Suicide Prevention Letters (Reasons to Stay)
Comments
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Wow sorry just seen imagine getting lost in all those colors pattens when i was younger i used to go to nightclubs every weekend when i was a teenager i used to love acid music rave music house music im sure thats because my adhd would pick out every beat my arms would be waving around like i was directing a plane but also love soul and 70s music shame when i think of ir o stopped living along time ago now i just survive
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Hi @Catherine21 Waving around like you were directing a plane?! OMG nice visual LOL! I don't know much about ADHD, and had no idea about how you pick up on beats in music. I used to love dancing too. I'm also so focused on just surviving, rather than living. It's actually my top goal right now, to get past survival mode into living mode. I'm sick and tired of being stuck at level 1.
Have you read a letter yet?
My brother and I were talking about the site yesterday, and he calculated if I continue reading a letter a day, I have over 200 years worth of letters!!
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Yes me too so tiring just trying to do the simple things and the world as it is so hard but have to try best to fight this psychological warfare raining down on us all wow thats alot of letters
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I know, right?? I'm absolutely exhausted and plum out of time just getting through the survival necessities. I'm too busy and too spent just surviving that there's nothing left for living. So my brother and I have been having two-hour weekly sessions since last May working through all the challenges I'm facing - both practical and mental. I've made a lot of progress, but I'm still firmly in Level 1 Survival. Maybe that's all I'm capable of. Maybe that's okay. Maybe the hardest part is accepting that it's okay to live in Level 1. My brother says it's okay and that I'm crushing it. What are your thoughts?
Another whisper I've been thinking about is the light, fluffy sugar fibres of cotton candy on our fingertips that then quickly and magically dissolve on our tongue. Sugar whispers. 😊
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What a supportive brother i think its the pressure we put on ourselfs since fifi passed i cant stay still im pushing myself to my limits i feel get shame of not having a career it really effects me that i cannot do what a majority of society does its about acceptance which i feel with all the media and harsh words said people sat at home on tax payers money ways heavy on us all its incredibly brave to break down everything and i can imagine painful so that is great progress i think thats amazing step i keep saying to myself oneday at a time god theres millions of us who have do update our rent im a phone claim and i have to call im spiralling have shake myself and say stop !! And who says that there is more than a level 1 its the chains we put on ourselfs keep up the good work you are kind considerate thoughful helpful all good tools to pour back into you
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Hi @Catherine21 and thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement. 🙏🏼😘🥰 Yes, it's painful to stare the problems in the face. But I'm hoping an investment of this pain now will lead to less pain in the future and just maybe even having a life outside of Level 1.
Could you clarify please what you mean by the chains?
Definitely society's views of disabled people has an impact on our own view of ourselves - including myself. The common phrase that burns a hole through my heart is "burden on society". Even able-bodied people say it regularly in Canada, like saying they take care of themselves because they don't want to get sick and be a burden on society. Or that if they lose their autonomy through illness they want euthanasia so they won't be a burden on society. It's just common language now. I don't know if they realise how they are plainly saying to disabled people that they are a burden on society. So of course this has an impact on my self-worth since I'm disabled. They also have euthanasia in Spain, so they too use this language.
How do you cope with the derogatory comments about disabled people - other than as you say one day at a time (an excellent approach)? Or maybe you can't cope?
Here's the beautiful letter in whisper language that I read this morning from the Reasons to Stay website...
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I continue reading at least one of these letters a day. They are so beautiful, so quiet.
Do other people hear whispers from individual instruments? I do. Like the sorrowful whispers in the electric guitar in this classic song "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits.
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I think i will use the first one as a wallpaper to and to use in recovering or coping or to help realise why to get help. it could be used like a daily prayer by seeing it on a wall or computer. it might help people notice feelings happening before life gets too much and seek help but intensity of feelings can overwhelm and that leads to bad decisions and a letter might help and comfort but you cant really think, listen or concentrate when you are desperate.
I like the first letter its not too long and its meaningful and reminder why to get help. It needs to help interrupt the negative neurotic thoughts like chain smoking, drinking or using drugs that gets desperation to the next moment. The letter needs to be used in a way to tell you to get help.
Its a nice ideax
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Hello @Amazonianup
That's such a great idea to use a letter as computer wallpaper or hung on a wall, like a prayer, a reminder to reach out in crisis. Definitely.
My experience too is that my thinking and feeling in the extreme end are overwhelming. It's another dimension. I'll call it the Spin Cycle Dimension. It's so frikkin fast or so impossibly slow that I'm stuck in zero gravity. Either way, I can't get a grip and the only way out is out of this world. When I'm not there, I fear going there. Because I've been there many times, I know what to expect. So in a way it's a blessing to have been there so often. So when I'm not there I'm in training for being there. Reading these letters now is a new training tool. Like you say, they remind me to reach out - of the presence of kind people. I have many, many tools, because I know when my next exam comes up - and it likely will, given my history - if I'm not prepared, I just may fail the exam and not make it back to this dimension. Is that something you relate to in some way?
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Sort of. I have become recently a bit more self aware as i had genuine regret and grounded in purpose like the first letter says after my recent attempt. when 'not getting a grip' and 'push you to this dimension'. I would say its more like a blackhole you even attempt and fail or your just lucky and it spits you out and you make it otherwise.
For my experience it is like me not being able to see it happening it can happen slowly with it being the problem is there to see like a water leak in a pipe and the place is flooding but i cant see it happening (thats why a letter isnt perfect solution) your juggling mental health and life to cope but it cant hurt to throw a lift raft to swim to and get help.
but it can also happen as an intense moment of sadness that i can see because straight away feel it (guilt) and i usually have to self-medicate but this is not a direct action to needing prevention but i might hurt myself. I think awareness can give more control even if it isnt a catch all solution like normal coping like playing music loud, self-harm, alcohol etc a letter might prompt you to go to dr or rearrange meds.
This is why the letters need to say 'get help' explicitly for these reasons of who you really are because mental health can play tricks on you and youre not that person in the letter anymore in that moment because you cant see and you want and need to be that person you are or want to be. Be safe i hope it works for you too x
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Wow you're so expressive. So beautifully open.
A black hole. Yeah. Whether it's impossibly fast or a black hole or zero gravity, I think we're saying the same that it's a sense of complete disconnect from reality and from who we are normally. So alone. So foreign. So helpless. And that's why like you say it's so very important to reach out. But it's so hard to reach out when you feel like an alien and so hopeless. So that's one of the things I do when well - work on a very amazing circle of loving, caring friends and family - including here on the forum. And that includes supporting them too. All my close friends and family know about my mental health struggles. Do yours?
It's my belief too that there's an element of luck as to whether or not you're 'spit back' from the black hole into this dimension. You've written it so beautifully with such a graphic image. Depending on the day, I might call that good luck or bad luck. One thing I believe is it's quite likely like Russian roulette - the more you play in that dimension, your odds of returning diminish.
Isn't it unbelievable how much our insides and outsides change merely with a shift in perspective?
Sending you much warmth and encouragement. ❤️
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Here is the story by the BBC about the Reasons to Stay website, which is based in England. This is an interview with the founder Ben West whose brother Sam West died by suicide at the age of 15.
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