Can someone else not be the person you stay for when your mother leaves?
I spent years deliberately and intentionally slowly distancing myself from every friend, every acquaintance, until my existence was nothing more then a fading echo of a memory to everyone that would mourn not just a death of a human being, but the my death in particular. I've crossed paths with many of them in recent years, and to them my face is that of a stranger's.
So to answer your question. No. Not without some sort of actual desire to live from myself.
When you're in a rough spot emotionally, it's easy to believe things that aren't true. Please reach out for help from someone. And I'm not saying this because it's a platitude or because that's what you're supposed to say. I'm saying it because I know what this type of hole is like, it isn't pleasant, there is another way
I generally agree with this, but don't you think that someone can come to a rational decision that life is not worth living for them? I'm curious what your stance on euthanasia is.
Life is hard. We never asked to be born, yet are forced to endure the hardships of life, which can be unbearable to some people. Not only are hardships wildly different for everyone, but our coping mechanisms are also different.
We can never truly understand what life is like for someone else, so saying you understand how they're feeling is indeed a platitude. I know it comes from a good place, but we shouldn't assume that the person is delusional.
Or there aren't. I know for sure that no one cares about me except my family. They care because we have a blood relation - but for anyone else, they literally wouldn't care if I was dead tomorrow. (I know because sometimes I disappear for weeks when things get too much. No one gives a shit, really.)
Is it really a burden? I've been through a very rough year and basically just live for my two wonderful kids. The only thing worse than the suffering is knowing my kids will remember their dad as being a coward who killed himself, and will have to grow up without one. You could see it as a burden but if I was that person I'd be happy to be there for them and profoundly wish they were happier.
If this is a phase, it is one with incredible staying power.
Say I were to give you cup of water, made of the most fragile glass to ever exist, and asked you to hold it. I'd imagine that it would be fine for a few minutes or even a few hours.
Does that stay the same if I asked you to hold it for days? Or months or years? Forcing you to always have to look tie a hand to it, always having to pause every other aspect of your life so that this glass doesn't shatter from setting it down just the wrong way, or going outside in the wrong temperature? And you do so, but only because of the guilt you know you would feel if the glass did break.
With a parent and child, such a relationship is inherent. To a child, mother and father are their world, their protector, their provider, their everything until they are able to fly on their own.
But what of peers? Do you think such is the basis of a healthy relationship?
Were it me to be the one that would shoulder another's burden as such... I think there would be a small seed of resent that would take root in my heart. One would grow like a terrible weed choking every other plant until nothing else remained. I'm scarcely able to tend to own wellbeing, there is barely a single bread crumb to spare for another.
That's one way to look at it. But it's one viewpoint of many.
Another one is that they may just enjoy being around you and communicating with you without necessarily feeling you or your life is their responsibility. And on your end you might recognize that you bring value to other people just by being you. You recognizing someone as your sole reason to live doesn't place a burden on them automatically.
I've deliberately tried to keep out emotion of this and to keep it transactional just to illustrate a different, simpler, viewpoint.
Also a more concrete example: I don't know you but from the couple of comments you've left I really enjoy the way you write. The cadence, word choice, it's concise and thoughtful. Brief and mostly one sided interaction but already made my life a bit better.
Just don't tell them that they're your only reason to live and you're all good. :)
We have been dead for billions of years. We have no memory of concept of time or ourselves beyond our lives. Similarly, we will be dead for billions of years, almost certainly with no sense of self or concept of time.
The tiny speck of time that is our human lives is so small it seems unimportant if not foolish to rush through it. If the default state for such a large percentage of time is no experience, any experience, even the ones that cause us to suffer, has such a novelty and quickness that surely you should just wait.
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I also like the song 'Any Major Dude' which is about just going to sleep because you'll feel differently the next day. If you look at things like suicide rates and coal fired stove availability in England[1], it's clear people rush to kill themselves who wouldn't have if they had to wait.
1:https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=923193...
Pitiable attempt at bad poetry aside, it is not as if my mother is bedridden with illness. Barring the unforeseen, another decade at minimum I think is reasonable. Who knows after that.
Until then I am waiting. And doing nothing else but waiting.
If you're just waiting -- I hope you at least find things you somewhat enjoy to pass the time. Escapism through books or video games or nature or whatever can make the waiting more bearable.
In reality, I think we're all just waiting but most have found some way to distract themselves from that fact :)
Thanks for the chat hope you find some kind of solace.
Perhaps we all were once the reason for someone else spending one more day living. Burden unfelt can be love.
In order to defend myself against impulsive thoughts I've had to dig deep and discover purpose which made sense to me. In my case that is a duality of contributing to mankind however I can, and devoting substantial time to enjoy the contributions made by others. Slowly synthesizing and contributing to what it means to be human. Learning how to love and appreciate everything just on the merit of its existence. It's not enough to accept life, I have to refuse to die, and mount evidence against the utility of a premature death.
What convinced you that suicide was the right option a decade ago? A specific event? Is there something you want from life which you aren't finding or receiving? Or is there an inability to connect in an emotionally positive way with your experience? Or something else?
Do you remember your first words that you spoke or the first steps you took as a toddler? Or has speech and stride been just a part of your life since a time beyond your first memories?
To me, the idea of ending my own life has always been there, as constant as the sun rising in the east. There may have been a time when it wasn't so, but I cannot find it anymore. Because of this were were half hearted attempts both before and after; a sliced wrist here, a sloppy noose there. The one was the critical one. The one who's cause was nothing more then a piece of straw that broke the camel's back. But it broke nonetheless.
The rest as they say, is history.
I've had decades to look inward and ponder why it is that I am what I am. And often the line of questioning leads down to one particular core reason; that I do not wish to be not suicidal. I've looked at every friend I've severed from my life, every decision, every opportunity I turned away from, every life milestone I will never experience. No first kiss, no first date, no birthdays parties or Christmas get togethers. There will be nothing to reminisce about at the end of my life, no taste of nostalgia at a life well spent.
And yet every time I ask myself if I regret any of it... I would have to say no, I don't. And if I could go back and do it all over again with what I know now, I wouldn't change anything. Had I killed myself then I think it would have left a terrible pain behind. As is, when I do kill myself, it will be as quiet as leaf falling from a tree.
But to entertain you. I have done international travel and volunteer work. I still do from time to time. But there's no enlightenment in doing so, just busy work for myself.
I'm very good at being completely and utterly predictable in every respect that people will see, even if all they know of me is a false name and a false persona. And thus, having met all expectations, be I become someone less interesting then the task at hand.
I realize this is likely what you didn't wish to hear but I do not know what else can be said. I am who am I am.