I'm aware that my death would affect people. But like with a lot of people, they would eventually move on. I don't blame them, I would want them to move on. But still, what's the point. When I die, I will only be a memory, and the people who remember me will die too, so all trace of my existence will be erased. I don't see what's the use of living. I have harmed myself before but I've stopped about 4 months ago. I have been having thoughts about both suicide and homocide, and both concepts are somewhat attractive. I have thoughts about killing myself and/or others in gruesome ways and I don't feel bad about it. Every day I feel more empty, and I've been feeling like this for a while now. I just want to understand why any life is worth anything?
What's the point?: I'm aware that my... - Mental Health Sup...
What's the point?
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![Noctis77 profile image](https://images.hu-production.be/avatars/604e952e90b63b95149b51343c33e550_small@2x_100x100.jpg)
First of all I have to ask if your desire is to take your own life more, or take that of somebody else? The relevance here being suicide or murder.
What is it your need to understand here? Your life or that of life itself?
You are, my friend, in a difficult place which can change your life forever, and that of others.
What is vitally important here is that you go straight to crisis / hospital support and tell them exactly what you have said here. Do not be afraid, they will help and get you back on the right track. I'm not telling you what to do here, but I'm asking you to take a another chance to make it through the 'what's the point' barrier.
I'm don't know you, but the sheer fact you have posted what you have said is crying out for help!
I'd like to think you are right. Bit the reason I posted here was out of sheer curiosity. I have asked my friends and family what the point of life is, and all I kept hearing was "Live your life for God, he'll help you", or "It's all about love", both answers were unacceptable, I only wanted to see what other peoples opinion on the matter is.
Life is what you make it, not god, family, friends, opinions, forums, relationships, religious beliefs., etc...You are looking for something you already have, a life to make your own!
No one can tell you, and I suspect you know this.
So I can make of my life whatever I want? Even if that means that I want to commit cruel acts to myself or others?
You were kind of right in suspecting that I know that. But I'm not entirely sure about that, if I can make this life my own then why are there limits placed upn it? Why is it that I can only do what I want when it doesn't negatively affect someone or when it's within realistic boundaries?
No, of course not!
You know right from wrong?
The point I'm making is positive, I'm concerned your on another level here which is why I suggest you seek emergency help...
That's all I can and will say on the matter.
Sorry to hear that you are having these thoughts. I have had the "what's the point?" thoughts about whether I should be here or not, but with the help of my family, friends and doctor I have managed to get past those feelings.
I felt that I was so lost and such a changed person that I was just a pain to everyone and they would all be happier without me. I also couldn't see the future for myself other than more pain and humiliation. I am so glad I got the help to sort out all my thoughts and understand them. Also I had a cousin who passed away recently and I have felt the confusion and hurt that the whole family has felt about his death. We willnever know if he intended to die or just took the drugs to try and forget his problems and although he'd had a trouble life there were still a lot of people who cared about him.
I hope you can get through this and that you can get the support and help you need.
X
Sorry about your cousin. And thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate it
Sometimes we do feel like we get lost because everyone else is more important, or are in a worse place than ourselves but we owe it to ourselves to get help when we need it.
I try to help someone if I can. Normally it is just little things like helping someone get something off a shelf in the shop or just check on your neighbours.
I don't like the pressure that is put on everyone that this time of year. Pressure to buy expensive gifts, pressure to be happy, pressure to go out and meet lots of people and eat lots of food. Sometimes you just need to be on your own and not worry about money and what people will think because you didn't do Christmas cards this year.
Take care of yourself and I hope you have got help.
I am going to be doing the Breathing Space 365 day challenge which is starting soon. Brearthing Space is a support line in Scotland for those who just need someone to talk to.
Take care.
x
U are one off ...unique ,their will not be another one of u......god created life not for destruction.....we are all in same boat which is sinking we need your fingers to help plug holes so we may all stay afloat...so we need u ...your life is important to me and alot of people...your experiences .feelings.emotions, u might use to help other people going through same issues... your one life could save 100s or even more..so u are very important.. i can talk all nite so if u want to chat we can..its very important to remember u are not alone ..help is a text away..no man is a mountain.we all have to ask for help sometimes.. i tried before xmas to overdose i was the lowest i had been in along time .i had a bad past i was abused, use to self harm..homeless , i cant help other people going through same issue if i am not here...so u have alot of purpose..
Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it. That being said, I don't believe in a higher power, and I'm not religious. I could give you the reason as to why, but I'd rather not offend you. I'm not sure what else to say about the matter
Ok ..thats fine...but u get my drist...where u from.
South Africa, and you?
What time is it in south africa now
2 o clock in the morning, what's the time there?
12.10 in early morning...weather is cold miserable ...what is the temprature
Waaayyyyy too hot here. I'm freaking burning to death
Your lucky..its freezing here..
Yeah, but when it's cold you can use blankets until it's hot enough. Whem it's too hot, you can only undress so much and it still doesn't help much
Thank you for your persistence and care. We are all so blessed. Yes we are all in this together and we need one another 🤗🤗🤗😇
Hiya, you ask a very pertinent and fundamental question: 'What is the point?' Honestly, I do not believe anyone can answer this, no matter how great, or powerful or intelligent the person is. So, maybe the question itself has no point. So perhaps it is better to focus on what we as individuals can do to make a positive contribution during our brief lives. Be kind, gentle and generous to others (ok, I admit, sometimes that is extremely difficult) but most of all be kind to yourself. We only have the present. By the way, if anyone does have an answer to the meaning of life, I'd love to hear it. Take care,
![Noctis77 profile image](https://images.hu-production.be/avatars/604e952e90b63b95149b51343c33e550_small@2x_100x100.jpg)
Yeah you and me both would like to hear that persons answer. Thanks for the reply though, and goodluck.
This is a very interesting thread. I have enjoyed reading it as I too, at times, have been perplexed and troubled by the "what's the point?" question. This question has actually been part, for me, in creating meaning in my life.
Firstly though, I would just like to address Noctis77 .
I would like to thank you for your honesty about how you're feeling and the thoughts that you have had and are having. I will address the "what's the point?" question in a moment but I would like to talk about the suicide, homicide thing; firstly, imagining these things is no great sin or wrong, it is part of our nature, as I shall point out later, but it is important for you to define what your intention is here.
You state that killing yourself and others is "somewhat attractive", what could you gain by killing others?
If your intention is to harm others then I would ask you to please go and seek help. No good for you or anyone else can come from hurting someone else. Obviously, you're not going to tell us on here what your intentions are but I have a feeling that someone searching for meaning to his life would not be the kind of person to take an "innocent" life either. But for your own good, I would ask yourself what your intention is and if you really believe it to be to hurt others to please seek help, for your sake as well as other peoples.
Now onto the "what's the point?" question.
@Noctis77 it seems that you are the sort of person that "meaning" has become, or always was, an important aspect of who you are and how you choose to live. I don't know whether that is true but upon reading your post this is what comes across.
I know how perplexing and frustrating it can be to watch the world turn and to look for answers only to find intellectual dead ends, brick walls, death and violence.
The conclusion that I have come to, and this might be a bit hard for some to take or understand, but here it goes, is this...there is no real point.
Why do I believe this?
Well, there are different layers to this because when I say there is "no real point" to life I am talking from the point of view of a human being.
The reason I say it like this is that the problem is with our thinking. As human beings, we have done a great job of convincing ourselves that we are special in some divine spiritual way, that were are more than mammal or animal and that we are destined for something that we are unable to conceive of, which only alludes to our centrist belief in being "special".
But the truth is simply this...we are animals/mammals and our only real purpose to living is the same as any other animal/mammal, and that is to survive.
Any other meaning is brought to life through us and by us.
Nature provided us, as a tool to our survival box of tricks, with a creative mind, but this particular form of creativity, that has been awarded us by nature, gives us the power of imagination, of being able to imagine ourselves in the future or in other situations so that we may know how to improve our lives for the better...for survival, this then creates a life with us at the center which is the basis for our ego's, other apes project this same kind of nature. Along with this type of creative mind also gives us the gift of consciousness as we experience it, which again is very much based on our own egos. And it is this coupling of creative imagination and consciousness/ego that gives us the existential problems each of us face.
Our belief, as human beings, in our own beauty and perfection is what drives us to believe that we are divine in some way and that therefore someone or something must have created us for a reason.
But the truth is not that we aren't special, all things created in nature are special and beautiful in my opinion, it's just that our reasons for being are no different.
There is, of course, a caveat here; although there may be no real reason for our existence the truth is that we do exist and what we decide that existence to be is truly up to us...we are lucky that we don not have to be scared anyv longer of being eaten and hunted by larger mammals and animals than us but we are the creators of our own univese, our own lives, and so it is important as individuals to have a philosphy of life that we intend to live by, there is that word again, intention, and it is really important in this context and to who we are as beings and our attempts to find meaning...what is our intention for ourselves and others, what and who do we need to be in order to make this life the life we want to lead.
As creative beings whose survival instincts lay in the ways of creative thinking and imagination, it is the rules that we must live by within society that can sometimes elicit a notion or feeling of meaninglessness and imprisonment, take that along with the other narratives that we have created or been given throughout our life by events, emotions, fears, social norms and laws and we can become confused and lost.
What is the answer...it lies in what you value most?
And how do you know what you value most? Look inward, become more self-aware, know your bad and your good parts, learn from them, if you want to change them then take that as a quest for more answers to the meaning of living, to know yourself is to know others, to know life and to understand your meaning. We all have values and principle that fuel our choices and decisions; if the things we do in life are not aligned with those values and principle we will feel aggrieved, unloved, lost, complacent, empty...all number of ills that will affect the way in which we live and see life.
Life is without meaning but being alive and whatever it is you ascribe to that being is where the meaning lies.
I find meaning in looking for the answer.
Si.
Thanks a lot for the reply, I really appreciate it. That being said, I have contemplated the topic and what you said makes sense. But humans are also self destructive, which is contrary to the goal of survival. And I would have nothing to gain from harming myself or others, but does that really matter? Do I really need a reason to do that? That's just my opinion though. I've grown rather cynical in the past few years and my opinion is that the human race will be extinct before we reach the next century.
Hi,
Yes, I too am a little cynical.
You misunderstand my theory about survival though.
A human beings instinct is always for their own survival.
On an individualistic level and then a group level and up and onward.
This is why countries go to war, they are just a larger manifestation of the human creature. We go to war to help our particular social principles and values survive...a culture, country or society must look strong and powerful so that others do not take what they have, neither physical or perceptual resources. This is played out on the world stage continuously through natural resources, land and power struggles. It has always been the same. It is the same on the street as it is in business and global politics.
When we were living in small villages it would be important to know what was going on in the next village and to consider taking what they have so that they do not take what you have...or alternatively offer a hand in friendship and share a hand in both groups power and resources so both could benefit.
So yes, humans are self-destructive because their desire for survival is geared more towards personal individualistic gain than the gain of a society, either local or global. We most certainly are not like Ants who work for the hive or nest and the Queen, though there are similarities to this in any social construct.
I don't disagree with you that we may be extinct over the course of the next century, it for sure is a possibility.
But we are also young as a species and are still evolving as beings so it is just as possible that we may find ways to avoid our annihilation.
But it is also possible that as beings of nature that we are also governed by its rules of birth and death, creatures die out, civilizations have died out, whole species have died out...nature is dark and light, birth and death, chaos and order, destruction and creation...these are fundamentals to the way the universe and nature works so why should life on earth be any different?
If this is the natural process of life, nature and the universe who are we to suggest that it is possible to live in any other way? Perhaps to accept that this is the way of things would be easier?!
But then, we would not be who we are, would we? We would be another creature just screwing, eating, sleeping and...but we have evolved to be something else, something that can imgaine what it would be like to be something else and then become it, because that is how we survived up until now...we imagined what it would be like to kill a beast and eat its flesh and we made it happen, we imgained what it would be like to take the fire from the earth and sky and make it our own and we made it happen, we imagined what it might be like to take a seed from a bush and plant it in a way that might provide us with food for long periods of time and it happened, and we imgained what it might be like to kill another human so that we may enjoy what they had and make our lives better and we made it happen, but this creative imagination was given to us, not for any particular reason other than to survive, we got given it through the luck (or bad luck) of the draw, and so what do we do with that now? Now that we have pretty much power over our whole lives. That is up to us? Do we use it to help us evolve? For sure that's what we have been doing...but can we not do the same on an individual level? On a personal level?
On killing. Do you need a reason?
Well, to kill something for no reason would be false...there is always a reason for doing anything isn't there?
To know what it would be like?
Because I could?
To put them out of their misery?
Because life seems futile?
Because I love them and don't want them to suffer?
There is always a reason.
If you commit suicide it wouldn't be because you didn't have a reason would it?
If we as a human race will destroy ourselves in the course of a century what reason do you have to bail out now? You may as well wait around for the big event and go out with a bang!
I'd like to ask you a question or two;
Putting your current cynicism aside, Imagining that you did not want to commit suicide or kill, If you could give your life meaning, what would that meaning be?
What would it look like?
What would you, as a result of this meaning, be feeling?
And how would this meaning change the way your daily life played out...for example if you had meaning in your life what would your days be like? from waking up to going to bed, what would your activities be? Who would you be with?
And with this meaning and all the things that would come with it in what ways would you having meaning change the way you lived your life?
Si.
Your vocabulary is impressive to say the least, and your opinion seems to make a lot of sense. If I had to give meaning to give my life a meaning, I would say that the ultimate goal would be to survive. Yes the human race has certainly progressed, but we seem to have also abandoned what enables us to evolve. Technology has enabled us to become decadent, lazy and given purpose to things that don't really need purpose. We have created this image where materialistic things can satisfy our wants and we have confused our wants with our needs. I am definitely guilty of this. But I have realised that I don't really need most of what I have. Of course what I have brings me comfort, but all of this also distracts me from the goal to survive. If the ultimate goal is to survive, then we would have to abandon our wants, and only focus on improving our intellect and physical capabilities.
Have you ever thought about the concept of cannibalism? I understand that this is a rather crude topic to say the least, but the solution it holds could change the world dramatically and for the better. Cannibalism has the potential to end world hunger and overpopulation simultaneously if executed properly of course.
I realize I was getting off track, but my point is that if my only purpose was to survive, I would either spend every day on learning more about my environment and on how I can use it to adapt and improve my immune system, my physical strength and my instincts. I would do whatever I could to evolve and become more or I would stay as I currently am, stay decadent and ultimately accept the fact that I will not evolve and I'll perish as I am.
Thanks for your reply.
Cannabilism? Wow! No, I cannot say I have given it too much thought...the one problem I have with this concept (and I understand your thought process and in theory, why this could be viewed as an answer to global issues) is the psychological implications of consuming the flesh of our own species. I would suggest that there were other alternatives that were far less problematic if we were to put our minds to it.
I would suggest a greater attempt at current food level distribution in relation to the quantities of food thrown away would be a concept we try before munching on the ankle of the next door neighbour!
When I talk of survival, I am not talking about survival on a conscious level but more an instinctual level, the level that belongs to the mammal or animalistic part of who we are...that thing within us that wants us not to die or be hurt.
Let's imagine that we have evolved far enough that we no longer have that desire to survive at an instinctual level...let's imagine we have evolved that we no longer have war, we do not kill each other, there is little or even no hatred in the world, we live in a world where we give to each other, we love one another, we are creatures whose only purpose is to create a purpose for ourselves.
What purpose would you create for yourself?
What would you do with your day an what would it look like?
Thanks for playing and accepting my questions by the way.
S
Noctis77, your are not alone e in your thoughts. Most people at some point in there life will question the meaning/purpose in life. We also will have had thoughts of harming ourselves or others as well. Life is a lot of things to a lot of people. We can live for ourselves and make us first or we can give to others and not always make ourselves the centre of our universe. I have struggled with this and many other issues throughout my life. I have also been where you are and was convinced that if I took my life, everyone would eventually get over it. I really was sure of this but it was because I was in a terrible place emotionally and psychologicaly. After I got professional help and after talking to others, I was able to see clearer. I was able to understand the horrible impact it would have on my family and friends and especially my two boys. Please get help my friend. Life will unfold for you and you will experience so many wonderful things but you need to get help first.
If there's no intention behind them then it's not as serious a concern, but if you feel you may harm yourself or someone else then it is a serious matter and you will need help. You don't have to go through this alone e. Even if you can afford therapy, there are other resources. Emerge can set you up with someone that can help direct you to where you can get help even if money is an issue. It's always best to get things off your chest. It really makes a difference in how you feel and it will help you realize your not alone and that most people feel and think the same as you.