Mental Health

And let this fucked up world have another win? Fuck that. You're stronger than that. If for no other reason, keep going out of spite in the face of everything you stand against. You can only be a middle finger to life's bullshit if you live.

Depression has a way of creating tunnel vision, friend. This post is a great example. I don't say that to attack you. I say that hopefully to give you a minute to perhaps consider this.

Like you know Romeo and Juliet how she kills herself when she thought he was dead and he wasn't and then he... You get what Im saying? Your feelings are like Shakespeare old. Not trying to invalidate, trying to e-hug ya.

Sounds like you're running with a dumb crowd tbh. WTF is "careerist" is that like where you try to make life comfortable for yourself? You monster!!! Im kidding.

You said your trans. Are you on any medication with regard to that?

I know $1000 debt feels like a lot. You can overcome that. easily. It might feel like you need to find $1000 in 30 days or else!!! But you can breathe and figure out a plan. It's ok.

Please don't let the assholes who make you feel like shit manage to outlive you. You're the kind of person I want living a long, happy life. Is there a short term goal you can sieze upon to just hold on a bit longer?

There's an election coming up. Your vote matters more than it ever has before. Is there anyone you justifiably despise? Plan to dance on their grave. Don't give into despair. Maybe get fucking mad about something, grab hold, and fight like hell.

If you are going to end your life, maybe consider taking a big life change and see what happens. Unsure what as like you said, you have limited funds, but I encourage you to explore even ridiculous options as what do you have to loose if you are considering loosing everything anyways? Like maybe there is a place on the other side of the planet that needs volunteers and will provide room and board.

"Thing will get worse. Then better. Then worse. Then better again.

This is life; and I'll not lie to you and say that every day will be filled with sunshine.

But there will be sunshine, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth.

I promise you, you will be warm again."

I know this might not help, but I'm a survivor of a suicide attempt and now know that there is hope and there is help. It just took facing my lowest point to discover it. (I've also been a part of the LGBTQ+ community since back when we had to refer to each other as "Family" or "Friend of Dorothy" so I really hope this helps you.)

Please reach out to local LGBTQ+ groups for advice and assistance. If you're in the USA, apply for Medicaid and get into counseling asap (they'll backpay from the date the application is submitted), apply for food stamps and section 8 housing. There's shelters specifically for Trans persons, because many shelters will shun those that don't follow bio gender. Food banks are amazing and they also have resources. Shoot your story to Point of Pride; which helps save and improve lives in the trans community.

https://www.instagram.com/pointofprideorg?igsh=MTk2aDJ6cTAwZDBmdA==

Well according to https://youtu.be/d6iQrh2TK98?t=723 you should make decisions after you've experience 37% of possibilities, and assuming you're in the US, the avg. lifespan is gonna be ~75 years -> 37% of 75 is 27 and 3/4. So mathematically speaking you should wait 5-6 more years just to make sure you didn't miss something.

I... don't know if this is any help at fucking all. But I tried to commit suicide at 23. Felt much the same, about having nothing; thousands in debt, shite housing situation, no car, no income, no degree, felt like I had no future, the works.

I regret it. The suicide attempt. Not because I lived, but because my own perspective restricted me from seeing how my material conditions could be overcome. Mental and social conditions are still pretty fucked. Not by "HURR HURR PULL YOURSELF UP BY YOUR BOOTSTRAPS", but by simply... abandoning the norms I had internalized from youth. Spoke to government services for assistance. Didn't pay my debts on time, but when I could. Accepted that I wasn't gonna be able to 100% it on my own.

I don't know if it's viable for you. But... the mindset I emerged with from my suicide attempt was "Fuck it, suicide is the method of last resort. I might as well try literally everything else first." It's... helped. And I don't think the lasting injuries, PTSD, and intensified anxiety from the suicide attempt were a necessary ingredient in the revelation.

I was literally in your position mentally and practically situationally just a brief bit of time ago. The situation isn't fixed yet but my mental state has rebounded to a much better equilibrium.

So I say to you, having just been through the darkest period of my life, you can make it through. I didn't think I could this time. It really fucking felt like I couldn't.

But I just kept saying to myself give it another day and see what happens. The days still sucked for a good stretch still but then things got brighter and brighter.

Is everything now sunshine and rainbows? Not even fucking close. But does it feel like there's still hope? For sure. There is. I just had to stick around long enough to realize there is.

So I get where you're coming from. I do. Shit looks fucked right now. Like there's no upside to anything . No hope. No future. No peace. No happiness.

Yet there almost certainly is to each of those things. It's just impossible to see right now.

Stay around for a little longer. See how things look then.

And as a final thought here's a mantra my best friend likes to live by and I have come to adopt as well.

The only real way out is through.

No chintzy words are going to change how you feel. All that you're going through? It's a struggle. It's very real. I get not wanting to keep going.

The only thing I'll ask of you is, when you're at that end, when you're ready to pull that trigger, just pause. 10 minutes. If you can find someone to talk to, or something to do, even better. Just give it 10 more minutes. Enjoy a last cigarette if you smoke. Hell, maybe try one if you don't. You've lasted 22 years, what's 10 more minutes, right?

If you want to talk, seriously from the bottom of my heart - hit me up. I don't have pretty words for you to swallow. I don't think you need pretty words. I think you need real, human connection, and I can promise that to you.

I would never dream of framing your individual struggle in terms of ideology. All that stuff is secondary to you.

You have the right to do this. I wish you wouldn’t though.

One thing I know is that dopamine makes life bearable, by producing positive emotion and acting as a literal painkiller. Also, that dopamine is released any time the brain perceives you are moving toward a valued goal.

I think that if you’re open to trying one last thing before the finality of that gunshot wound, you might want to try helping others who are in a similar situation as you.

ANY kind of pain or suffering becomes meaningful if you vow that you will use it as input for a process by which you help others. With the hell you’ve been through, you would make a great counselor, social worker, or therapist.

I know in my own mental health journey, I’ve felt alienated and misunderstood by therapists who don’t seem to understand how much pain I’m in, or that such levels of pain even exist.

But then other times, I know I’m working with someone who has, themselves, suffered deeply. Who knows how bad it can get.

That can be you. You can turn all this misery into the backstory of how and why you became a therapist. You can help other people who’ve (a) been surrounded by extremists and had their perspective warped, (b) made drastic changes to themselves that they now regret.

If I’m reading you correctly, you are not happy with how your mtf transition has gone. But you also did not have the option of not doing it. You felt compelled by circumstance to try.

Now compare that experience to someone who feels honor bound to join a gang, for whom life is unbearable unless they make the plunge into a new group full of meaning. Now imagine they cover themselves head to toe in tattoos, altering their appearance forever in full dedication to their new path, and then the gang gets decimated in a war. Their tattoos gain them entrance nowhere, their brothers for whom they gave up their normal body are gone.

Can you imagine how they would feel? Yes you can, because you’ve been through something similar

Now imagine that person needs help. They need a therapist who can truly understand their pain. Imagine a soldier who went to afghanistan, transformed himself into a killer, maybe shot some innocent civilians because for a moment they appeared to be attacking his convoy. He can never go back to being an innocent person. His old life, his old self, is gone. He feels completely trapped in his new reality, and every day he feels a black despair, a hopeless dull pain that makes it impossible to take a deep breath, and his mind races, looking for a way out of his bind, and he knows that there is none because he went down a one-way road.

Imagine him trying to find a therapist who understands that pain. You could be that therapist, because you understand that pain.

Maybe, before you kill yourself, you should consider that your suffering is now something you own, and that you can give others an ear that few people can.

And I promise that if you can find a way to orient yourself toward a goal that matters deeply — far more deeply than “pay off my debts” or “bring on the revolution”, something like “be there for the other people who have suffered like I have” — then it will reduce your suffering and plant the seeds for some real joy.

Fuck doing something you enjoy. Those anti-suicide lines are apparently staffed by incredibly naive people, and for that I’m sorry. You are no longer naive, and that means you have something those idiots on the phone do not. You have the ability to empathize and connect with people whose lives are so deeply fucked that death seems to be the only way out.

The closer you’ve been to the abyss, the more you can help. See what I’m saying?

Fuck doing something you EnJoY. What saccharine horseshit to tell a person in a place as dark as the one you’re in now. Instead, do something meaningful.

It could be lots of things. Whatever matters to you. But just imagine for a second if you met another person with a history similar to your own. Imagine the relief in them when they realize that you can see them in a way nobody else can. Would you like to maybe try doing that? Being the therapist who’s been so deeply fucked they can actually help those who are deeply fucked?

You can do that. And there’s no downside. Maybe you try volunteering as a counselor or coach in a local org, and see where it takes you. And if it doesn’t work, you still have the option to leave.

You might not have anyone close to you to talk to right now, but you did choose to post here and because of that you're not alone. I'll talk to ya for as long as you need to if you want. I don't have any experience with the trans part, but I've been homeless with absolutely nothing before - by all rights I shouldn't even be here, but I am.

Many of us have been in some variation of your situation and most of us make it back to some semblance of a normal life. It's hard to not give in to despair but it doesn't have to be impossible. I'm not going to say you're too young to give in to that despair because I know that shit doesn't help, but things do change when one gets older. The perspective can be refreshing.

I shit my pants and locked my keys in my work truck and blocked the entrance to a gas station on a hot day in L.A once and nobody spoke English. Watery diarrhea running down my leg and I'm sweating while a bunch of men in work trucks yell at me in Spanish. Sun beating down ok me.

Anyway. Life can change fast. And when your at the bottom it can change for the better fast. I locked myself out of my car and pooped my pants cause I felt a great force trying to rush me into a decision. Had I slowed down I might have just shit myself and been able to escape. Take your time here, don't kill yourself. You can do that later. You shit yourselve, don't make it worse by locking yourself out of your life.

People have already said all the important stuff, so I'll just I suggest trying psychedelics before a bullet. Or ketamine, it's been shown to have very good effects on depression as well.

Drugs aren't the answer, but they're also called medicine for a reason.

Classic psychedelic drugs, including lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and mescaline, may help prevent suicide, new research shows.

Investigators at the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that any lifetime use of one of these drugs was associated with lower likelihood of psychological distress, suicidal thinking, suicidal planning, and suicide attempts.

The findings support the view that the restricted status of these drugs should be changed to facilitate research, lead author Peter Hendricks, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Health Behavior, University of Alabama at Birmingham, told Medscape Medical News.

"The risks of these drugs have been vastly overstated," said Dr Hendricks.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/839318?form=fpf

Spend 50 on getting high and 50 for the munchies that come when that dark cloak of depression passes.

If you got nothing to lose...

That's why I keep a bag of 5g of mushrooms in my fridge instead of a gun.

If nothing else will convince you, then may the horrid cases of the suicide not going to plan convince you. Many living in agony because the gun slipped and now they have no jaw, or the drugs weren't enough and they have endless health issues, or the noose broke and now they have brain damage

And these people do not get another chance at it, they live and are monitored

Edit: I see you mentioned an abusive family. Do you really want to risk even the smallest chance of this not going right and then being back in their clutches, being their prop as they milk your resulting disability for every cent?

If you can't live for yourself, and can't live for hope, then live out of sheer fucking spite

Hey Sky. As somebody who has struggled with suicidal ideation for longer than you've been alive, I'm not gonna try to convince you one way or the other. I'm not gonna list off the reasons why you shouldn't do it, or why people will miss you, or how valuable you are, or whatever else. I know it'll just be empty platitudes to you, as it often is for me when I'm in the same state. If your time is truly limited, then I'm not going to waste it with that. Besides, I'm sure you've already ruminated over those things for hours upon end, anyway.

I know that you know that some rando on the internet isn't going to offer you some world-changing perspective on life, so I'm not here to try to change your mind. To go through with this or not will always be your decision, and your decision alone. All I'm going to do is just offer you some things to think about, some questions to ask yourself. You don't need to answer or explain anything to me; if you don't even reply to this at all, that's totally fine. But I hope you at least hear me out. And I don't expect you to have an answer for any of these questions, either. I know I wouldn't have these answers, myself.

First off, you mentioned wanting to implement a dead-man's switch to alert 911 to avoid trauma. Why? If you're going to be dead, why do you care about anybody else's trauma? That's not going to be your problem to deal with - you can't be held accountable for it. Are you worried about anybody in particular finding your body? If so, why concern yourself with whether they're 9/10 traumatized or 10/10 traumatized? Chances are that this person - whose feelings you care about enough to consider in your suicide plans - is going to go through roughly the same amount of trauma in the end, so why not just rip the band-aid off and let them find you?

If there's somebody specific that you're considering in your plans, have you brought up any of this to them? What's stopping you from calling them right now and saying "I'm going to kill myself tonight, here's why, here's what I wanted you to know"? How would that call go? It would probably be more effective at trauma mitigation than hoping a timer works correctly, if anything. If your goal is to minimize the harm done to others, then the best way to do that is to be direct and brace them for it, I'd say.

You also said in the comments that you're on HRT. I know that you were a bit resistive to hearing it when somebody else brought it up, but you really should consider bringing this episode up with your doctor, as any type of hormonal therapy has the potential to exacerbate mental health issues. Your doctor can consider alternative medications, or adjusting your dosage, or supplementing your prescription with something like an antidepressant to address the suicidal ideation. It's important to recognize that what you're feeling right now is not normal or rational; you're talking about killing yourself over a thousand dollars of debt, which really isn't even that much money. This isn't going to be an Enron-level suicide (before your time, look it up). For most people, that would be like killing themselves over missing a single rent payment. I just want to highlight the disproportional escalation in this situation, in case you're not seeing it for what it is at the moment.

What's the worst that could happen with bringing it up to your doctor, anyway? They tell you your brain is broken and you'll never live a normal life without medication? Okay, big whoop. It's not like you'd have been missing out on much else, anyways. Unless you're filthy rich, life sucks whether you're chemically-balanced or not. Besides, how embarrassing would it be if your doctor heard the news of your death and said "bitch would've been just fine if she just asked for some trazodone or something"? For real, it's entirely possible that something so simple can solve so much. So please give consideration to the idea that perhaps the solution to at least some of your problems is one of a chemical nature, not concussive. I'd at least give it a shot before ruling it out.

At any rate, nobody can stop you from doing what you gotta do. I know that whatever happens, you'll have made whatever was the right decision for yourself. I just hope that the right decision is one where you stick around a bit longer. Hope things turn around for you.

Every time I feel like killing myself, I go for a walk…

Walking gets me out of the house and forces me to interact with the world.

Nature is best for me.

People are iffy

Usually

The act of walking and breathing helps

Exercise helps

Blood and oxygen flow

We grow

And then rest

Eat good food

Sleep

You can always kill yourself tomorrow

We all die anyway

Why be in a hurry

Enjoy the journey

Even the hard times

Are often the best memories

Life is very short and you will die soon anyway. Hang around and see what happens and try to not take things so seriously. Find the humor in things even though it's fucked up. Find the beauty in the banal even though it's boring. It gets easier as you mature.

I understand where you are coming from. First, procure some psilocybin mushrooms and take a dose of that. If you don't still feel better after 24 hours, plan a bank robbery. I mean it- If you are going to die anyway, rob the tellers drawers for 5-10k, and then fly to Bangkok and party in a place where you will be embraced.

I'm not going to tell you not to kill yourself, but before you do, might I suggest traveling to a see a different perspective/culture. Even if it causes some debt, so what. Like you said, what are the debt collectors going to do once your gone. Personally I'd go to a tropical paradise. Better yet, Come to Madison wi and we can play pinball. There is a great trans community here and 4 awesome arcades.

YOU MATTER. Big internet hugs to you.

Blowing your brains out usually works, but it's not foolproof. You'd be amazed what a person can survive. As bad as your situation may be I guarantee it'll be worse with half your head missing. Get some help to find the way to living your best life. You can do it.

All the best to you, friend.

I've found that the darkness during the darkest times in my life has been a false darkness, multiplied by my own myopia and depression.

I don't know you or your exact situation beyond what you've said here. But I do know you can overcome. You CAN survive this and one day you will thrive. Survive, then thrive.

All the best to you, friend.

Never make important decisions when you’re depressed. You can’t think clearly in that state and you are only able to see the doom. It’s called tunnel vision and it makes you feel like there’s objectively no hope (which is rarely true). Instead you should take methodical steps to improve your situation. Pretend a friend is in your same situation and think about what you might do for them. Make warm tea. Watch media that’s gentle on you. Feel the warm sun. Focus on making sure you’re fueling your body with something. The money will be fine. 1k is not a lot of money and you can deal with it later if you can’t deal with it now. Credit scores can be repaired.

Are you a fortune teller? A far seer? Tell me right now what the next PowerBall numbers will be!

You can't, because you don't know what will happen in the future. You don't know if things will get better and if you find better people to live around.

So since you can't know for sure, maybe you should keep going to see if it works out. You die eventually anyways, what's the rush?

While I support anyone's right to end their own life at the time of their own choosing, I have a feeling that right now might not be your time.

If you're in NJ or right across the border in East PA, DE, or NYC hit me up and we could see a movie, chill, or just talk.

Suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems, and at 22, you have your whole life ahead of you. You haven't even really STARTED at this point.

For folks telling you to stop being an individualist or a careerist, tell them to get fucked. If they want to start paying your bills THEN they can have an opinion.

Before you do anything rash, I want you to read two true stories. One about a guy named R. Buckminster Fuller and his consideration of suicide, and the other a letter to Hunter S. Thompson asking for advice on choosing a path in life.

I want to be clear here... just because you feel there is no way forward here doesn't mean there is no way forward. It's just that you can't see it from here:

R. Buckminster Fuller:

https://medium.com/@bbirdwell4711/why-buckminster-fuller-is-more-interesting-than-you-thought-f9d213eb0cb7

Fuller realized it was less that life had nothing to offer him and more of a wager that HE had something to offer life.

Hunter S. Thompson:

https://fs.blog/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/

Please note, Thompson was 22 when he wrote that.