As someone who is clinically diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, I often hear people call suicide a choice. Let me be clear: when you are suicidal, it does not feel like a choice. I once heard someone compare the feeling to standing in a window of a burning building, and someone on the ground who cannot feel the fire says, “Don’t jump! You have so much to live for!” When someone who is depressed chooses suicide, it is not really a “choice.” It is effectively a surrender. You are finally surrendering the fight. You have to have been in immense, lasting pain for a prolonged period of time, to the point that your own brain literally cannot think of a single good reason why you should be alive.
The human will to live is INCREDIBLY powerful. When you are on the edge, your survival instinct will keep pushing you forward for months, years, sometimes even decades, it is so hard to finally give up. When I was at the bottom, thinking about suicide often felt like a comfort. “No matter how bad things get, I can always kill myself.” Even then, I clawed my way back. People need to understand: suicide isn’t a choice. It’s the terrible loss of an incredibly difficult war against your own brain.
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