4 ms·

It's weird how a series of big things happening in a short period of time changes who you are as a person, and not always for the better. When I failed to stop

It's weird how a series of big things happening in a short period of time changes who you are as a person, and not always for the better. When I failed to stop an acquaintance from killing himself a few years ago [1], it really fucked me up. I barely knew the guy, but I couldn't stop myself from feeling guilty over it, and I still have nightmares about it. It led to a severe funk of depression that I still haven't gotten over, and it's led to poor sleep, poor performance at work, an increased irritability towards pretty much everyone, and I'm not completely convinced that that will ever stop. I've seen therapists, taken various medications for depression and PTSD, trauma dumped onto pretty much anyone who will listen, and I think I'm a worse person now than I was in 2021. I guess the likelihood of an event like this happening approaches 1 as you get older, but it doesn't mean it's not terrible. [1] Written in some detail here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29185822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29185822

danparsonson 2y ago
I was reflecting just yesterday how, as we get older, gradually more and more of those who have been part of our sphere for significant portions of our lives (whether direct acquaintances, or just people who we know because of their public actions) begin to leave us, and how everyone who passes, whoever they are and however well we knew them, leaves a space that can't be filled. I'm truly sorry for all that you've been through and I hope you find comfort. Reading through your other post it seems likely to me that nothing you said or did could have made any difference.
- tombert 2y ago
  > I'm truly sorry for all that you've been through and I hope you find comfort. Reading through your other post it seems likely to me that nothing you said or did could have made any difference. Yeah I know, that's not really why I feel guilty, at least not exactly. I feel guilty because I noticed signs of someone who was suicidal, and explicitly chose to not do anything. Even if nothing would have changed, I still think I should have tried to do something, even if it was futile. It feels like the universe was giving me a character test, and it feels like I failed it. I would like to think that when push comes to shove, I'd do the right thing, at least in regards to someone's life being on the line, but I guess at some fundamental level that's simply not true, or at least it wasn't in 2021. I mean, I realize that no good comes from feeling bad about myself over it, certainly not for three years, but human psychology is pretty annoying sometimes.
  - bamboozled 2y ago
    For what it's worth, don't do this, you also know you need to give people space and in hindsight, because of what happened, you only now think should've done something but I'm sure there were wholesome reasons why you avoided intervening in the first place. Just as easily they didn't make the attempt and you would've thought you made the right call. It's not on you.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    Put it this way: the next time life puts a similar decision before you, would you still "fail"? If you believe in life teaching you lessons, one way to frame it is to look past how you feel and look at the actions/decisions concerning other people you've made since then. Are they the same decisions/actions you would have made before? Or did that one particular interaction manage to change your behavior?
    - tombert 2y ago
      I have tried to be a bit more sensitive and observant about this kind of stuff now.
  - Trasmatta 2y ago
    Guilt and shame are two of the most complex and difficult to grapple with human emotions. You definitely didn't do anything wrong, but some people's brains will latch onto guilt like a vice regardless. And it can happen regardless of the rational part of the brain knowing that you didn't do anything wrong. I have the same type of problem. The one thing that's finally helped a little bit is allowing myself to feel the guilt (and all the emotions surrounding it) fully. Normally I try to push it down (because I don't actually have anything to feel guilty for), but suppressed emotions continue to live forever, and they will surface in your body and mind in many ways. Allowing myself to feel it gives me room to process the emotion finally. Easier said than done, of course. You can't just turn the emotions on and off like a light switch, especially because the brain forms protective mechanisms to prevent you from feeling it. I've had some luck with IFS and somatic therapies.
  - beachtaxidriver 2y ago
- fallous 2y ago
  Yes, one of the things that often gets overlooked about aging is that if you live long enough everyone you knew, and knew you, from certain eras of your life are gone... and that tends to make your life more ephemeral. Even the settings of your life are slowly removed, be it the house you grew up in, schools you attended, parks and other areas you played in with friends, businesses, styles, products, and technologies. One day you may find yourself looking around and finding nothing and no one that anchors you to the present. This inevitability is something you should stave off as long as possible. Meet new people, add new experiences, learn new things while avoiding the siren call of nostalgia and the comfort of limiting yourself to the familiar.
  - miningape 2y ago
    As a youngest child by about 15 years it kinda hurts knowing that likely I'll be the one attending everyone else's funerals.
    - nuancebydefault 2y ago
      It is likely, but life has very strange ways.
  - askonomm 2y ago
    Oh no. Am 32 and I really like the comfort of familiar. I've lived a hell of a life in my 20s, spanning multiple countries and continents, and now feel like I've lived many lifetimes worth of life, and am really loving the peace and quiet I now have.
raddan 2y ago
I’m sorry to hear that. And you’re right, the likelihood approaches 1 as we get older. And that’s if we’re lucky! Don’t be too hard on yourself. Those who have experienced loss understand that sometimes we have to step back from things, life, our careers. It’s ok to do it. It’s your life, and the one of the greatest joys of life is: you get to choose how to live it. I hope you bounce back. But take your time.
schneems 2y ago
I’m sorry you went though that. I had a friend die by suicide. Shortly after I met him for the first time IRL. It messed me up. I’m sure you’ve heard it before but for the gallery, there’s the “in the moment” suicides where the thought comes and people act on it. If anyone feels that way, please call a hotline, it really is just a temporary feeling that will pass. Then there’s the “sick for a long time.” My therapist described this group as having an unhealthy brain. They’re taking in inputs like normal, but producing harmful urges. That sickness isn’t a thing others can counter or take on for themselves. There’s professional help if you (the reader) are feeling like this constantly. But like all sicknesses sometimes even the best treatments aren’t enough. (Therefore we should not blame ourselves for what we could have done differently). Knowing that still doesn’t make it better, but it makes it lighter. For me, anyway.
- metanonsense 2y ago
  In my opinion, there’s also a third (and certainly controversial) option: suicide is the ultimate expression of freedom, self actualization, and human dignity. I don’t plan to kill myself in the foreseeable future, but the thought that I could gives me hope, power, and removes any fear from my life. A friend of mine is 94 and lives in constant, non-treatable pain, and the thought that she can end her life when she decides to do so makes things bearable for her. I know that this ultimate freedom is also ultimate selfishness, because the loss is felt by your close ones, not you. But this makes me perhaps an asshole, but not sick.
  - criddell 2y ago
    What you describe is how I've always thought about the phrase memento mori.
- genewitch 2y ago
  988 in the us in telephones
- BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
  The idea that something is fundamentally wrong with your brain when you do it is very naïve. Despair exists and the problems aren't always "just in your head".
0_____0 2y ago
Over the past decade I've come to the conclusion that there is no healing from some things. There will remain a pit in one's soul where something was torn out of it, and the only thing to do is build past it. Reroute around the damage. I was someone's last phone call. I lost her when I was 16.
fendy3002 2y ago
it's unfortunate, and it's so bad a feeling like that eroding someone just because they're kind or emphatetic. which is why I feel like I'm slowly becoming assholes because it's hard to have that kind of emphatetic feeling while still being sane in nowadays world. It's kinda sad that to have a healthy mental someone need to be less emphatetic.
- raziel2p 2y ago
  I resonate with what you say, but try to think of it differently: if you are able to take better care of yourself, even if that feels like in an egotistical fashion, you will have more energy for empathy. smaller slice of a bigger pie. don't know if that's actually true, of course.
guynamedloren 2y ago
Fuck. Reading the original post on Something Awful, then your experience in 2021 in the days leading up, and then this all these years later... it's just harrowing. I'm so sorry.
ErigmolCt 2y ago
But the fact that you're still here, still processing, still reaching out, means something. You're not a worse person. You're a person who went through something deeply painful, and that pain doesn't define your entire story.
woliveirajr 2y ago
> not always for the better Things happen and you adapt to survive it. And survival mode isn't made to make you happy, to become more generous or to expect more loyalty. And once your worldview changes for a pessimistic one, it'll taint everything around you (especially the new interactions with people) Yes, some people change to be better: and that means (and I say it painfully) that many of them were the ones that caused unnecessary pain in others. Some reference: https://www.hss.edu/conditions_emotional-impact-pain-experience.asp https://www.hss.edu/conditions_emotional-impact-pain-experie... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341577702_Lacan_on_Trauma_and_Causality_A_Psychoanalytic_Critique_of_Post-Traumatic_StressGrowth https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341577702_Lacan_on_... https://europepmc.org/article/med/33126037 https://europepmc.org/article/med/33126037

danparsonson 2y ago

I was reflecting just yesterday how, as we get older, gradually more and more of those who have been part of our sphere for significant portions of our lives (whether direct acquaintances, or just people who we know because of their public actions) begin to leave us, and how everyone who passes, whoever they are and however well we knew them, leaves a space that can't be filled. I'm truly sorry for all that you've been through and I hope you find comfort. Reading through your other post it seems likely to me that nothing you said or did could have made any difference.

tombert 2y ago
> I'm truly sorry for all that you've been through and I hope you find comfort. Reading through your other post it seems likely to me that nothing you said or did could have made any difference. Yeah I know, that's not really why I feel guilty, at least not exactly. I feel guilty because I noticed signs of someone who was suicidal, and explicitly chose to not do anything. Even if nothing would have changed, I still think I should have tried to do something, even if it was futile. It feels like the universe was giving me a character test, and it feels like I failed it. I would like to think that when push comes to shove, I'd do the right thing, at least in regards to someone's life being on the line, but I guess at some fundamental level that's simply not true, or at least it wasn't in 2021. I mean, I realize that no good comes from feeling bad about myself over it, certainly not for three years, but human psychology is pretty annoying sometimes.
- bamboozled 2y ago
  For what it's worth, don't do this, you also know you need to give people space and in hindsight, because of what happened, you only now think should've done something but I'm sure there were wholesome reasons why you avoided intervening in the first place. Just as easily they didn't make the attempt and you would've thought you made the right call. It's not on you.
- fragmede 2y ago
  Put it this way: the next time life puts a similar decision before you, would you still "fail"? If you believe in life teaching you lessons, one way to frame it is to look past how you feel and look at the actions/decisions concerning other people you've made since then. Are they the same decisions/actions you would have made before? Or did that one particular interaction manage to change your behavior?
  - tombert 2y ago
    I have tried to be a bit more sensitive and observant about this kind of stuff now.
- Trasmatta 2y ago
  Guilt and shame are two of the most complex and difficult to grapple with human emotions. You definitely didn't do anything wrong, but some people's brains will latch onto guilt like a vice regardless. And it can happen regardless of the rational part of the brain knowing that you didn't do anything wrong. I have the same type of problem. The one thing that's finally helped a little bit is allowing myself to feel the guilt (and all the emotions surrounding it) fully. Normally I try to push it down (because I don't actually have anything to feel guilty for), but suppressed emotions continue to live forever, and they will surface in your body and mind in many ways. Allowing myself to feel it gives me room to process the emotion finally. Easier said than done, of course. You can't just turn the emotions on and off like a light switch, especially because the brain forms protective mechanisms to prevent you from feeling it. I've had some luck with IFS and somatic therapies.
- beachtaxidriver 2y ago
fallous 2y ago
Yes, one of the things that often gets overlooked about aging is that if you live long enough everyone you knew, and knew you, from certain eras of your life are gone... and that tends to make your life more ephemeral. Even the settings of your life are slowly removed, be it the house you grew up in, schools you attended, parks and other areas you played in with friends, businesses, styles, products, and technologies. One day you may find yourself looking around and finding nothing and no one that anchors you to the present. This inevitability is something you should stave off as long as possible. Meet new people, add new experiences, learn new things while avoiding the siren call of nostalgia and the comfort of limiting yourself to the familiar.
- miningape 2y ago
  As a youngest child by about 15 years it kinda hurts knowing that likely I'll be the one attending everyone else's funerals.
  - nuancebydefault 2y ago
    It is likely, but life has very strange ways.
- askonomm 2y ago
  Oh no. Am 32 and I really like the comfort of familiar. I've lived a hell of a life in my 20s, spanning multiple countries and continents, and now feel like I've lived many lifetimes worth of life, and am really loving the peace and quiet I now have.

raddan 2y ago

I’m sorry to hear that. And you’re right, the likelihood approaches 1 as we get older. And that’s if we’re lucky! Don’t be too hard on yourself. Those who have experienced loss understand that sometimes we have to step back from things, life, our careers. It’s ok to do it. It’s your life, and the one of the greatest joys of life is: you get to choose how to live it. I hope you bounce back. But take your time.

schneems 2y ago

I’m sorry you went though that. I had a friend die by suicide. Shortly after I met him for the first time IRL. It messed me up. I’m sure you’ve heard it before but for the gallery, there’s the “in the moment” suicides where the thought comes and people act on it. If anyone feels that way, please call a hotline, it really is just a temporary feeling that will pass. Then there’s the “sick for a long time.” My therapist described this group as having an unhealthy brain. They’re taking in inputs like normal, but producing harmful urges. That sickness isn’t a thing others can counter or take on for themselves. There’s professional help if you (the reader) are feeling like this constantly. But like all sicknesses sometimes even the best treatments aren’t enough. (Therefore we should not blame ourselves for what we could have done differently). Knowing that still doesn’t make it better, but it makes it lighter. For me, anyway.

metanonsense 2y ago
In my opinion, there’s also a third (and certainly controversial) option: suicide is the ultimate expression of freedom, self actualization, and human dignity. I don’t plan to kill myself in the foreseeable future, but the thought that I could gives me hope, power, and removes any fear from my life. A friend of mine is 94 and lives in constant, non-treatable pain, and the thought that she can end her life when she decides to do so makes things bearable for her. I know that this ultimate freedom is also ultimate selfishness, because the loss is felt by your close ones, not you. But this makes me perhaps an asshole, but not sick.
- criddell 2y ago
  What you describe is how I've always thought about the phrase memento mori.
genewitch 2y ago
988 in the us in telephones
BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
The idea that something is fundamentally wrong with your brain when you do it is very naïve. Despair exists and the problems aren't always "just in your head".

0_____0 2y ago

Over the past decade I've come to the conclusion that there is no healing from some things. There will remain a pit in one's soul where something was torn out of it, and the only thing to do is build past it. Reroute around the damage. I was someone's last phone call. I lost her when I was 16.

fendy3002 2y ago

it's unfortunate, and it's so bad a feeling like that eroding someone just because they're kind or emphatetic. which is why I feel like I'm slowly becoming assholes because it's hard to have that kind of emphatetic feeling while still being sane in nowadays world. It's kinda sad that to have a healthy mental someone need to be less emphatetic.

raziel2p 2y ago
I resonate with what you say, but try to think of it differently: if you are able to take better care of yourself, even if that feels like in an egotistical fashion, you will have more energy for empathy. smaller slice of a bigger pie. don't know if that's actually true, of course.

guynamedloren 2y ago

Fuck. Reading the original post on Something Awful, then your experience in 2021 in the days leading up, and then this all these years later... it's just harrowing. I'm so sorry.

ErigmolCt 2y ago

But the fact that you're still here, still processing, still reaching out, means something. You're not a worse person. You're a person who went through something deeply painful, and that pain doesn't define your entire story.

woliveirajr 2y ago

> not always for the better Things happen and you adapt to survive it. And survival mode isn't made to make you happy, to become more generous or to expect more loyalty. And once your worldview changes for a pessimistic one, it'll taint everything around you (especially the new interactions with people) Yes, some people change to be better: and that means (and I say it painfully) that many of them were the ones that caused unnecessary pain in others. Some reference: https://www.hss.edu/conditions_emotional-impact-pain-experience.asp https://www.hss.edu/conditions_emotional-impact-pain-experie... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341577702_Lacan_on_Trauma_and_Causality_A_Psychoanalytic_Critique_of_Post-Traumatic_StressGrowth https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341577702_Lacan_on_... https://europepmc.org/article/med/33126037 https://europepmc.org/article/med/33126037