordy.

cheers!

I can see in a way how it could be looked at as "taking themselves so seriously", but that doesn't feel right to me. The people that live with the most pain in life usually have the most developed senses of humor out of necessity.

It's obvious that you havn't been there; keep it up. A life lived without being confronted by these issues is a *good* life :)