Why You Should Consider Killing Yourself

An open letter to depressed thinkbois

I tried to kill myself once. I half tried like a hundred times. I probably thought about it a thousand times before that. It was fifteen years ago so I don’t quite remember my mental state at the time, but I definitely was pretty obsessed with suicide for about a year. I was certain I would kill myself before 30. Maybe pursue my music before that. Live the Conor Oberst lifestyle (my idol at the time), cut the chord at 27 and join the greats.

My half attempts were mostly “trying” to drown myself in the bathtub. Which were obviously more of me just holding my breath fecklessly. Or cutting on my wrists to see how deep I could tolerate the pain. One time someone at school noticed them though, so I stopped doing that.

When I finally tried for realsies, I swallowed a whole bottle of Wellbutrin. I sat in the dark in my closet in my room at my father’s house, swallowed the pills, and then waited. I recall within a few minutes thinking about how this was really it. The rare few things I didn’t mind, the cornucopia of things I had utter contempt for, everything I experience, everything I could experience, will all be over soon. Though I was raised Christian, I was functionally an atheist by then. God never crossed my mind.

After a few minutes of pondering my fate, the will to survive came screaming up within me, perhaps for the first time in my life. I became overwhelmed with fear. But it could not overpower my hopelessness. What was I going to do, ask my parents for help? I couldn’t recall ever loving them, or thinking they were anything other than useless idiots.

Most of me accepted my fate. This wasn’t a place for me. This weird alien world of superficiality, status seeking, and emotional suppression was a torture chamber. The part that objected to my removal didn’t know what to do so it just began to cry. I recall that part of me hoping my parents could redeem themselves and actually care about something other than themselves. My father’s spergy lack of presence. My mother’s solipsistic obsession with who she needs me to be for her to feel like she succeeded at life always crowding out any room for who I actually was. Maybe then they could find me and help me. But I knew such hopes were a foolish waste of my last moments.

As the minutes marched forward, so did my fear. And with it the intensity of my cry. It became so loud and intense that I was practically hyperventilating and maybe even yelling. Part of me was mourning my failed start of a life. Another part wishing it didn’t have to end like this. Most of it terrified of the infinite black void rushing to consume me. I don’t want to die; I just can’t bear to be alive. But there was no turning back now.

Eventually, my father heard me and found me. I don’t remember much at this point, even back then, as I think the drugs were starting to impact my cognition. But I do remember him saying “God Damnit, Max”, me vomiting into a trashcan, paramedics coming, going to the hospital, drinking charcoal and then getting admitted to psych hospital for two weeks.

Looking back, I think part of me forgave my father on this day. Ironically, I don’t think my father has ever forgiven me.

The Death Drive

There is a lot more to this story, but it’s not really the point of this post, so I’ll cut it here. The point of bringing it up is: I’ve been thinking about death a lot lately. I try to think about it every day in fact. And death is scary. It’s the definition of scary. It is literally the reason fear exists. And whether we are consciously aware of it or not, our entire lives are driven and molded by its inevitability. Freud is right that we have a death drive, he’s just, it seems to me, wrong about what it’s actually doing (only identifying one of its manifestations and also misunderstands its purpose).

Technically, the “volume” on this death drive is a matter of degree rather than kind, but it generally breaks into two “kinds” of people.

Kind one is the people who can, with minimal effort, suppress their death fear. Everyone who is “normal” and “well adjusted” fit into this camp. Kind two is those who cannot suppress it. They are the various freaks and or losers—creatives, philosophers, adrenaline junkies, internet dwelling NEET vidya coomers, drug addicts, etc.

The first group chooses to cope with their inevitable death by killing off their soul slowly over their life. So that by the time they reach death, there is nothing left to feel afraid.

They are masters of defense mechanisms, self-justification, self-righteousness, and ultimately just experts in the skill of erasing their “true selves”.

As they slowly bury their soul over the course of their life, it does not fight. Or at least not very often and not very hard, preventing any manifestation of “mental illness”.

Why it does not fight can depend. In some, it is just an innate insensitivity or lack of self-awareness. In others, it is due to having their will for individuation killed off very early from some adverse childhood experience. In rich nations it is usually that their family already buried their soul so deeply that the possibility of rejecting them in favor of reclaiming their true self is a no brainer as a non-option.

Group two, as mentioned, cannot suppress this part of themselves. But it is not for a lack of trying.

Everyone in group two loves to judge and make fun of group one for being “zombies” and “sheep”, but the honest truth is, that if you (99% chance you’re in group two if you are reading this) could suppress your consciousness (“true self”, “inner child” or “death awareness”, all synonymous) in the way that they can, you totally would. You just can’t. And since you aren’t better than them by choice, and it’s not morality if it’s not optional, you aren’t actually “better” than them. So you’ll have to find some other mechanism for not feeling like a loser besides being a pretentious dick. Sorry. (Being a pretentious dick about how you shouldn’t be a pretentious dick is working out pretty well for me. Consider this option).

Anyway, most in group two simply resort to various external, “industrial strength” suppression to achieve similar internal results as group one can.

We all know that it is expected of us to bury our soul; to kill off that which is us-as-individual for the betterment of us-as-tribe. And most of us at least subconsciously know that this exists to help not hurt; to cope with our own fear of inevitable death for if we are our tribe instead of ourselves, then as long as our tribe continues after our death no death has truly occurred.

But regardless of what we are supposed to do, when we try to bury it, it kicks and screams and fights every step of the way. Our soul, unlike most it seems, is still alive.

Having the equivalent of a kicking and screaming 3-year-old inside your head that you can never get rid of or turn off makes trying to have a life as a “stable” and “consistent” and “productive” group one-er tends to be rather difficult.

It is made further difficult by the fact that group one makes up most people (probably 80%) and thus the world, especially the modern efficiency-driven industrialized world, is designed around their behaviors and preferences, which the 20% of freaks are generally not particularly good at.

How group two deals with the fact that their death-terrified inner child won’t shut up and die seems to fit into three main strategies (most of us use all three to some degree).

First are the hardcore addicts (Strategy A). They generally have the most childhood trauma as well as the most shame for being “defective”.

At first the drug abuse (or whatever their weapon of choice is) was simply to numb them from all the pain and overwhelm of existence and consciousness and their inevitable death.

But eventually it picked up a second quality, which is that it helps them die sooner. In the same way that when you are transporting a hot pan, you move a whole lot quicker to get it to its destination and end the pain: they find existence like carrying this hot pan around until they die. And so their only options are to numb the pain of burning (drugs et al) and shorten the time that they have to hold it (shorten their life span).

Committed Strategy A-ers find the murder of their true selves unbearable, but also for whatever reason find saying “screw this stupid system of self-murder, I am not going along with it” and trying to recover and reclaim their true selves impossible (probably, like many group ones, due to how deeply buried and heavily mutilated it was by the time they were handed the shovel).

Strategy A functionally achieves group one’s objective of killing off one’s consciousness but it, for whatever reason (probably related to innate sensitivity), rather than requiring a simple bi-monthly shoveling by hand, can only be achieved with daily application of an industrial digger.

Tragically, this group, who often have suffered more than any other, generally end up the worst off. Because the more they try to escape the pain, the worse their life gets, which only further incentivizes their addiction, hopelessness, and desire to speed up the process.

Strategy A is also technically a spectrum of degree that just becomes a difference in kind at a certain point. Most people from most groups numb ourselves with various time wasters such as superficial social praise (likes), cheap novelty (doom scrolling), surrogate achievement (video games), surrogate intimacy (pornography) etc. however, at a certain point (heavy addiction) the death fear becomes so pronounced that it chooses to accelerate itself to just get it over with.

Strategy B is rarer, and I’ve never met one so I can’t say much, but it also aims to kill them sooner while numbing them. These are the adrenaline junkies, who get most if not all their flow from living their lives in active contest with death. Race car drivers, skydivers, warriors, etc. In many ways, they are actually the most alive out of all of us (Strategy C maybe a close second). They live “every moment to its fullest” and challenge their fear of death through some kind of weird exposure therapy. There is probably a lot more that could be explored about this group, but I’m sure they hardly even read books let alone sleuth around the depths of the internet to read obscure blogs, so we can just leave it at the fact that they exist for now and move on.

Lastly is strategy C which is probably the rarest, but I know a lot about it because I have been trying to do it for 10 years. I tried to become a hardcore Strategy A drug addict but it didn’t work (the drugs didn’t make me feel that good, and then made me feel infinitely worse for days after) and Strategy B just was never really viable because I am too much of a sensitive think boi to get the optimal flow from it (I do however love car racing, snowboarding, and did grind me some rails as a teenager which probably helps me stay somewhat in touch with my death fear).

In a way, C users are actually the greatest failures. We are the only ones who couldn’t find a way to perform the selectively advantageous human pastime of trueself-murder.

Because all the options made us feel even worse and suicide is, for whatever reason, off the table, we were forced to confront the void head on and try to become something; to try and reclaim the power process and create meaning out of the postmodern hellscape in which not only all our narrative structures have collapsed but where even the fundamental concept of a coherent yet truthful narrative as a possibility may never be salvaged.

Obviously, even the best of us (of which I am not) fall off the horse occasionally (for me, often). But this is to be expected, given that no one rides into battle by choice, instead only because it is the least painful option. All “courage” is just a fear of something greater.

I am not sure where religion fits into all of this, though it certainly does. Much of its teachings, cultures, and practices exist solely as means of redirecting the death fear toward something positive. Eg do x y z behavior that will increase fitness in your genetic line which increases my (the mind virus aka idea) chances of reproduction in exchange for me assuaging your various fears about death.

I guess religion is strategy D. And is probably the best strategy actually. Or at least it was up until the last century or two. This is a-whole-nother can of worms but suffice to say that if you are reading this you are probably an atheist think boi and the current state of all pre-modernist religions are unfortunately a no go for you (the modernist proto-religions like nationalism, progressivism, communism, national socialism, etc are also no-go’s and are actually worse but if you don’t already know that then I’ll have to make that case another time).

What To Do About It

So what does all this mean?

Well, one: you’re obviously somewhere in group two, and probably oscillate between strategy A—avoidance and self-numbing—and strategy C—trying to uncover who and what you are, and face death and everything that stems from it (fear of social rejection, failure, etc) head on. So that when the void finally comes for you you’ll have already become everything you could be, experienced everything that mattered to you, and created impact in a way that you felt created a complete story. Knowing that like any good movie dragging it on will only detract from its power and beauty.

Two: to understand that sitting on the fence blows and gives you the worst of all worlds. And thus you should either A. just fucking kill yourself B. triple down on the numbing so you never have to feel the pain of your short and horrendous existence, become completely oblivious to how every day you are only making it worse and work diligently to actively shorten it or C. choose the “hero’s journey”, and confront your fears, and become what you’re capable of so you can make your life something you can enjoy and be proud of.

Obviously I think you should choose the latter. But for me it wasn’t exactly a choice. Option C was literally the last thing I wanted to do. The only reason I “chose” it was because everything else felt worse. And once I understood what killing myself really meant, it no longer became an option. Even after working at it for ten years I still get lost. Maybe I even spend most of my time lost. But that’s better than all of it. And now, whenever I fall deep into the well of depression, trapped in the pit of gratifying superficial bullshit impulsive pleasures, I eventually notice what’s happening and walk through the logic chain of: Am I going to kill myself? No. Am I going to burn everything down and go out in a blaze of glory? No. Is being useless trash addicted to dumb technological bullshit satisfactory to me? No. Well then I really only have one option don’t I?

So let me give you a lil pep talk:

You’re going to fucking die bro. a lot sooner than you think. And it’s not going to be awesome and you’re not going to be glad it’s finally here. What’s actually going to happen is that you’re going to be full of terror and regret. But it will be too late. You’ll have already wasted your entire life.

Medidate on your death. every day if you have to. Or get close to it in some way; go skydiving or take ayahuasca or something. Death isn’t something t anyone can describe to you, only something you can experience. Remind yourself why you numb yourself and further why you hate it and know its dumb (you feel just as ashamed about wasting your time on useless bullshit as the rest of us do) and try to confront that shit. Only then will you have any chance of actually pushing through the difficulty to try and become what you could be. Which itself is the only way you’ll have any chance of getting to the finish line satisfied.  

You don’t want to die. you just think you do because you’ve never been close enough to it to really understand what it actually means. You understand death like it’s a movie because you live in a first world country where no one ever dies and rarely ever even comes close and the only suffering we ever really have is existential (meaninglessness, boredom, loneliness, etc).

You probably understand heartbreak so: compare watching heartbreak in a TV show to the soul wrenching black hole tearing you limb from limb from the inside out you felt when the love of your life dumped your ass. And then multiply that 100x. Now—maybe—you might have some idea what dying will feel like.

You don’t want to die. You just find your life unbearable. Well guess what? every day you avoid and numb yourself you only make it worse. If you spent even just a few years voluntarily doing one—literally just one—hard thing you don’t want to do every day—or even most days—your life could become something better than you ever thought possible in much shorter a time than you ever thought possible.

If you don’t want to do that, that’s fine. But then stop being a fence sitting pussy and just go kill yourself—contribute or fuck off. Preferably in a way that takes a while to happen and is recoverable so that when you finally look the void face to face and realize it’s nothing like you thought it would be, and actually fucking sucks, you can call for help and survive and then finally have the motivation you need to go figure out what the hell you’re good for and go make it happen.

Sure, Strategy C isn’t all rainbows and anime porn 24 hours a day 7 days a week. But you don’t have that anyway. And, more importantly, you don’t want that anyway. You don’t want to be comfortable. You want to matter. You want to be a powerful hero who saves the world—which is why you waste so much time consuming media that depicts this—and you probably already even know how you want to do it. You’re just afraid that you’ll fail and that everyone will laugh at and deride you for trying, including yourself.

The truth is that you probably will fail. And they probably will laugh at you. But that’s only because doing things is hard. And laughing at people trying to do hard things makes losers temporarily forget they are losers. And further, if you ever succeeded that means they could succeed too if they only tried. And that makes them feel terrified and ashamed. It’s much more comfortable to believe things are hopeless than to believe that they are possible but just you are just a coward.

But then—because you are hyper aware of the fact that you’re going to fucking die and you literally have nothing to lose—you just keep going anyway and eventually you do succeed. And soon not only will your life be pretty tolerable but you will also start an unstoppable chain reaction in everyone around you to do the same. Because no matter how hard they try to ignore you, you continue to just keep going. And since they are, at least right now, weak cowards with no conviction to shit the yours over powers them easily, bending them like aimless little space dust into your orbit. They can shield their eyes, or shout obscenities, or hide in the dark but that won’t make the sun go away.

And even if one or ten or a thousand people hide in the dark from you for the rest of their lives; there will be one or ten or maybe even a thousand who won’t.

And now not only have you made your life pretty heckin’ cool, but, through the act of doing so, you’ve released a potentially pandemic level virus that infects others to try and make their life cool too.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. All I’m telling you is that I agree with you. You are right. You’ve been right all along. Most everyone else is a big pussy who is just as dumb as you are, only masquerading as if they know something and are heroes. Or, more precisely, they are lying to themselves, putting on a facade, because they are just as scared shitless as you are.

How do I know? because I did it and it worked. I had to figure it out all by myself and it was really hard. But now I figured a lot of shit out and can pass that wisdom onto the next guy. And if you’re one of those next guys, you can make it even easier when you pass it on to the guy after that.

Do you want to be wealthy? Do you want to be happy? Do You want to help people? Do you want to do what is right?  Do you want to matter? Of course you do.

And you will get all of those things. As soon as you tell all the critics—internal and external—to eat shit and die because time is running out and you have a fucking job to do.

The reason you haven’t killed yourself yet is because you’re still holding out hope. Hope for a sign that things can still change. Hope for the possibility that it’s not too late to become what you’re capable of.

Well here is your sign. Get in loser. We have work to do.