What a cowardly way to deal with suicide and dance around a topic that claims the lives of over a million people a year worldwide. I have read your blogs for years. You are as useless as all other metaphysical teachings such as A Course in Miracles, Eckhard Tolle, Unity Church, any and all who teach spiritual philosophies and metaphysics.
I can’t speak for any of those people or groups. I’m not a spiritual or metaphysical person. If something isn’t grounded in literal reality, I don’t pay it any mind. But I have experienced frequent suicidal ideations for the past 10 years of my 23 year long life. When I’m thinking of killing myself and someone tries to help me by saying they’re “so sorry I’m going through that” or “please don’t do it you’ll regret it when it’s already too late”, my attention is immediately drawn to the fact that my life must be full of intense suffering since even this person sees it. And what’s my solution to this intense suffering? Killing myself! So these well-intentioned desires to help me (desires for control) can actually lead me right back to the suicidal ideations. At least in my experience, suicidal ideations are a very sticky situation where even the slightest desire for control can have negative consequences. No matter how much someone wants to “fix” a tendency for suicidal ideations, it is outside of our grasp for control over literal reality. I have found the most effective approach to be presence—either with yourself or with someone who is suffering. And presence requires accepting that desire to help and letting go of the urge to act on it. When I sit with that strong desire to help and use it as a slow, steady fuel in returning to the present moment, I can touch base with peace again in moments of intense suicidal suffering. And when I touch base with peace, it’s like my brain can take a deep breath and the grasp those suicidal ideations had over me loosens a little bit more.
Even with such an approach as you describe, you will always and still be a risk for suicide because you have yet to solve the underlying trauma and unmet needs that are driving you towards suicide. So everything you say in the end is pointless. Suicidality is not a contagion or disease. You don't "catch the suicide disease." Following a blog like this or looking too anyone in the spiritual or metaphysical field will always put you at an even far greater risk for suicide. Why? because the metaphysical community which Budhism is a part of is a narcisstic community. They do not wish you well and only want to toxify and tramatize you further by warning you of the dangers that lurk in the afterlife once you commit suicide. They have no solutions. They have tons of useless practices and meditations, but no solutions to healig the toxic suicidal mind. There are no teachers on Earth at this time that can help or heal the person suffering from suicidal ideation and suffering. That is the cold hard truth, but at least it is The Truth and not some fairy tale metaphysical story of how "all is well." ALL IS NOT WELL and has never been for millions of people who currently occupy the Earth plane.
Also note the short brevity of this article written by Christopher Titmuss. In other articles his blogs continue into the thousands of words. Yet when it comes to the topic of suicide, he can barely come up with five hundred words to discuss a topic that is claiming the lives of a milion people around the world each year. Fifty thousand kill themselves each year just in the U.S. alone. As I said, this man has no answers for you, me, or anyone on a suicidal path.
I apologize for the length and before I share my perspective, I just want to say again that I’m not a Buddhist, I’m certainly not a mental health professional, and I’m definitely not metaphysical, spiritual, or even religious. And I don’t want to impose my perspective on you, I just want to share it. If you take anything away from what I say, I hope that it is something rooted in your own intuition. I hope it is something you independently perceive within your own mind because it would be much closer to the truth than anything that only I am pointing to.
I agree that even with the approach I described, you will still be at risk for suicide. I also agree that no one has a solution, no permanent fix, for the suicidal mind. And I would even say that everything I have said and will say, in the end, is technically “meaningless” from a philosophical point of view.
I say this not to dismiss how powerful human meaning can feel, but just to point out how delicate it is in the face of reality’s vastness. Even our most comforting stories can be shaken by life. And yet, they still matter to us. They still work. And in times of suffering, sometimes what works—what brings relief or clarity in this moment—is what matters most.
However, human meaning itself is, technically, meaningless. (I do not say this to negate the fact that we often feel immense purpose and relief when we find something to be meaningful. I say this to differentiate between the human reality our brains are anchored in which is filled with story and emotion, from the often harsh and blunt nature of the universe—which is inherently outside of our brain’s ability to comprehend.) By this I mean that if god exists, or if reality, nature, or the universe itself (whatever you want to call it) had an all-knowing brain—something far beyond a brain as we know them—and closely examined all things we found meaningful, it would always find the point where it does not hold up. Nothing we create or say truly stands the test of time. It’s just not possible, it’s not within the boundaries of our human reality. We see this reflected across all the sciences and all our engineering feats ever. We don’t know everything, we will never have a theory that truly explains everything, and we can never build something that truly stands the test of time. Why? Because we don’t have control, control is just an illusion rooted in our meaningless human meaning. I think this is why when Einstein saw his theory of relativity break down at the quantum level he was like “nooooo!”. Reality itself was showing him that even our deeply meaningful idea of relativity—comparisons, frames of reference, and analytics, the foundation of science itself—did not have control over reality.
But let’s return to the suicidal mind. I remember one time when I was at a particularly low point and my suicidal ideations seemed to be on overdrive day-in and day-out, I thought “when tf will this stop?! i don’t want to have a single suicidal thought ever again but they just keep coming and coming.” Years later I thought “what really is the point where I’m better? Is it when I think of killing myself only once a week? Or once a month? Or once a year? Because that would be much better than where I’m at right now. Or once in a lifetime? Or once in a lifetime but it’s so foreign to me that I deny that I even thought of killing myself? Do they ever truly, completely go away? Or will I even reach that relatively better place in my lifetime?”
This is what I mean when I say that we don’t have control over the suicidal mind. It cannot be fixed completely. And I think this is, in part, due to underlying trauma. The human brain experienced unimaginable trauma in the past. We were getting eaten by bears and lions, starving, dying of thirst, and freezing all of the time. And you bet all that trauma still effects us today. It resides somewhere very deep inside our minds, somewhere that takes a lot of patience and self-love to reach and even begin to soothe. And then there’s the additional trauma we directly experience today.
But even if it cannot be fixed completely, a place of relatively fewer or less intense suicidal thoughts is always within our reach. It’s that point I was talking about in my last comment where it’s like my brain can take a deep breath and the grasp those suicidal ideations had over me loosens a little bit more. Compared to how it was previously, the grasp is relatively looser, although the grasp never truly lets go—even when I reach a point where it feels like it has. Peace itself is rooted in relativity. Even though it’s not permanent or absolute, peace is deeply meaningful to us. The deepest peace you experience so far in your life will always feel like the deepest peace you have ever experienced. It will always be the deepest “breath” your brain has taken so far, and the greatest freedom you have experienced from your suicidal thoughts so far. And an even deeper breath and even greater freedom is always within our reach, though it may require patience to reach it. But once peace and freedom have been tasted, no matter how relatively small it may be in the grand scheme, it cannot be taken away. It is now yours, it is now a part of you. And that same peace can be revisited no matter what situation you find yourself in or what suffering you are experiencing.
After all this, I still find myself asking “But why would no one be completely free from suffering, self-hatred, and suicidal thoughts?” And I need to remind myself that there is fairness in nature but it is by no means kind and it doesn’t care for us like we do. It would be kind and caring if it completely freed us all from suicidal thoughts. It never will, but there is deeply meaningful fairness in the fact that we all experience this suffering to some degree. That’s because even the strongest, most resilient, most mentally healthy people can still relate to those who are experiencing the most intense suffering. If they search deep enough they can see as clear as day that those who are suffering right now are no different from themselves at heart, and they will be able to connect with us in deeply meaningful ways that guide us towards immense peace.
This is why mental health professionals can be such a blessing. It just sometimes takes time to find one who truly clicks with you. I don’t know you, but if you are suffering, please reach out to a professional. Even my good intentions can be lost through my own miscommunication and if you feel that I have guided you somewhere unpleasant, it’s quite possible that we are unawarely looking at two different aspects of life from two different perspectives. A mental health professional can offer better guidance than I could even dream of offering in a substack comment section.
I had more that I wanted to say about Buddhism and this weird idea of reincarnation and Christopher, but this is already getting incredibly long and I need to get to work. If you’d like to hear it please let me know and I’d be happy to share.
What a cowardly way to deal with suicide and dance around a topic that claims the lives of over a million people a year worldwide. I have read your blogs for years. You are as useless as all other metaphysical teachings such as A Course in Miracles, Eckhard Tolle, Unity Church, any and all who teach spiritual philosophies and metaphysics.
I can’t speak for any of those people or groups. I’m not a spiritual or metaphysical person. If something isn’t grounded in literal reality, I don’t pay it any mind. But I have experienced frequent suicidal ideations for the past 10 years of my 23 year long life. When I’m thinking of killing myself and someone tries to help me by saying they’re “so sorry I’m going through that” or “please don’t do it you’ll regret it when it’s already too late”, my attention is immediately drawn to the fact that my life must be full of intense suffering since even this person sees it. And what’s my solution to this intense suffering? Killing myself! So these well-intentioned desires to help me (desires for control) can actually lead me right back to the suicidal ideations. At least in my experience, suicidal ideations are a very sticky situation where even the slightest desire for control can have negative consequences. No matter how much someone wants to “fix” a tendency for suicidal ideations, it is outside of our grasp for control over literal reality. I have found the most effective approach to be presence—either with yourself or with someone who is suffering. And presence requires accepting that desire to help and letting go of the urge to act on it. When I sit with that strong desire to help and use it as a slow, steady fuel in returning to the present moment, I can touch base with peace again in moments of intense suicidal suffering. And when I touch base with peace, it’s like my brain can take a deep breath and the grasp those suicidal ideations had over me loosens a little bit more.
Even with such an approach as you describe, you will always and still be a risk for suicide because you have yet to solve the underlying trauma and unmet needs that are driving you towards suicide. So everything you say in the end is pointless. Suicidality is not a contagion or disease. You don't "catch the suicide disease." Following a blog like this or looking too anyone in the spiritual or metaphysical field will always put you at an even far greater risk for suicide. Why? because the metaphysical community which Budhism is a part of is a narcisstic community. They do not wish you well and only want to toxify and tramatize you further by warning you of the dangers that lurk in the afterlife once you commit suicide. They have no solutions. They have tons of useless practices and meditations, but no solutions to healig the toxic suicidal mind. There are no teachers on Earth at this time that can help or heal the person suffering from suicidal ideation and suffering. That is the cold hard truth, but at least it is The Truth and not some fairy tale metaphysical story of how "all is well." ALL IS NOT WELL and has never been for millions of people who currently occupy the Earth plane.
Also note the short brevity of this article written by Christopher Titmuss. In other articles his blogs continue into the thousands of words. Yet when it comes to the topic of suicide, he can barely come up with five hundred words to discuss a topic that is claiming the lives of a milion people around the world each year. Fifty thousand kill themselves each year just in the U.S. alone. As I said, this man has no answers for you, me, or anyone on a suicidal path.
I apologize for the length and before I share my perspective, I just want to say again that I’m not a Buddhist, I’m certainly not a mental health professional, and I’m definitely not metaphysical, spiritual, or even religious. And I don’t want to impose my perspective on you, I just want to share it. If you take anything away from what I say, I hope that it is something rooted in your own intuition. I hope it is something you independently perceive within your own mind because it would be much closer to the truth than anything that only I am pointing to.
I agree that even with the approach I described, you will still be at risk for suicide. I also agree that no one has a solution, no permanent fix, for the suicidal mind. And I would even say that everything I have said and will say, in the end, is technically “meaningless” from a philosophical point of view.
I say this not to dismiss how powerful human meaning can feel, but just to point out how delicate it is in the face of reality’s vastness. Even our most comforting stories can be shaken by life. And yet, they still matter to us. They still work. And in times of suffering, sometimes what works—what brings relief or clarity in this moment—is what matters most.
However, human meaning itself is, technically, meaningless. (I do not say this to negate the fact that we often feel immense purpose and relief when we find something to be meaningful. I say this to differentiate between the human reality our brains are anchored in which is filled with story and emotion, from the often harsh and blunt nature of the universe—which is inherently outside of our brain’s ability to comprehend.) By this I mean that if god exists, or if reality, nature, or the universe itself (whatever you want to call it) had an all-knowing brain—something far beyond a brain as we know them—and closely examined all things we found meaningful, it would always find the point where it does not hold up. Nothing we create or say truly stands the test of time. It’s just not possible, it’s not within the boundaries of our human reality. We see this reflected across all the sciences and all our engineering feats ever. We don’t know everything, we will never have a theory that truly explains everything, and we can never build something that truly stands the test of time. Why? Because we don’t have control, control is just an illusion rooted in our meaningless human meaning. I think this is why when Einstein saw his theory of relativity break down at the quantum level he was like “nooooo!”. Reality itself was showing him that even our deeply meaningful idea of relativity—comparisons, frames of reference, and analytics, the foundation of science itself—did not have control over reality.
But let’s return to the suicidal mind. I remember one time when I was at a particularly low point and my suicidal ideations seemed to be on overdrive day-in and day-out, I thought “when tf will this stop?! i don’t want to have a single suicidal thought ever again but they just keep coming and coming.” Years later I thought “what really is the point where I’m better? Is it when I think of killing myself only once a week? Or once a month? Or once a year? Because that would be much better than where I’m at right now. Or once in a lifetime? Or once in a lifetime but it’s so foreign to me that I deny that I even thought of killing myself? Do they ever truly, completely go away? Or will I even reach that relatively better place in my lifetime?”
This is what I mean when I say that we don’t have control over the suicidal mind. It cannot be fixed completely. And I think this is, in part, due to underlying trauma. The human brain experienced unimaginable trauma in the past. We were getting eaten by bears and lions, starving, dying of thirst, and freezing all of the time. And you bet all that trauma still effects us today. It resides somewhere very deep inside our minds, somewhere that takes a lot of patience and self-love to reach and even begin to soothe. And then there’s the additional trauma we directly experience today.
But even if it cannot be fixed completely, a place of relatively fewer or less intense suicidal thoughts is always within our reach. It’s that point I was talking about in my last comment where it’s like my brain can take a deep breath and the grasp those suicidal ideations had over me loosens a little bit more. Compared to how it was previously, the grasp is relatively looser, although the grasp never truly lets go—even when I reach a point where it feels like it has. Peace itself is rooted in relativity. Even though it’s not permanent or absolute, peace is deeply meaningful to us. The deepest peace you experience so far in your life will always feel like the deepest peace you have ever experienced. It will always be the deepest “breath” your brain has taken so far, and the greatest freedom you have experienced from your suicidal thoughts so far. And an even deeper breath and even greater freedom is always within our reach, though it may require patience to reach it. But once peace and freedom have been tasted, no matter how relatively small it may be in the grand scheme, it cannot be taken away. It is now yours, it is now a part of you. And that same peace can be revisited no matter what situation you find yourself in or what suffering you are experiencing.
After all this, I still find myself asking “But why would no one be completely free from suffering, self-hatred, and suicidal thoughts?” And I need to remind myself that there is fairness in nature but it is by no means kind and it doesn’t care for us like we do. It would be kind and caring if it completely freed us all from suicidal thoughts. It never will, but there is deeply meaningful fairness in the fact that we all experience this suffering to some degree. That’s because even the strongest, most resilient, most mentally healthy people can still relate to those who are experiencing the most intense suffering. If they search deep enough they can see as clear as day that those who are suffering right now are no different from themselves at heart, and they will be able to connect with us in deeply meaningful ways that guide us towards immense peace.
This is why mental health professionals can be such a blessing. It just sometimes takes time to find one who truly clicks with you. I don’t know you, but if you are suffering, please reach out to a professional. Even my good intentions can be lost through my own miscommunication and if you feel that I have guided you somewhere unpleasant, it’s quite possible that we are unawarely looking at two different aspects of life from two different perspectives. A mental health professional can offer better guidance than I could even dream of offering in a substack comment section.
I had more that I wanted to say about Buddhism and this weird idea of reincarnation and Christopher, but this is already getting incredibly long and I need to get to work. If you’d like to hear it please let me know and I’d be happy to share.