The most fearsome thing you can say about a warrior is that he has no fear of death. Self-preservation is our strongest instinct; a person who overcomes it is free to do anything. He or she is freed from the prison of consequences society builds to control our behavior. We usually forget this when we are suicidal, but the people around us don’t. When we start demanding reasons to live from the people in our lives, they can’t possibly give us a sufficient answer. Unless you’ve broken your self-preservation instinct you don’t need a reason to live. You live to live. You live to see what the future is. You live because typically we’re programmed to believe the future will be better than the present. That seems to be part of the ruminative apparatus. Society rests on a few unspoken assumptions. The most important assumption is that people want to keep living. Humans are typically driven by self-preservation and self-improvement, and our social systems reflect that. However, i...
Suicide is not incomprehensible, inevitable, or evil. I have struggled with severe mental illness and suicidal ideation for decades. I, and most people in my situation, have been groping blindly though the darkness in shame and fear. Not any more. It's time we look directly into the void, together.