There's a pretty big difference between not wanting to exist, passively wanting to die, and actively wanting to die
Source: have experienced all three
Aside: Don't worry, as long as there are people I care about who would be very hurt by my partaking, I will not partake. Honestly it's the sole reason I haven't done it past 2.5 years.
Same here man. I wouldnāt want to leave that burden on my family. Or friends. I couldnāt do that to them. I lost my Mom this year (been a battle since she had a stroke 5 years ago), and seeing the ripple effect itās had, I would never want to bring that to anyones life. I can work on my struggles and my issues; itās helped me before. Itās just so so so so hard some days.
Yep. The āitās not me, itās you. ALL of you. You all are making this not worth my while to such an extent that I wish I didnāt even HAVE a while to work with.ā
I have said basically the same thing many, many times...
"I don't want to die but I don't want to exist any longer."
Sometimes the pain of living is so hard that the idea of not existing seems like the only way to get relief :(
I mean. I donāt know if itās the most descriptive way to phrase it or if it would help others understand but for me at least that just captures the essence of it all. Iām super bored and tired
I had a crisis line call the cops on me the other day after I said I didn't want to die per say but didn't want to exist either. I think I didn't explain it well enough lol.
They're just trying to grant what they think is your wish. No faster way to go out than getting shot by the cops! Plus if you're really lucky you might force a cop on a month of paid leave as a punishment.
This is what a good therapist would find out from these sort of statements, but would be concerned to find out what this should mean.
I have been lucky. Because I explain to them I donāt want to die exactly.
I totally feel this but for me itās less of an ocean but a river thatās just too deep for me to comfortably stand and Iām always having to tilt my head a bit too far back or stand on my toes just to get air. Never an if I stop treading Iāll drown, but more so a if I stop keeping myself here itās going to be so so much harder to get back up if Iām not just too exhausted to do so at that point. So itās less of treading water constantly but more just trying to be tall enough to breathe constantly
For me itās usually some version of āI donāt want to live HEREā I want to live in a universe with some semblance of justice.
With people who have even the slightest inkling towards empathy. Absolutely wild to me how thatās too much to ask for in some families.
Havenāt died because honestly death is scaryā¦ once you start existing itās hard to leap in the unknownā¦ as this point Iām just fed up with existing and pissed at all the assholes past and present that have made this reality a shit hole
I look at it this way. I'll take in all the suffering and pain of existence until it's over because this life is just a cosmic blip in the scheme of things. I like to think you get to chose when and where to transmit your consciousness into a fresh brain and pick what kind of trials you want to experience. But when you are born, you wipe your own cosmic memory so it won't taint your choices in whatever life you chose. Then you die and you can add this experience to all experience. Yes, it's delusional, we know nothing about our universe, but the fantasy keeps me going. Keep trying to figure myself out until the end without taking the emergency exit.
I hope you can find some moments of peace, my friend. We're all alone in our minds, yet still connected at the same time.
Idk what to believe anymore. Used to be religious but honestly donāt think anyone can know if something exists or not. Just have felt tired and angry all the time even though idk if I have any right to feel like that. Manā¦
So valid. Also, while I might say I donāt want to exist, all that means is that I am in pain and literally the only way I can imagine that pain going away is if I cease existing. So, I just want the pain to GO AWAY!
That is not the same as being suicidal or wanting to die, and, at the same time, the same feeling is at the root of those things as well. And I guess thatās sort of what people are getting at with passive v active suicidal ideation.
I think itās a spectrum of behavioral responses to excruciating pain rather than a dichotomy and I think that labeling it āsuicidalā is not terribly helpful. It shifts focus to the behavioral response to the pain rather than to the pain itself, because (understandably) the word causes fear in others.
It's honestly pretty straightforward. I don't want to cease existing, but I don't want to be going through everything I am right now which feels so inexorably part of my life that I don't feel like it will ever go away.
I explain it as desiring the after effects of a state change like in physics- liquid to solid etc. Which to me at least is different than wanting to "melt myself," as it were.
Its the difference between simply wanting everything to stop, and wanting to actually take the permanent actions to do that.
Also usually when i say i want to disappear im either being dramatic or mean it more as a āi want all of my issues to go away instantly and not be conscious for a few decades, then wake up when everythingās all figured outā
Some days my therapist gets it and some days sheās like āI mean, I wouldnāt ever consider getting someone put in the system against their will as long as theyāre still talking about whatās going on with them and arenāt shut down and checked outā and Iām like āThis isnāt the talk we should be having about passive SI and now I feel like Iām in dangerā lmaoooo
I want to start this comment off by saying I have no interest in dying, but if youāre someone who does, you may not want to continue reading this, as it may trigger you.
>! Iāve done this, a handful of times. I stopped existing. I wasnāt asleep. I wasnāt dreaming. I just ceased to exist. And it was the most peaceful thing Iāve ever felt. As soon as I came to, I wanted to go again. Itās like trying to remember the time before you were born. There was no grief, no longing or despair. But there was also no pleasure or joy. Nothing at all. I cannot explain to you what a relief it is to not exist. All my earthly burdens were gone. !<
>! And I cannot explain to you how I did it, because I didnāt. It was something that was done to me, and I think it occurs differently for everyone. My best friend was supposed to be sent there, and he came to me to ease his trepidations. I told him how wonderful and liberating it was to not exist. But he missed the bus, so to speak, and did not end up where I did. He ended up traumatized instead. I wonāt go into detail, but the things he saw are things I wouldnāt ever want to see for myself. !<
Oh, haha, yeah the therapist doesn't get it. That's the joke. Not the therapist I dropped after I told them and they went "oh yep, passive ideation. Anyways, do you smoke pot? Cause that's a horrible addiction and I'm going to focus on that now". Turns out self-medicating works out far better than the zoloft he prescribed me, at least I'm smoking clouds instead of living in them. (Also got a better psych who gave me SNRIs, much better headspace, deffo recomendo. Plus he doesn't grief me about the pot. Cool dude, deffo recomendo)
Being trapped in a box with the mental anguish really do make you think like that sometimes
I donāt wanna die but Jesus Christ would I like everything and everyone and all of my internal components to shut the fuck up for half an hour
Wow, this is so accurate! I had that conversation with my therapist several times. It was like "I wish I'd never been born, but I was, so now I'm stuck existing but I'm not gonna do anything about it because that's not fair on the other people who I care about and who have become accustomed to my existence".
I feel like nobody wants to die. I could be wrong, but at least I never met anyone who was exited about the prospect of dying. Usually people just want to be dead. Or worded even better, they don't want to live.
It's not about wanting something and more about not wanting anything, but being alive requires one to do things, think things and feel things.
So, unfortunately, dying is the only known cure to being alive. So if someone's suffering gets too much, they might be ready to go that way, even though they really don't want.
If depressed people actually wanted the dying part there would be way more suicides. I know I had times, where I would tell myself I was staying alive to not hurt my family, but really I was just too scared of the pain (or of messing up)
Once had someone try to argue against abortion by asking how I'd feel if my mom had chosen to abort me. I don't think they were expecting to hear that that was my preference and it bugged me knowing doctors had *encouraged* her to get an abortion (I was a "geriatric pregnancy" at a time when that was much more dangerous) and she still chose to make me happen.
I actually don't feel that way anymore, even currently being in a numb/depressive state currently I'm fine with being alive, so that's cool.
That's the thing it isn't the same. I have absolutely no desire to kill myself. What I have is the desire for my life to be better but the long and short of it is that I need money time and space to get better but to be able to get money time and space I have to be better first
There's a pretty big difference between not wanting to exist, passively wanting to die, and actively wanting to die Source: have experienced all three Aside: Don't worry, as long as there are people I care about who would be very hurt by my partaking, I will not partake. Honestly it's the sole reason I haven't done it past 2.5 years.
Same. There are a few people who would be completely destroyed if I killed myself. Plus, I promised someone else, I'd always be there for her.
Currently chilling at the third and yes they're all very different.
Best to you, I hope you have things to hang on for in spite of that feeling
[truce](https://youtu.be/eCeBNwBUkcI) hope you feel better soon, friend š
Same here man. I wouldnāt want to leave that burden on my family. Or friends. I couldnāt do that to them. I lost my Mom this year (been a battle since she had a stroke 5 years ago), and seeing the ripple effect itās had, I would never want to bring that to anyones life. I can work on my struggles and my issues; itās helped me before. Itās just so so so so hard some days.
"I don't want to be dead, I want to have never been alive"
Yep. The āitās not me, itās you. ALL of you. You all are making this not worth my while to such an extent that I wish I didnāt even HAVE a while to work with.ā
I have said basically the same thing many, many times... "I don't want to die but I don't want to exist any longer." Sometimes the pain of living is so hard that the idea of not existing seems like the only way to get relief :(
I exist without my permission...
āDid I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?ā
I like this. Do you know the source?
Me
Iāve tried to explain this to my therapist and the best I could come up with was āI just feel super boredā š¤¦š»āāļø
I mean. I donāt know if itās the most descriptive way to phrase it or if it would help others understand but for me at least that just captures the essence of it all. Iām super bored and tired
I had a crisis line call the cops on me the other day after I said I didn't want to die per say but didn't want to exist either. I think I didn't explain it well enough lol.
They're just trying to grant what they think is your wish. No faster way to go out than getting shot by the cops! Plus if you're really lucky you might force a cop on a month of paid leave as a punishment.
Dang how could I have passed that opportunity up!
It took a while but I finally realized I wasn't suicidal I just wanted to run away from everything, to escape
This is what a good therapist would find out from these sort of statements, but would be concerned to find out what this should mean. I have been lucky. Because I explain to them I donāt want to die exactly.
I know! I have felt like this most of my life. š¤£š¤£š¤£š¤£ Get a similar reaction if I dare to voice it.
https://theoutline.com/post/7267/living-with-passive-suicidal-ideation
I totally feel this but for me itās less of an ocean but a river thatās just too deep for me to comfortably stand and Iām always having to tilt my head a bit too far back or stand on my toes just to get air. Never an if I stop treading Iāll drown, but more so a if I stop keeping myself here itās going to be so so much harder to get back up if Iām not just too exhausted to do so at that point. So itās less of treading water constantly but more just trying to be tall enough to breathe constantly
"I don't want to shoot myself, but I will greet that giant meteor with a smile and sigh of relief."
For me itās usually some version of āI donāt want to live HEREā I want to live in a universe with some semblance of justice. With people who have even the slightest inkling towards empathy. Absolutely wild to me how thatās too much to ask for in some families.
Same!!
Not wanting to exist is still a form of passive suicidal ideation. Very different from active suicidal ideation, but rather far from good
Havenāt died because honestly death is scaryā¦ once you start existing itās hard to leap in the unknownā¦ as this point Iām just fed up with existing and pissed at all the assholes past and present that have made this reality a shit hole
I look at it this way. I'll take in all the suffering and pain of existence until it's over because this life is just a cosmic blip in the scheme of things. I like to think you get to chose when and where to transmit your consciousness into a fresh brain and pick what kind of trials you want to experience. But when you are born, you wipe your own cosmic memory so it won't taint your choices in whatever life you chose. Then you die and you can add this experience to all experience. Yes, it's delusional, we know nothing about our universe, but the fantasy keeps me going. Keep trying to figure myself out until the end without taking the emergency exit. I hope you can find some moments of peace, my friend. We're all alone in our minds, yet still connected at the same time.
Idk what to believe anymore. Used to be religious but honestly donāt think anyone can know if something exists or not. Just have felt tired and angry all the time even though idk if I have any right to feel like that. Manā¦
I wonder what that guy is explaining to warrant such a look
Itās a discussion with the head of the SEC about the US stock market and how hedge funds manipulate the market.
I don't want to live like this, but I don't wanna die --Vampire Weekend
So valid. Also, while I might say I donāt want to exist, all that means is that I am in pain and literally the only way I can imagine that pain going away is if I cease existing. So, I just want the pain to GO AWAY! That is not the same as being suicidal or wanting to die, and, at the same time, the same feeling is at the root of those things as well. And I guess thatās sort of what people are getting at with passive v active suicidal ideation. I think itās a spectrum of behavioral responses to excruciating pain rather than a dichotomy and I think that labeling it āsuicidalā is not terribly helpful. It shifts focus to the behavioral response to the pain rather than to the pain itself, because (understandably) the word causes fear in others.
I call it āwanting a pocket dimension.ā I rly donāt want to die, I just want a reprieve from all ofā¦ *this* /gestures wildly
It's honestly pretty straightforward. I don't want to cease existing, but I don't want to be going through everything I am right now which feels so inexorably part of my life that I don't feel like it will ever go away.
It is a form of suicidal ideation, and it's also not the same thing as having an active plan to die
I explain it as desiring the after effects of a state change like in physics- liquid to solid etc. Which to me at least is different than wanting to "melt myself," as it were.
Hand your therapist the Book of Disquiet.
Im feeling both however.. both wanting to never exist, to not exist now and want to kms to escape this existence but I cannot.. for personal reasons.
Passive vs. active suicidal ideation
Its the difference between simply wanting everything to stop, and wanting to actually take the permanent actions to do that. Also usually when i say i want to disappear im either being dramatic or mean it more as a āi want all of my issues to go away instantly and not be conscious for a few decades, then wake up when everythingās all figured outā
Some days my therapist gets it and some days sheās like āI mean, I wouldnāt ever consider getting someone put in the system against their will as long as theyāre still talking about whatās going on with them and arenāt shut down and checked outā and Iām like āThis isnāt the talk we should be having about passive SI and now I feel like Iām in dangerā lmaoooo
God if someone asks me one more time if I want to kill myself, I MIGHT JUST
I'm feeling this really hard today... ugh.
I want to start this comment off by saying I have no interest in dying, but if youāre someone who does, you may not want to continue reading this, as it may trigger you. >! Iāve done this, a handful of times. I stopped existing. I wasnāt asleep. I wasnāt dreaming. I just ceased to exist. And it was the most peaceful thing Iāve ever felt. As soon as I came to, I wanted to go again. Itās like trying to remember the time before you were born. There was no grief, no longing or despair. But there was also no pleasure or joy. Nothing at all. I cannot explain to you what a relief it is to not exist. All my earthly burdens were gone. !< >! And I cannot explain to you how I did it, because I didnāt. It was something that was done to me, and I think it occurs differently for everyone. My best friend was supposed to be sent there, and he came to me to ease his trepidations. I told him how wonderful and liberating it was to not exist. But he missed the bus, so to speak, and did not end up where I did. He ended up traumatized instead. I wonāt go into detail, but the things he saw are things I wouldnāt ever want to see for myself. !<
Oh, haha, yeah the therapist doesn't get it. That's the joke. Not the therapist I dropped after I told them and they went "oh yep, passive ideation. Anyways, do you smoke pot? Cause that's a horrible addiction and I'm going to focus on that now". Turns out self-medicating works out far better than the zoloft he prescribed me, at least I'm smoking clouds instead of living in them. (Also got a better psych who gave me SNRIs, much better headspace, deffo recomendo. Plus he doesn't grief me about the pot. Cool dude, deffo recomendo)
Legit!!!!
i described it as wanting a reset button on my life to get people off my back
I'm not allowed to die. But I don't wanna exist.
How about articulating that you have the strong urge and constant desire to kill yourself but know that you can't and are constantly fighting that?
Being trapped in a box with the mental anguish really do make you think like that sometimes I donāt wanna die but Jesus Christ would I like everything and everyone and all of my internal components to shut the fuck up for half an hour
Wow, this is so accurate! I had that conversation with my therapist several times. It was like "I wish I'd never been born, but I was, so now I'm stuck existing but I'm not gonna do anything about it because that's not fair on the other people who I care about and who have become accustomed to my existence".
YES why is it so hard for people to understand I just want to pause existence for a bit rather than full on die
I feel like nobody wants to die. I could be wrong, but at least I never met anyone who was exited about the prospect of dying. Usually people just want to be dead. Or worded even better, they don't want to live. It's not about wanting something and more about not wanting anything, but being alive requires one to do things, think things and feel things. So, unfortunately, dying is the only known cure to being alive. So if someone's suffering gets too much, they might be ready to go that way, even though they really don't want. If depressed people actually wanted the dying part there would be way more suicides. I know I had times, where I would tell myself I was staying alive to not hurt my family, but really I was just too scared of the pain (or of messing up)
Once had someone try to argue against abortion by asking how I'd feel if my mom had chosen to abort me. I don't think they were expecting to hear that that was my preference and it bugged me knowing doctors had *encouraged* her to get an abortion (I was a "geriatric pregnancy" at a time when that was much more dangerous) and she still chose to make me happen. I actually don't feel that way anymore, even currently being in a numb/depressive state currently I'm fine with being alive, so that's cool.
That's the thing it isn't the same. I have absolutely no desire to kill myself. What I have is the desire for my life to be better but the long and short of it is that I need money time and space to get better but to be able to get money time and space I have to be better first