EternalPain
To live means to suffer
- Sep 11, 2023
- 23
"The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing.
The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."
-David Foster Wallace (R.I.P.)
I just really feel like this is a good explanation. I am so scared of the pain that comes with having to kill yourself. I am terrified of having to make that choice. But in comparison, I'm just way more scared of life. And how miserable I'll be if I don't CTB. I just wanted to share this. Thought it might help someone else who feels like this, to have their feelings put into words. Knowing that people out there might understand.
The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."
-David Foster Wallace (R.I.P.)
I just really feel like this is a good explanation. I am so scared of the pain that comes with having to kill yourself. I am terrified of having to make that choice. But in comparison, I'm just way more scared of life. And how miserable I'll be if I don't CTB. I just wanted to share this. Thought it might help someone else who feels like this, to have their feelings put into words. Knowing that people out there might understand.
