/lit/ - Literature

>>16397410
OP, as someone who is in the midst of a suicidal ideation bout, and have thought deeply about these things for a long time, I'm not sure I can give you the exact answer you're looking for, but I'll try. Apologies for the long post.
Firstly, you can't expect people who are not suicidal to truly understand you or give reasons that will make sense to you. I've seen multiple posts here already along the lines of "there are people worse than you", and the thing is, humans are not very well built for statistical thinking. We are prone to cognitive biases whenever statistics are involved. These people are falling for the survivalship bias, mixed with cherry picking. They are choosing to focus on the 1 person with a hellish life that is still somehow making it through (through infinitely many support systems available to them, that might not be available to you), and not on the fact that a much larger number of miserable people in similar situations have either died or killed themselves or live in absolute misery. They must focus on the cases that worked, evne if they are few and far apart. It must be evolutionary.
Which brings us to survival instinct. Survival instinct is something really strong, which has been reported by many people with suicidal ideation and even in suicidal attempts. Your body will simply start doing whatever it takes to keep you alive. This is why many suicidal attempts end up failing, because your body sabotages you at the last second. Furthermore we live in a society where this decision is very taboo, firstly due to religious reasons, but then it seeped into society at large. People don't believe you have a right to do this humanely unless you're old and terminally ill in some specific countries. They believe suicide is worse than genocide (there's a post like this up there). They believe you could nuke and entire country and torture infinite people for the rest of time and suicide would still be a worse crime, no matter how bad your life is. You think this kind of lack of empathy can ever produce good reasons to stay alive? It's more than painfully obvious that these people, in large droves, will be the ones begging for release if they ever got to a point where their pain surpasses their coping mechanisms as well. Don't think I'm just saying this out of my ass, it's well documented. Plus even religious texts (the bible, the suttas) have instances of suicides, and of people begging god to kill them, and etc.
Now, why am I still alive, for instance, despite living with chronic health issues that completely kill my quality of life? Lack of access to reliable methods is huge. It's a great reason not to try, because there's a sizable chance of leaving yourself worse. It's a horrible reason, I agree, but it is a reason. Also religious indoctrination and whatnot, and the fear of an afterlife that would somehow punish this act and make me suffer even further. Post is too long, idk if I should continue.