This is a story about chaotic lives...

I once spent the best part of a year reading theoretical physics books and papers, voraciously devouring the literature. I was obsessed with the subject - as a keen amateur - and still am, to some extent. My enthusiasm was so great, that I corresponded at length with some theoretical physics professors from around the world, who were kind enough to indulge me.

As with so many who catch the theoretical physics bug, I was fascinated by the idea that a theory so central to all of modern science - quantum mechanics - might have different interpretations, all equally unprovable, but a lot of fun to think about. The two which are most worthwhile talking about are the many-worlds interpretation (often known simply as "MWI") and the many-minds interpretation. I shan't summarise them here. I leave it as an exercise for the reader, if you are intrigued, to find the Wikipedia pages.

The many-worlds interpretation is something we are very familiar with, from books, films and TV. The concept of parallel universes is so ubiquitous, that it doesn't merit further discussion.

The many-minds interpretation is, oddly, quite obscure... but there are experimental hints that this interpretation might be closer to the fundamental nature of reality, than the many-worlds interpretation. I won't delve into either theory, except to explain some of the challenges to conventional wisdom, which are unintuitive to us.

I will not, of course, bore you with the "duality of light" wave/particle stuff, or Schrödinger's cat etc. which have been talked about ad nauseam, such that everyone is vaguely aware of it.

I will not, or course, talk about relativity. Not useful here.

So. Here's the thing. We like to think that our observations are independent. If I see something, then it happened for any and all observers. Let's take the tree falling in the forest. We agree that if nobody observed it, it's quite possible that it didn't make a sound. Fine. Good. However, most of us would say that if just one person saw the tree fall in the forest and heard it make a sound, then it absolutely did make a sound in this observable universe, for all observers. In other words, whatever happens for one person - observably - happens for everybody, even if they didn't observe the event.

Not true.

There's good evidence that each of us experiences his or her own 'version' of reality, and our observations can be different, despite us NOT living in parallel universes. It should be noted that I'm not talking about relativity. We know that when a person is travelling faster than us, or closer to a massive object, time flows at a different rate for them, such that our synchronised wrist watches would show a different time, when compared with each other at a later date - that's just relativity (special and general, respectively) and that's not what I'm talking about, even though it's pretty mind blowing. No... what I'm talking about is two different experimental observers observing different stuff - one says that the tree in the forest made a sound when it fell, and the other says it was silent. It would seem - at a quantum level at least - that this kind of observer independence is entirely supported by experimental results. Search for Wigner's friend if you want to read more on that one.

Anyway, moving on to the original point of my essay, I'm a little bit fascinated by quantum suicide. Quantum suicide says that if we were to use a binary quantum event - something with a 50/50 chance of happening - in order to commit suicide, then weirdly, we would never be killed. Because we are the observer in the experiment, in all the instances where we are killed, we are no longer around to observe the results, so - implicitly - we only remain conscious, as an observer, in the case where the event which kills us does not occur. All clear?

Further, I often think that it's quite remarkable that I've survived up until this point in my life, given the vast quantity of near-death experiences I've had, and the reckless risk taking. However, my survival is not evidence that the probability of my death was lower than I had estimated: quite the opposite. There are two distinct possibilities: firstly, I've been extremely lucky, and anybody else who copied my behaviour is almost certain to die. Secondly, I'm unaware of all the infinite ways that I've died, snuffing out my consciousness, and therefore leaving me unable to recount this tale of miraculously cheating death.

I am - to a small extent - somewhat convinced that there's truth in the many-minds interpretation of quantum mechanics, given my first-hand experiences. I may, in fact, calculate the odds that I should have survived everything that I have survived, in order to put a precise figure on exactly how improbable it is that I'm alive, thus providing some empirical evidence for the many-minds interpretation of quantum mechanics... although readers should beware of survivorship bias: if you copy my behaviour, you will most certainly die.

Tags: #physics #suicide

This is a story about premature death...

I was having a panic attack recently. My pulse was racing, with my heart feeling like it was going to burst out of my chest. I was short of breath; I felt like I couldn't breathe; like I couldn't get enough oxygen. I was sure that I was going to die. Then, I realised that I didn't mind if I died. In fact, I decided that I'd be quite glad to be dead. As soon as I thought that, the panic attack abruptly ended.

It occurred to me that my attitude towards death - and mortality - is not at all typical, and as such warrants some discussion.

It's the nature of my profession, to deal with things using strict formal logic. As a result of spending a 23 year full-time career immersed in a world which will truck nothing vague, ambiguous or downright logically flawed, I have ended up being somewhat unable to think in the wooly way, which most ordinary people do. Most people have no attention to detail. Most people are unable to think logically.

The problem with thinking logically, is that it means that life's absurdity is laid bare, and various psychological horrors are visited upon the poor person - me in this case - who make their way through a world which does not utilise reason and logic.

Firstly, to be afraid of death, there must be a reason for wanting to be alive. What is that reason?

"I want to see my kids grow up"

But, why do your kids want to be alive? What was it that you were offering your children, when you decided to have them? What life was it that you thought they might want?

We still have to answer the same question: why does anybody want to be alive?

If your answer is something related to kids, grandkids, great-grandkids or suchlike, then you, I'm afraid, are no different from a slug, a wasp, an amoeba, or any other imbecilic creature, which is driven by its genes to do nothing more than make more copies of its genes. You are, I'm afraid, not a very bright spark. You can stop reading now.

"I like my life; I like being alive"

Okay, this is good stuff, but what is 'liking'? What does it mean to like your life? What does it mean to like being alive? Probably, you mean that you enjoy pleasure, in some form or other. Perhaps you enjoy food, perhaps you enjoy sex, perhaps you enjoy drink or drugs, perhaps you have a hobby. Whatever it is, you are basically a sensation-seeker, and/or pleasure-seeker. This is a little more logical than the slug-wasp-amoeba type morons we mentioned before, but it can still be easily exposed as nothing more than idiocy.

Our brains are evolved to give us small hits of dopamine to reinforce behaviours which increase our chances of individual survival, or increase our species' chance of survival. It's obvious that eating would be enjoyable, because if we didn't eat we'd starve to death. It's obvious that sex would be enjoyable, because if we didn't have sex our species would die out. Again, when we analyse the behaviour, we find that it's nothing more than genes pulling the levers, trying to get us to make more copies of the genes.

"Everything is meaningless"

Yep. Bingo. Everything IS meaningless. Every single bit of evidence of your existence will be obliterated, to the point that it will be as if you never existed. All of your stupid pictures you posted on Instagram, which you think are so great, will be gone, along with any evidence of the human race, the Earth, the Solar System, the Milky Way. In the inevitable heat death of the universe, the spreadsheets which your boss asked you to email, are so cosmically unimportant, that it's laughable that you even bothered to send them.

In the context of the ridiculousness anthropocentricity, I struggle to understand what the difference is between a 'premature' death, and a death which supposedly happens at the 'right' time. Of course, I empathise with those who have lost loved ones, too 'early', but logically, death is inevitable. It seems like we are creating a problem, where none need exist.

I do have strong views about the sanctity of human life, insofar as one human killing another, directly or indirectly. I am incensed with rage at lazy baby boomers and other greedy capitalists, hoarding scarce housing, during a housing crisis; forcing people into miserable minimum wage zero-hours contract McJobs, which cause suffering and suicide at epidemic proportions. Of course, you might ask why I would care, when such concerns are of cosmic insignificance; in the long run, we're all dead. The answer is easy: life is so absurd, so I treat it like a game. I can see that the game is horrendously rigged, but at least I can see that it doesn't matter if I die - I can't 'lose' per se - so I can play to 'win' in ways that nobody else does. While others try to spawn as many progeny as possible, or accumulate as many shiny round pieces of metal, or paper with numbers on, or both... I'm free to do whatever the hell I want, within the confines of a mortal body, trapped by nature's weakest fundamental force, on a rock floating in a vacuum, orbiting a nuclear fusion reaction.

I don't revel in the absurdity of life. I am miserable and I suffer. I have no answer for how to be happy. In fact, I think that happiness cannot co-exist with knowledge, beyond a certain point. Perhaps if I had one piece of advice, it would be to avoid theoretical physics and cosmology, because they seem quite incompatible with happiness - ignorance is bliss.

I have friends with life-limiting illnesses, and to them, my essay must seem very rude and inconsiderate; arrogant. I have friends who have loved ones who died 'prematurely' or who are dying (of something other than... well... what I don't know. Newsflash: we're all dying). I know that death is a real taboo, presumably because our genes are hard-wired for survival. It's been a big evolutionary advantage, to select against anybody who doesn't fear death, or who's prepared to talk about death as a preferable alternative to life.

When we view life as suffering, struggling and misery - which it is - then we must ask ourselves again: is it better to be dead? Of course, we originally asked why we wanted to be alive, but when we ask ourselves the much more straightforward question, why do we want to be dead, then the answers come much more readily. Here are a few reasons to be dead: you don't have to get up in the morning, you don't have to go to work, you don't have to do anything you don't enjoy, you don't have to make any effort, you don't have to feel any pain, you don't have to suffer, you don't have to struggle, you won't be tired any more, all your troubles will be over, you won't worry about anything, you won't be stressed anymore, you won't be anxious, you won't be depressed, you won't worry about being fat, you won't worry about being ugly, you won't be lonely, you won't be frustrated... you get the idea. There are infinitely many reasons why being dead is better than being alive. You like sleeping, don't you? Being dead is like, the best kind of sleeping, because you never get woken up by your alarm clock; you can rest forever.

I'm really not sure what's scary about death at all. I'm really not sure why more people don't choose death, when life is so shitty.

It seems so churlish to reject life, when there are lots of slug-wasp-amoeba people out there who are desperate to mindlessly do the bidding of their genes. We're so culturally indoctrinated to repeat the mantra that we love our life, and that life is precious, that we often forget that we don't love life - that life is utter shit - and that life is worthless. If you don't think life is worthless, you should take a trip to the developing world, to remind yourself of the human suffering that's inflicted in your name.

I've written about twice as much as I hoped to, but I suppose this is a subject dear to my heart, insofar as I feel suicidal most of the time.

Perhaps one day, depression will lift and I'll look back on this essay with different eyes. Perhaps one day, in the not-too-distant-future, I will kill myself. I think the latter is far more likely than the former, according to a great deal of bitter experience.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about survival...

If you're an intelligent-sounding posh middle-class chap, dressed presentably, who has the outward appearance of having their shit together, doctors trust you more than other more disadvantaged members of society. Because I appear, to all intents and purposes, like a functional, productive, fine upstanding member of society, I was able to obtain six boxes of the maximum strength of tramadol. Each box contained 112 tablets.

My need for the tramadol - a strong opiate painkiller - had originally been legitimate, but I had weaned myself off it and managed to cope with the pain, without these painkillers. Instead, I stockpiled my prescriptions, with the intention of killing myself.

I managed to accumulate 672 of these incredibly strong opiate painkillers, with 50 milligrams of tramadol in each capsule.

The lethal dose of tramadol, which will kill 50% of rats and mice in laboratory experiments, is 350 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Assuming that my body weight is 80kg, then the lethal dose which would give me a 50/50 chance of survival, would be 28,000mg.

6 boxes, with 112 capsules, with 50mg of tramadol, equals 33,600mg.

33,600 is a bigger number than 28,000.

672 capsules is a heck of a lot of capsules.

* * *

On the 9th of September, 2017, I swallowed 672 capsules containing 50mg of tramadol. It was a time consuming exercise. Filling my mouth with capsules and gulping them down with wine - because alcohol would increase the lethality - meant that this was a quite drawn-out exercise. With each mouthful of capsules I swallowed, I was acutely aware that I was slowly reaching a dose which would almost certainly be fatal, but I had plenty of time to think about what I was doing. If I was going to hesitate, there was plenty of time to hesitate.

I did not hesitate.

Then, I waited.

To be precise, I set a timer on my phone. I knew that after a certain amount of time had elapsed - at least an hour - then the capsule shells would be fully dissolved and their contents would be dumped into my stomach and intestines, where the tramadol would start to be absorbed into my bloodstream. I knew that if I could avoid being discovered for an hour, then I would almost certainly die.

After 45 minutes, I felt that I was beyond the point of no return. I was extremely overwhelmed by the powerful painkillers entering my bloodstream, killing me. I decided to send a final tweet, saying goodbye.

* * *

I woke up in a hospital intensive care bed.

I didn't realise I was in hospital.

I didn't know what the hell was going on.

I had been in a coma for days.

* * *

So, I survived that suicide attempt.

I've never felt that I was glad to survive that suicide attempt.

I've definitely felt that I wish I didn't survive that suicide attempt, on many occasions.

* * *

If we want to prevent suicides, which I very much do, then we need to first understand why people commit suicide. We need to acknowledge that there are reasons and that very often there are not - in fact - any other choices available. Imagine if you met somebody suicidal and you asked them what's wrong, and they said to you "I'm thousands of pounds in debt", you wouldn't say, "well, it's your lucky day because I have thousands of pounds of savings". No. What you would say would be "have you tried phoning the Samaritans?". Nobody really wants to prevent suicide. Sure, some people would like it if there wasn't any suicide, the same way that people would like it if there wasn't any man-made climate change, but nobody's actually going to fucking do anything about it.

I've written one of these blog posts every year, since my suicide attempt, which almost killed me on World Suicide Prevention Day 2017. I write one of these every year, but nothing much changes.

Nothing much changes, but I do now have a million readers every year, visiting my website, looking for information on suicide.

Nothing much changes, but I do spend all my waking hours thinking about suicide. Not just my own suicide, but also other people who are suicidal: I think about how to make some real, meaningful, tangible changes in the world, which actually reduce the number of people committing suicide. Not just the usual bullshit about crisis counselling phone numbers.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about writing...

To date, I have written and published 1,357,076 words on this blog. Today is the 5 year anniversary of me starting this blog. I have published 1,086 blog posts, which is an average of 4 per week. I think many writers would be pleased to write and publish something at least 4 days a week. I'm quite proud of my achievement.

Here are some facts about the past 5 years, in chronological order:

• I was homeless when I started, on September 6th, 2015
• I was £21,000 in debt when I started
• I rented a super cool apartment by the River Thames in late September, 2015
• I was locked up for a week - voluntarily - on a secure psych ward in October 2015
• I flew to San Francisco to visit the Golden Gate Bridge, at the end of October 2015
• Hospitalised for a few weeks with kidney failure, caused by DVT, January 2017
• Moved to Manchester in July 2017
• Suicide attempt on September 9th, 2017. Hospitalised in a coma in intensive care
• Sectioned and held involuntarily on a psych ward, waiting for an appeal for 12 days
• Won my appeal, but stayed on the psych ward voluntarily for another two weeks
• Became homeless again
• Moved to Swansea in October 2017, still homeless
• Lived in a load of AirBnBs in London midweeek, due to work
• Debt reached its peak of £54,000. I only had £23 left to spend.
• Rented an apartment in Swansea with lovely panoramic sea views, in March 2018
• Moved to Cardiff in March 2019
• Suicide attempt on December 18th, 2019
• Hospitalised with kidney failure for almost 3 weeks - discharged January 2020
• August 2020 my peak of £54,000 debt is fully repaid. I am debt free.
• I have £300 of savings, having subtracted all taxes and other monies owed

Here are some other interesting facts about the last 5 years:

• I've worked 44 months out of 60 (73% of the time)
• I've earned £530,000
• I've paid £240,000 in tax
• I've paid £83,000 in rent
• I've paid £50,000 interest on debt

The numbers are actually pretty impressive, for somebody who's been so sick, homeless and generally suffering a very chaotic stressful life. I'm surprised I've been such a generous contributor to the economy, actually. I've philantropically handed out vast sums of money to banks, governments and landlords. I am, truly, a ragged-trousered philanthropist.

Tags: #homeless #debt #career #capitalism #banking #hospital

This is a story about pen pals...

I invited people to write to me, and they do. My DMs on Twitter and Facebook are full of messages from readers. My email inbox is full of emails from readers. This is good. This is what I asked for. This is what I got.

I agonise a lot about whether it was the right thing to do, to write so candidly and brutally honestly about suicide. Some people would expect a massive content warning, trigger warning, or some other kind of disclaimer. Some people - including most responsible journalists - wouldn't even grapple with the topic at all. There's a widespread fear that suicide is contagious, which is not a wholly unwarranted fear, given that suicide does seem to occur in clusters; there is fear of copycats.

Being in touch with so many people who've read what I've written, is somewhat reassuring. Nobody is saying "I wasn't going to kill myself, but now I am, because of what you wrote". Of course, you might say that the ones who think that don't get in contact, but that's a preposterous idea. I have an ever-growing dataset, and almost without exception, people get in touch because they're already suicidal.

Of course, you might say that if I push just one person over the edge, that's one too many. I agree. I'm not pushing anybody. If anything, I'm trying to nudge people back in the other direction. If they want to research suicide methods on the internet, they're going to find the information they need. At least what I offer isn't a dry step-by-step instruction manual. I'm genuinely just saying "yes, suicide can be achieved by these methods, and it's OK to feel like you want to end your life, but I'm upset that anybody feels like life is not worth living; I feel like life is not worth living a lot of the time"... and that's OK. I'm allowed to say that, because I feel it, and it's not doing anyone any harm. I'm not trying to inspire or provoke anyone into committing suicide. People die in darkness and ignorance, not in a world of honesty and openness.

Will I one day have angry friends and relatives contacting me to accuse me of being to blame for their loved one's suicide? Probably, but they should probably ask themselves why their loved one was driven to searing the internet for suicide methods and other information on self-murder, instead of finding whatever they desperately needed from their loved ones. I didn't invent suicide. I'm not in charge of suicide. I'm not telling anyone to commit suicide. I simply exist, sharing my own story, which people tell me is relatable, for those who are in crisis.

Anyway, I've got to go... I've got emails to answer.

Tags: #suicide #mentalhealth #depression #anxiety

This is a story about treatment and therapy...

I write about my own personal experiences of depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, suicidal plans and suicide attempts, because that's what I would want to read if I was in crisis. There's a mountain of material on the web about the symptoms of mental illness, dealing with a crisis, coping with suicidal thoughts, counselling, crisis support, mental health teams, crisis teams, doctors, healers, witch doctors, shamen... and all the rest of it.

It's all been done to death.

So, here's what I'm doing: I write.

I've tried absolutely tons of medications, and all of them have undesirable side-effects, and ultimately didn't bring me a good long-term outcome. I refuse to accept that I simply haven't found the right medication, at the right dose, in the right combinations: personally, I've exhausted that avenue, and found it to be a fruitless exercise. That's not to say that medication won't work for you, and you shouldn't try it, but it didn't work for me.

I tried counselling and behavioural therapies. Nope. Probably OK if you're just 'a bit sad' but if you're reading this then you're probably well beyond being 'a bit sad'. That's not to say you shouldn't try therapy. Everyone's different. However, for me personally, I don't think 45 minutes a week is going to fix all my problems, sorry.

It's important to acknowledge, though, that following the treatment routes which have been resoundingly proven to be ineffective, can be a useful distraction which will eat up a few years of your life. Although I can say with certainty that the long-term outcomes are not attractive, in the short term, there's a lot to be gained from the process of learning about all the different medications and trying them out: it'll keep you busy!

Also, we shouldn't underestimate the power of having a kind non-judgemental person, listening to your traumatic story. Being heard is super important; super healing. Having somebody tell you that you did the best with the hand you were dealt, can be incredibly important, to forgive yourself and start to feel better about being unwell; not so guilty or broken.

I write because it's unlimited free therapy. Instead of only having 45 minutes a week with a therapist, my therapist - the blank page upon which I write - is available 24 x 7 x365, and I can spend as long as I want in a therapy session for free. The free part is not to be underestimated: therapy is really expensive (although it might be money well spent if it works for you). Also, the blank page is the world's best listener: it never interrupts, misunderstands, disagrees, challenges, contradicts, argues or otherwise talks back, which is *perfect* as a therapist.

Given that therapy is pretty much just guided introspection, there's no reason why you can't learn the techniques to explore your own thoughts and feelings, without a guide. Now I'm in the habit of sitting down in front of my blank page every day, I find it really easy to explore whatever's bothering me, or to dig into baggage from the past... whatever I want - it's my time and I'm paying for it!

From personal experience, not professional qualification, I really urge you to write on a regular basis, therapeutically. It's helped more than anything else I've tried, by far.

Of course, we would all love to find an authority figure - a doctor or similar high professional status person - who we can put our faith in to 'cure' us and take care of all our problems, but the reality is that depression and anxiety are modern epidemics, and medicine has failed to provide effective treatment; the problems are getting worse, not better. Ultimately, we are - unfortunately - personally responsible for our safety and wellbeing. Much though I wish there was a magic person in a magic building with magic beans, like a doctor in a hospital with some pills, it's turned out to be a massive disappointment... we're on our own.

Of course you should phone the crisis hotline if you're on the brink of committing suicide. Of course you should go to your doctor and take their advice. Of course you should seek professional help. However, if - like me - you've tried all that and found it to be a dismal disappointment, then I imagine that's why you're here, right now, reading this.

Try writing. It helps.

Tags: #suicide #depression #mentalhealth

This is a story about leaving a legacy...

I think that "attention seeking" is a very serious - and particularly mean - charge to lay at the door of a suicidal person, but we should explore the topic. I feel like we should unpick the matter.

Suicide is not - and I must stress this - an attention seeking act. It is a death-seeking act. People commit suicide because they want or need to be dead, not to gain attention. What an idiotic thing to say, write or think, that suicidal people are attention seeking: can't get any attention when you're dead. You'll have no idea who attended your funeral... maybe nobody; you'll never know.

By extension then, it seems obvious that being suicidal is not attention-seeking either. A person must be suicidal before they commit suicide, even if only for a fraction of a second. The state of being suicidal is unavoidable on the route to suicide.

The problem comes when people are depressed and suicidal for a long time and/or make failed attempts to end their lives. Then, it's possible - for idiots - to start thinking that it's "attention seeking" behaviour, instead of the death seeking behaviour that it actually is.

"Why don't you just kill yourself then?"

If you're thinking that, you're probably a psychopath and/or a sociopath. Try having some empathy, fuckwit.

Sure, if you want to go around calling people's bluff, you might well find that they don't just kill themselves on demand, at the snap of your impatient fingers. We can be certain that if your attitude is to say "I bet you're not even going to do it" then YOU are the reason why our suicide rates are sky-high and rising; the number one cause of death in men under 50.

Okay, what about legacy? What about the right to die with a shred of dignity?

Suicide notes are super common, which indicates that it's really important to us - as humans - to die with the dignity of some final words. Suicide notes might take one last swipe at persecutors - bullies - and/or explain the final straw, or other setbacks which contributed to life becoming intolerable; unbearable; unliveable. To leave - to commit suicide - without some kind of note is very rare.

Would you deny a dying grandmother on her deathbed a few final words? No.

Of course, my "world's longest suicide note" has become far more than a few final words, but it's a constant insurance policy, in the presence of near-constant suicidal thoughts. When my life was very chaotic, I had no idea when I was going to commit suicide, and as it turns out the most recent couple of attempts have taken me by surprise as much as anybody. That might sound ludicrous to you, that I found myself somewhat unexpectedly committing suicide, but that's how it it when you're living on the edge; it just takes one little thing to tip you over.

I can see that an unkind person might see my lengthy writing project as attention seeking. Certainly, it's true that I want to leave a legacy. Sometimes, I've had nothing but this website as a creation that I can point to and say "that's mine; I made that". I've had nothing in my life that I was proud of, that spoke of my creativity and productivity, other than the words I've written and published. Why shouldn't I have something like this - my collected published works - as a legacy to leave behind?

Another thing worth talking about is attention. If I have people reading what I write, I feel better than if nobody is reading what I write. Do you think there would be any writers, actors, musicians and other creative people in the world, if nobody wanted to read, listen, watch or otherwise spectate? "Attention seeking" is a pejorative term, implying that to want to be noticed is wrong. However, if we are totally ignored, we're as good as dead. If we're totally ignored, we die and nobody cares. Well, if that's what YOU want, you go right ahead, but frankly, I'm not going to apologise for wanting people to care whether I'm alive or dead... and I don't think that's a bad thing, in the way that the "attention seeking" accusation implies.

Am I happy I have readers? Yes.

Am I faking being depressed and suicidal to get attention? No.

Am I going to kill myself on YOUR timescale to suit YOUR impatience? No.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about dying with dignity...

Continuing on with the theme of giving my readers what they want, I've decided to write about the most searched for thing which brings visitors to my website.

I lied.

I'm not going to write about the easiest way to kill yourself but instead, I'm going to write a detailed account of when, why and how I'm going to kill myself.

***

If you came here looking for suicide methods, I wrote about that at length here.

If you still want more detail, have a read of this.

***

Firstly, we need to acknowledge that life can be pretty damn abysmal, if luck doesn't go your way. Sure, if you're reading this then you're lucky enough to have access to a computer, tablet and/or a smartphone, and you're able to read. For many, that would be considered a privilege, but in reality it's a curse: it would have been far better to remain stupid and ignorant, and not be troubled with existential angst.

Secondly, we need to acknowledge that there's no legal or moral requirement to continue living, if life is hell. There's no reason why we have to die of 'natural causes' in old age, which pretty much means dying in agony from cancer or some other dreadful disease, or otherwise dying when your body parts become completely worn out. Why would anybody go through life with uncertainty - a surprise death hanging over them at some unpredictable future date - and the inability to plan ahead?

Thirdly, we need to acknowledge that the freedom to choose is what makes us different from the beasts - the animals - who are driven by instinct; driven to survive at all costs. Why would we choose to act in a bestial way - barbaric and primitive; animalistic - when we are blessed with a huge brain and the tools of cognition and reason; advanced thought and language. We are able to plan, so why do we not plan our lives to include a predictable and known date of death?

Of course, my ideas are not original. There are plenty of dystopian novels, films and other art forms which depict fantasy worlds where euthanasia is part of those imagined societies. Of course, I'm not talking about euthanasia for you I'm talking about euthanasia for me.

If we recognise that the world is overpopulated, overcrowded, over-competitive, and that the natural resources of the planet are being over-utilised, then it seems like a very selfless and generous act, to quit living before becoming a burden on the healthcare sector. Of course, I'm talking about me and me alone here. I very much wish any older people who want to live as long as humanly possible, a long and healthy life. If you want to live, good for you... but I very much think that if you came to this website then you're not 100% sure that living is for you. Anyway, this is about what's right for me, and me alone.

As soon as I'm dead, my estate can be given to my sister and niece. My death frees up the resources that I possess, such as housing and a job, that could be utilised by a younger person. The money I hoard - arguably to protect myself from any period of unemployment, and for my retirement - can go into the hands of the living, instead of being hoarded in the hands of the dying. I can much more accurately plan for how much money I need if I know when I'm going to die.

I've decided that it's too expensive to buy a house and have a pension. I had a series of major setbacks in my life, which wrecked my finances, and now it doesn't make financial sense to plough all the money I need today into things which I might need tomorrow. If I'm going to live until I die of natural causes, I might need a lot of money, and in order to ensure my pension pot goes as far as possible, it'd be better if I owned my house and wasn't paying a mortgage or rent anymore. Having a pension and a mortgage-free house would rob me of money which I need now while I still have my health. Why do I want to have housing security and financial security during a period of my life when I'm old and senile, in pain and discomfort; dying?

Also, suicide is a form of protest. Why should my parents enjoy dying before me, when they ruined my childhood, and consequently my later life? Why should my parents' generation die without seeing the horrors they have inflicted upon the younger generation? Why should the capitalists continue to delude themselves that capitalism is a good system, when clearly it exploits people and the natural resources of the earth, to the point of irreversible devastation and destruction of our only habitable planet?

There's nothing worse than playing by the rules of the game, when everybody else is cheating. Being an honest player in a rigged game is torture.

I've done the calculations. There's no way I can keep playing this stupid game. I quit.

Did I mention dignity?

Dignity is important.

If your parents and the wider world have not given you the opportunity to have dignity - to live as an independent adult with an acceptable quality of life - then personally, life is not worth living. Sure, if your parents are neglectful, abusive, selfish, narcissistic shits who took no interest in helping you achieve an acceptable quality of life - helping you to live independently - then you might still have the opportunity to pull yourself up by the bootstraps; you might have the opportunity to work hard and get yourself to where you deserve to be, through sheer force and determination. However, you need to do the calculations. If your calculations tell you that you'd need to work 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, 13 months a year, for the next 250 years, in order to achieve financial security, housing security and other basic human needs, then you are playing a rigged game. This is not a case of petulantly blaming everything on our parents, although it's undeniable that they deserve the lion's share of the blame. No, this is not about expecting that the world owes you a living. This is simply saying that no matter how hard you work you have to run just to stand still; the game is rigged and you won't accept it; you won't play a rigged game anymore.

So that's the why.

When is easy: my career spans four decades. It'll soon be time for me to have a long-overdue career break. In the absence of any new route to earn money, which is not part of the capitalist society which I refuse to prop up any longer, I refuse to continue to play the game. Therefore, I just need to do the calculation to work out how long I can maintain an acceptable quality of life; how much does my minimum standard of living cost? With that number calculated, I can then set a very precise date for when I need to be dead by.

What about the how?

How is probably easiest of all. I often thought about cutting a carotid artery or jugular vein, but it seems far easier to simply swallow a deadly poison, such as cyanide, which is easily obtained. The how is really the most boring part of it all. Swallow something highly toxic, and it's done... easy!

It gives me a great deal of comfort knowing that the remaining period of my life will not fall below a minimum acceptable quality. It's greatly comforting to know that no poverty or destitution awaits me in old age. It's great to know that pain, discomfort, illness, senility, incontinence and other dignity-robbing ailments of old age, will be completely avoided.

I know that some people want to live as long as possible, in order to see their children and grandchildren growing up and experiencing major life events - births and marriages - but not living so long that they see their houses get destroyed by rising sea levels and hurricane force winds, and other destructive effects of man-made climate change. I know that some people want to live as long as possible, but not so long that they see their grandchildren selling their bodies in order to fund their education, and killing themselves because their zero-hours contract McJob doesn't even pay enough money for them to feed themselves, let alone live with any dignity.

Nobody's ever going to look me in the eye and ask "why the fuck did you decide to have kids, when you knew that the old people fucked up the planet good and proper, and robbed all the money and property, and expected to sit idle in their massive houses while all the young people killed themselves because they have no prospect of ever living independently with any dignity and an acceptable quality of life?". I'll just be dead.

Of course, suicide's not for everyone. My essay is only about why I - personally - am planning on committing suicide. I absolutely - and without exception - discourage anybody and everybody from doing what I'm planning on doing.

That's all about me, me, ME! I wrote some other stuff about suicide methods and how to kill yourself. if you're in the mood to keep reading. Please keep reading or get in contact if you're in crisis... or do something to pass the time. I find it incredibly therapeutic to write: it's kept me alive (by a whisker) for many years.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about reckless misconduct...

To say that I have great power would be delusional and grandiose. To say that I'm anything other than another anonymous voice in an infinite sea of near-identical voices - constant background noise; static hiss - would be to lose all perspective on reality. I. Am. Nothing.

However.

It has not escaped my notice that ever more thousands of people are reading my blog every day. It seems that I've rather stumbled upon something which many people are searching for, which my website has the answers to. Alarmingly, it's on the topic of suicide.

Stuff I wrote without thinking a great deal about the consequences, now potentially could have very bad consequences. Woe betide me if something I wrote was sufficient to push a person who would otherwise have lived, over the edge and into an act of suicide. How awful it would be if I some how enabled or encouraged or unwittingly aided and abetted in any way - no matter how small - the avoidable death of a person, or indeed persons.

Suicidal thoughts are, sadly, very common. I personally suffer from suicidal thoughts on a daily basis, and suicide plays a very big part in my life; my plans. I have firm plans to kill myself at the moment; I live with plans to commit suicide, day in and day out.

When I wrote what I wrote - mainly the thing about suicide methods seems to be the most popular essay - I thought there was no harm in having a frank discussion about things, given that all forms of media - books, films, radio, TV etc - contain depictions of suicide, and it seems inconceivable that we could have gone through life and not encountered at least one method, even if we expressly avoided anything gruesome and unpleasant.

In the context of writing in obscurity, I could write whatever I wanted, safe in the knowledge that nobody was reading it. Certainly, I never had to consider any consequences of what I wrote.

Now, things are a little different.

Some people write to me. I left an open invitation for people to get in touch, and they do. They're in all kinds of different situations, but they're all suicidal... or at least they tell me that they are, and who am I to doubt them? I'm not a trained counsellor. I'm not a specialist in mental health crises, except by way of my own experience. I'm not qualified. I'm not a professional in the field of suicide... merely a person who's attempted suicide a bunch of times, and who has written over a million words on the subject. I very much feel that I'm the wrong person to get in contact with, for those who are looking for a more traditional crisis counsellor, such as the one you might speak to if you pick up the phone on the Golden Gate Bridge, for example.

I know from personal experience, that sometimes you don't want to speak to somebody traditional who is going to say all the same old clichéd things. Personally, I've found it more useful to talk to people who genuinely understand what it's like to be suicidal; not in some abstract sense, from training courses and suchlike. I'm sure all the mental health professionals are super great at their jobs, and many of them do have personal experience of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, but there's something homogenous about their approach; there are no surprises and nothing useful - personally - in any of the things they've said to me, in the past.

It seems criminally reckless of me to perhaps venture into a world which is the strictly reserved for trained, qualified members of professional bodies, who are - in theory - the most competent and capable people in existence, able to deal with suicidal people.

However.

It's not working.

More people than ever are depressed. More people than ever are anxious. More people than ever are suicidal.

So, I'm making myself, and what I know, publicly available. I've written vast amounts on the subject of suicide. I've open-sourced my experiences. You can contact me, and I'll do my best to reply.

Will I talk you out of suicide? No.

Am I offering something better than counselling, therapy and medicine? No.

Why read what I've got to say? Why get in contact? Well, because maybe you don't want to hear yet more clichéd "don't do it... you've got so much to live for... think of the pain you'll cause" type BS. Maybe you want to hear from somebody who's experiencing what you're experiencing. Maybe you want to hear that it's OK to feel what you're feeling in a way, because somebody else is struggling too. There's a lot of guilt about wanting to die, and I think that's wrong. It's OK to want to die; it's normal... it's more normal than you could ever possibly imagine.

Usual caveats apply: I want to live in a zero suicide world. I do not encourage, endorse or otherwise want to enable and/or aid and abet suicide in any way, no matter how small.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about worst-case scenarios...

I've brought you here under somewhat false pretences. Possibly you have read what I wrote on suicide methods and have decided to continue reading. Perhaps you haven't read anything I've written before, and an internet search has brought you here. Either way, I kinda lied: this is much more about why to kill yourself than how.

Why kill yourself?

Good question.

If you're reading this, then I'm sure you have your reasons. Perhaps you don't need me to explore the many reasons why, but I'm going to anyway, because you didn't need me to write about all the suicide methods in detail either, but I did and thousands of people read it every day.

It's because so many thousands are reading what I wrote about suicide methods that I felt I should follow up with something about why to kill yourself. I hope you will forgive me if you feel I have brought you here under false pretences, but anyhoo, let's begin.

Why Should You Kill Yourself?

You shouldn't.

The end.

Just kidding.

Unless we acknowledge that there are very real and valid reasons why people kill themselves, then we are gaslighting. We can't pretend that people don't commit suicide, and that those people didn't have good reasons for doing it. People don't just do stuff for no reason. To pretend like there weren't reasons - and there isn't justification - is disingenuous and unkind to those who have died, and unkind to those who are suffering suicidal thoughts.

So, excuse my jocularity. I'm quite serious. We need to talk about why you would kill yourself.

Breakup/Divorce

We've got to start somewhere, so why not with a relationship ending; a broken heart? There's little more gut-wrenchingly sad than losing the love of our lives. Many suicides will be prompted by a breakup, so we need to discuss this. I needed to start somewhere, so this is what I've chosen.

First, we need to acknowledge what love is: a combination of serotonin, oxytocin and dopamine that's released in the brain in order to foster human bonding, sex and produce children; it's a biochemical trick created by our genes, in order to get us to make more copies of the genes.

Is it sad when we get our hearts broken? Yes. Incredibly.

Is it the end of the world? Will we be sad forever? No. Get another girlfriend/boyfriend/significant-other and your heart will soon mend.

Of course, we need to acknowledge that it's absolutely terrifying - as well as a massive inconvenience - to be thrust back into the world of dating. As we get older and fatter, we feel increasingly insecure, and we fear dying alone. Of course, nobody wants to feel fat, old and desperate, fearful of dying alone. I can totally relate to the feeling that I'd rather die than suffer the agony of dating, and the knock-backs; to be thrust back into the crappy world of adolescence with all its accompanying awkwardness, uncertainty and insecurity. "Does he/she like me?" we wonder to ourselves, in seemingly eternal torment.

In my opinion, a breakup is no reason to commit suicide, because - although inconvenient and awful - it's possible to mend your heart by meeting somebody new.

Bereavement

Okay, so I didn't really cover the death of a loved one in the breakup/divorce section, so I'll cover the death of a partner in this section. The answer is pretty much the same, but I do make an exception for childhood sweethearts who've lived into old age. I'm not suggesting that everyone who's been in a super long-term relationship should be in a suicide pact, but it's understandable that after a certain age and many decades of happy marriage/civil-partnership, that life could continue with somebody new is almost unthinkable. Where to draw the line is not up to me, but I feel certain that being a geriatric widower is not how I plan on spending the last years of my life.

Am I advocating for suicide for bereaved older people? Absolutely not. I'm just saying that I can totally understand why heartbroken seniors might decide that their reason for living expired when they lost the love of their lives.

Death of a pet. Sad but no.

Death of a friend. Sad but no.

Death of a parent. Sad (most of the time) but no.

Death of a child... oh damn. Where to begin? Well, we must acknowledge that the grief would be exceptional, and the guilt no doubt. The thing which would never be uttered, but must be discussed, would be the feeling that time's run out to make another kid, mixed up with all the same fears about fertility, carrying the baby to full term, giving birth, having a healthy child etc. All those horrible emotions would have to be re-lived, with the accompanying magnifying effect of knowing how devastating it was to actually lose a child, or - god forbid - children.

It seems quite understandable to me that some horrendous combination of bereavement, such as losing your whole family in some kind of accident, would be far too much to bear. Sure, plenty of people have had tragedies in their lives, and gone on to rebuild their lives with somebody else. That's not to say that everyone can or should. I can totally understand why bereavement(s) would be a reason to commit suicide, and although I can see that many people have been able to get over the tragedy, I don't think it's right to say that suicide should never be considered.

Usual caveats apply: I don't condone or encourage suicide, but I do understand why people kill themselves, although I desperately want a zero suicide world.

Debt, Financial Ruin; Destitution etc

It feels a bit wrong to put debt on a par with the death of a child, but it's also right - debt can destroy lives just as effectively as a road traffic accident. We need to acknowledge how life-destroying debt is, because it can wreck so much more than a person's credit rating.

First, let's talk about the very real, and very devastating consequences of financial difficulties: loss of status, loss of home, loss of relationships... loss of freedom; agency. To have a bad credit rating is to become a leper - unable to buy or rent a house, buy a car, get a job. "Get a job?" you ask... yes, that's right - many jobs will check a person's credit rating and/or ask if they've ever declared bankruptcy. Bankrupts are shunned from almost all parts of society, such that they're ruined for life; unable to get a decent job and therefore shut out of every aspect of ordinary life. That's a bad deal. That's a rough gig.

Without your house, your car, your job and the other accompanying status symbols, how are you going to provide for your family? It follows that you'll be ditched by your partner and your kids; labelled as a loser. This is how people lose everything, not just their credit rating.

Debt is life-destroying.

Okay, so I'm probably laying it on a bit thick. However, this is all the stuff that is on the mind of the poor suffering individual who is struggling with debt, and has decided to commit suicide. Having been hounded by debt collectors, bailiffs and other parasites/vultures, people are driven to end their own lives rather than suffer any more stress, loss, ruin and distress. I empathise.

Although bankruptcy and financial ruin are devastating, the process of being financially destroyed is worse than being destitute. Being destitute is quite liberating. Having struggled with debts for years, being hounded by creditors and other leeches, once the bankruptcy process - or some other kind of insolvency procedure - is in motion, the creditors can't harass you anymore. You'll get an opportunity to rebuild yourself, albeit with the impediment of the black mark on your records. Plenty of people function without credit cards, car loans, mortgages and other financial instruments, and many of them are very successful. In fact, many entrepreneurs talk about their bankruptcies as badges of honour; they're proud of their failures.

I think loss of status is not to be underestimated. If you're used to having a nice house, car, and being a provider for your family, there is an incalculable amount of shame, bitterness and regret, which is almost impossible to deal with. Losing everything is not easy, and we should acknowledge how fatal it can be; how it can be the worst thing in the world to have your life fall apart. Saying stuff like "it's only money" is profoundly unhelpful, because money is such an intrinsic inseparable part of modern life. We shouldn't forget that wealth and status are the things which allow us to get an attractive partner, as well as to feel good about ourselves.

Killing yourself because of bad debt or financial problems seems like the most ridiculous thing to do, but in fact it's one of the hardest things to deal with, because it's such a taboo to talk about financial difficulties and debt. Debts are so toxic to our mental health, keeping us awake at night, and causing us untold anxiety, as we fear the domino-like collapse of our entire lives - job loss leads to defaulting on our mortgage, leads to our house being repossessed, leads to bankruptcy and destitution, as sure as night follows day.

Yes. Debt and financial difficulties cause suicides, in vast numbers. We need to acknowledge that's true. I wish it weren't true, but it is.

The solution? Be prepared to be destitute. Treat it as an adventure. Be a tramp. Enjoy the freedom of it.

Injury, Sickness and Disability

Chronic illness, chronic pain and other lifelong conditions - such as diabetes and kidney failure - have a devastatingly detrimental effect on our quality of life, and to pretend otherwise would be dishonest. However, we are notoriously bad at estimating how bad it's going to be. For example, people with type one diabetes, who are insulin dependent and who must closely monitor their blood sugar, are able to adapt and report far higher quality of life than their initially pessimistic outlook. However, people who require dialysis because of kidney failure, often vastly underestimate how badly their quality of life is going to be affected.

Many people would say that they would want their life support to be switched off if they were paralysed - quadriplegic - but there are well documented cases of people reversing the decision in their advanced directive such that they have indicated that they wanted to be kept alive by machines, most famously by a man who was only able to blink in order to communicate.

However, we must be realistic. In the vast majority of cases, people who are suffering incredibly awful lives, because of chronic pain and other suffering, who've had their reasons to live snatched away by some cruel twist of fate, which has rendered them incapable of ever enjoying a minimum quality of life, are absolutely entitled to reserve their right to die. I must make it absolutely clear: I am pro-euthanasia.

Another thing I must make clear is that I'm well aware that there are very many people who live full and happy lives, despite sickness and/or disability. I am absolutely not an ableist who believes that only the able bodied have a reason to live, and everybody else is somehow less worthy of life and happiness. I am absolutely not saying that - for example - being unable to walk is always a reason to commit suicide.

Nothing could be more personal than weighing up the pros and cons of our own unique situation, and arriving at a decision of whether it is better to be dead or alive. I can't make that decision for anybody, but we should definitely consider that it is very difficult to face a life which promises nothing other than pain and suffering, and regret, sadness and resentment, that we are no longer able to enjoy the things which we used to, in the past.

Everything Else

There are an infinite number of reasons why we might kill ourselves, which might include things such as martyrdom, infamy, to hurt people and other motivations. Suicide can be weaponised, and it often is, especially by marginalised, oppressed and otherwise powerless people.

A completely exhaustive exploration of all the reasons why we might commit suicide is beyond the scope of this essay, although I feel as though I have made a decent attempt.

* * *

As always, I must remind readers that my personal stance is that suicide is understandable but absolutely undesirable in all but the compassionate circumstances, where it is intended to give relief to a person whose life is unbearable; unliveable; intolerable.

We must distinguish the temporary - the acute - from the permanent; the chronic. We must avoid permanent solutions to temporary problems, although I am aware that agony can feel eternal when we are in the grips of it. I am very sorry that people are suffering and I wish they weren't.

This essay is intended as something thought-provoking, and as an open and honest discussion-starter, so that people who feel that they can't talk about their anguish and pain - that suicide is the only option available to them - might feel as though it's OK to talk about the things which are bothering them.

If you choose suicide, I won't judge you or tell you that you're wrong, but I hope that you think about everything, and choose to live in the end... although of course you might decide - based on your personal pros and cons - that life will never be tolerable and pleasant ever again, which is very sad but I understand that people need relief from their torment.

I do not encourage, endorse or recommend suicide.

Tags: #suicide