When Suicide Becomes Justified

[Kintsugi]

I just want to know, and I am really being sincere, so please hear this in an earnest and compassionate voice: are you hearing people when they say your headspace and reactions to others are keeping you a recluse, not your scar? I honest to God can't tell if you're reading this or not.

I understand that you're wrapped up in your scar, in the piece of your identity that was profoundly and suddenly disfigured, and I hear that. But are you hearing the urges to focus on your mental health, the observations that only you and your mentality is truly keeping you away from everything you used to enjoy?

And I don't think suicide is ever justified. Yes, I struggle with suicidal ideation. I have immeasurable grief not over what I've lost but things I never ever got to have to begin with, the things that traumatized me and gave me PTSD. And yes, PTSD is incurable and chronic, and sometimes I catastrophize over this and imagine ending it for myself. But I've also lost two people to suicide within the last year. I was very close to one, the first one, and I will tell you that there is nothing that makes you cherish every single moment of sunlight, cold, warmth, the taste of water, the feeling of exhaustion, even the moments of desperation and suffering, like knowing someone you loved decided it was never going to get easier when you know for a damn fact it always does, nevermind the extreme and life-altering anguish they left in their wake. Better, worse, up, down--such is the beautiful, brutal, finite nature of life.

 

[Justmehere]

Have you told your therapist and/or your family of your intent to die?

 

[Chava]

I just want to know, and I am really being sincere, so please hear this in an earnest and compassionate voice: are you hearing people when they say your headspace and reactions to others are keeping you a recluse, not your scar? I honest to God can't tell if you're reading this or not.

Wondering too, and sort of what I was trying to get at. Isolation breeds more depression and more isolation. You are hyper-focused on the scar and seeming to neglect what seems like obvious PTSD and depression, both of which can be treated and you could at some point leave your house. If you are just willing to seek some help and set the scar issue mentally aside, even if only to do that much...consider trauma therapy.

In my family there is horrible acne scarring and even missing body parts, like breasts and limbs. Initial severe depression over the lost parts? Yes. Just cause for suicide? No. You keep saying you are beyond hope, and yet you posted on a PTSD forum. What are you wanting from us? A lot of people have suggested therapy. Why the resistance to that thought or treating the PTSD? I do suspect your trauma and depression over all of this is feeding badly into your view of yourself and your life, and you are only allowing yourself hopeless messages. And without getting out to seek support or connect with people your own negative messages seem to be the only ones feeding you right now. I hope you go back and re-read some of the responses here and consider some other messages and if they might be valid, or which part of you is shutting them out. The "it's hopeless" feeling can get really stuck. That's called depression, it's treatable, and it often goes hand-in-hand with trauma and loss and major changes.

It does not sound clear-cut that people are rejecting you because of your appearance but that you have become afraid of yourself and afraid to go out. You are letting this trap you if you aren't willing to seek more serious help. You do have that power.

 

[Scarface]

I understand that you're wrapped up in your scar, in the piece of your identity that was profoundly and suddenly disfigured, and I hear that. But are you hearing the urges to focus on your mental health, the observations that only you and your mentality is truly keeping you away from everything you used to enjoy?.

Yes, I understand this. But what you don't seem to understand is that facial scarring causes significant mental distress. I get it, it's a total mind f@ck in my head. And I am not strong enough to walk around with this on my face. I admit it. I'm just not. Nor do I want to be. Would you force an obese person to wear a bikini in public? That would be just plain cruel.

Take a look at the website realself when you have a chance. See how many people out there are significantly distressed over their facial scars. I've talked to others who have lost careers and never leave the house because of this. It's a horrible thing to go through. And some people are severely distressed over scars much more minor than mine!

This explains why insurance settlements are so high for facial scarring. The only things that pays more are loss of limbs, paralysis, and loss of life.

I get that I need to treat my trauma. I really do. But the cause of my trauma is my scarring, and without some relief with it, I will never lead a good quality of life.

 

[Neverthesame]

People in white collar prisons have better quality of life than I do.

That's not quite accurate. Those people don't have a choice but to be there. If they have a way of enjoying themselves within the bounds of their incarceration. It is best described as "making the best of it". Not to mention the fact that you have committed no crime. Why aren't you allowed parole?

if my co-worker were to ask me about my scar like that I would punch her in the face!

Then punch them in the face. I obviously am not suggesting you commit assault. But who said you had to be polite to anyone's wandering fascination?

You are a person, not a museum exhibit. If you don't want people to point and stare. Don't stand for it.

I don't for one second believe that you are some weak waif of a woman. This site can be extremely intimidating, especially when someone is arguing an unpopular idea. But here you are arguing a good case for yourself. If I really believed it was in your best interest to hop a flight to Europe for a legal suicide, I just say so. But you have a strength in you that's hard to miss from my side of the discussion. I know the others here can see it as well.

I chose to be polite in that specific situation because I know that woman, that she doesn't mean offense. Were it a different person, one that was just being an asshole. I would have told them to "f*ck off".

Or sneezed, then pretended it was contagious. Whatever I felt I had to do to keep my dignity. Without compromising my life.

I once read about a young rugby player who got in accident and became a quadriplegic.

I am familiar with this case, I don't disagree either. This poor fellow was in a great deal of pain. His spinal cord was partially severed, he had lost the use of his body, but was plagued by persistent physical pain.

The tragic thing is, in the last year or so. A method of repairing that sort of spinal injury (while still very much experimental) is showing great promise of being a viable treatment option for such an injury. Maybe he's still better off, but maybe it was premature.

How can someone judge him

I don't. Nor do I judge his family.

I am just saddened by the whole thing.

 

[Scarface]

Have you told your therapist and/or your family of your intent to die?

No. I'm not stupid. They would commit me into a hopital and try to stop me if I told them this. But they don't understand my suffering. This is my own private plan.

 

[Kintsugi]

I'm not going to harp about all the things I want to, because none of it seems to be relevant to you. It just rolls right off.

What I will say is that it seems you keep reiterating how people don't understand. I don't understand. I don't know exactly what it's like to suffer the way you've suffered. I don't know what it's like to have an obvious and disfiguring scar. But you don't know what it's like to have suffered my ills, either. We both, however, understand what it's like to feel depressed, to feel suicidal, to isolate, to fear interacting with others, to feel alone and misunderstood, to be told to get over it, to be faced with the question of, "why are you like that?"

Those things are PTSD. If you continue to cultivate your tunnel vision of focusing solely on your scar, not what trauma did to your whole being, I'm not sure why you chose to seek out and participate in a PTSD forum.

I've considered that maybe that perspective is too painful. Maybe if it's just your face you have to fix, all the pieces will come back together again, just like I often seem to fall into a pattern of "If only I can adopt a new family, I'll be whole."

If that's the case, my heart goes out to you. The enormity of trauma is foreboding and consuming. And I do get that.

 

[Fadeaway]

The trauma is what caused the scar, not the scar itself.

 

[joeylittle]

I get that I need to treat my trauma. I really do.

Great. How are you going to start?

What help do you need?

 

[Chava]

I've talked to others who have lost careers and never leave the house because of this.

It's great you've found some people who relate more specifically to your kind of injury. But as I read this kind of statement it also strikes me that maybe you're also talking to the wrong people, or only looking for affirmations of your hopelessness. It reminds me of going to AA meetings in my teens and one particular meeting was just a bunch of people bitching about how terrible their lives were. I wondered why I would get sober to be like them? I felt very hopeless. I couldn't drink (ended up in ER frequently) and I couldn't live sober...just couldn't imagine it. So I started allowing myself to starve to death. Ended up hospitalized. Well I'm still here and that's all behind me. I choose to hang out with people who can inspire or help me. I still spend a lot of time alone. But I know I don't have time for anyone to affirm my own helpless states. As for AA, I've found better meetings where we can share our honest struggles, but also how we are surviving. We give hope to each other. If you are only looking up stories of wrecked lives, you are only trapping yourself.

In every direction, you seem to be wanting affirmation for saying it's hopeless. It just isn't and I think that's roughly what people are saying here. Happiest man I ever knew only had one arm, his weak one. Was he angry for a few years about it? f*ck yeah. If you could find a qualified therapist you could allow yourself all of your feelings about this vs trying to manage alone or feel like nobody in your life can understand (that is a truly isolating feeling). Maybe another day you'll still feel it's not worth it, but you are projecting your current hopelessness out into your future and that's not accurate really because you only have right now, and you will create your future based on how you respond to your present.

I will never lead a good quality of life.

This is a pretty harsh and hopeless statement. "Never" is rarely a helpful word. Maybe it's hard to imagine or envision your future right now. So I'd actually suggest stop thinking about it. "Forever", "never", "always", statements about the future and your whole life...totally overwhelming. You are damning yourself prematurely. What can you do to survive today. Where can you go to get support for the trauma and depression? Are you afraid to consider you do have some power there? Does it counter a defeated idea of yourself that feels like absolute reality? Maybe just think about today, or tomorrow, and what you can do. At least looking for a good therapist to process some of all of these isolating feelings might provide some relief.

 

[Justmehere]

Based on a lot of threads on the forum, a lot of people can relate to a lot of the struggles you are dealing with. Unending fear, anxiety, identity destroying trauma, and deep grief are subjects people post about a lot around here. I think people are also doing the best they can to really hear you out and support you in the ways you can. I think people relate and understand a lot more than it seems like right now...

I think almost everyone on this thread (myself most of all) and you have been communicating past each other a bit. Everyone seems to have very good intentions. People here pick up on how much fear and anxiety you are enduring, and try to respond to that, because that's what a lot of people here deal with. You respond by spending more effort to convince us how bad and awful the scar is. We acknowledge that, write about it some, and try to help with the fear, which comes across so very strongly, and you respond with more effort to tell us how bad the scar is, and we all seem to respond even more about the fear and emotional pain you are in. (And around and around we go...)

On top of that, it seems to be really clear that you do not feel understood or heard by anyone in your life offline. Your therapist, your doctors, your family, your friends, your old boyfriend, and maybe even people here. (Correct me if I am wrong, and you do actually think we totally understand what you are enduring.)

Seven months of this since the trauma that cause the scar to happen, seven months of never feeling understood or heard. Now you have escalated to a plan for suicide when you vent or talk about how much pain you are in. It is so bad that you plan to end your life if it is still there in a few years from now. That's really a horrible amount of pain to be in, and it has got to be awful to be so alone and to endure feeling so misunderstood by everyone about it.

You have found some people who have endured the exact same thing of a facial disfigurement, who are engaged in and enduring the same isolation, and maybe you feel heard by them? Are they the only people you believe understand or hear you out? Did they agree with your plan of killing yourself? I am guessing they did not, and yet you did feel like they could understand the pain you are in. I get the really strong impression you really want to feel like we understand too.

What helps you feel understood? Are there any moments or things people do that help you know you are heard? Where you do feel like anyone understands your struggle? I don't mean agreement with the choice to end your life, but knowing that other people really understand what you are going through right now, today?

 

[Scarface]

I guess one thing I feel as though no one understands is that I'm suffering from a form of body dysmorphia (so I've been told), which is extremely debilitating and hard to treat. However, what I'm going through is even worse than BDD, because my detect is real and obvious and people will comment on it, unlike the typical BDD case. Add to that the PTSD, depression, and anxiety and there is a serious recipe for disaster. Plus I loved my face and body before this horrible accident, so it makes it an even bigger loss.