#or suicide ideation

[justaz]

merlin still roams the earth thousands of years later yet arthur hasn’t risen. his hope has been waning for millennia and he’s been scraping the bottom of the barrel for centuries, his hope being a meager thing - barely tangible. it’s more caution than anything, he’s been getting by these last few decades on the thought “what if i give up right before he comes back?? just wait another year” and he’s held on for more than fifty years by that. then…nothing. absolutely nothing. not even a ripple in the lake. he’s still alone.

that’s when his barrel has been scraped clean, he has no hope nor caution to carry on anymore. the dragon got one last manipulation in before the end causing merlin to live for centuries upon centuries in agony and despair, held together by false hope that hurts more than arthur’s death did. though maybe that’s time talking, he’s pretty sure he was comatose for a couple of centuries after arthur died, but the sentiment remains.

he marches down to lake avalon and greets freya though she hasn’t responded since arthur passed. he requests excalibur, and she does not respond. he asks again. still nothing. again. nothing. he demands this time for her to give him the damn blade. she does not. for the first time in millennia, he uses magic to draw the blade out but something tugs the sword back, refusing him his last request.

he yells in frustration sending small waves across the still water. he tries again and again but freya doesn’t budge. he falls to his knees, tears escaping his eyes, and shouts for her to give him the sword so he can finally put an end to his agony. arthur isn’t coming back, he can’t keep wandering. he’s exhausted, he’s run out of hope. he just wants to rest. he gently attempts to coax the sword out with his magic one last time but freya still holds it from him.

[amygdalae]

Me: damn this situation I'm in sure isn't ideal, what am I gonna do about this

Suicidal Ideation Man who lives in my brain: perhaps I have a suggestion ☝️🤓

[stil-lindigo]

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

[rox-and-prose]

the thing about living with mental illness for decades is that occasionally your brain will be like hey you're useless and should kill yourself and your only real reaction is cmon man right now im in the middle of something

[writing-for-life]

If the paywall comes up, try to put the link into this: https://www.removepaywall.com

Posting in the spirit of not staying quiet about this.

I strongly suggest you read this—all of it, because it’s long. Lila Shapiro is the journalist who wrote the investigation into Joss Whedon btw and won an award for it, so maybe people can finally stop making this all about Tortoise Media.

[punkitt-is-here]

lots going on in my world right now you know?

[paintedcrows]

Ever think about how Bill Cipher has canonically threatened every member of the Pines family, except Stanley, with suicide? I think about that a lot... Kid's show villain everyone!

Individual Panels below the cut!

[snickerdoodlesart]

disco disco

[patronsaintofsacrifice]

Replacing "I dont want to live" with "i dont want to live like this" was v helpful for me because it helped me figure out what parts of my life i was trying to escape and reminded me there are absolutely versions of myself i want to work towards and ways of living i havent experienced yet that i want to see

[thebibliosphere]

It’s absolutely wild to finally be in an upward trajectory of my mental health while the world around me is plunged into despair.

I am also still very much filled with despair and fear and so much anger. I just don’t want to die anymore. I really really want to live despite the horrors. Perhaps to spite them.

It’s an odd sensation.

[yousaveeveryonebutwhosavesyou]

I'm proud of you for making it this far.

[reasonsforhope]

I’m sorry to come to you like this since you probably wanted someone to come in for a reason for hope but I’m freaking out and have no one to talk to about this rn. A music artist I follow put this stuff in their story on instagram..how are things getting better??? I’m so confused and scared. I’m terrified to be alive. I should’ve died in election night. Idk if I can do this anymore. I don’t want the world to end nor live in an apocalypse/dystopia. I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough. I’m going to die before I even reach the age of 25 or 30 instead of dying of old age😥😥😥😥😥

First, breathe.

Second:

Go read these links. Keep going down the list until you feel better:

Read:

this article* on why the doomers are wrong

everything in Fix the News's awesome year-end roundup* of good news

everything in my masterpost on why we're going to beat climate change

everything from my masterpost on net negative carbon emissions

everything in Fix the News's archives, until you feel better

*it's a fantastic article in many ways but warning for (brief but serious) fatphobia and some annoying Western-centrism. Warning for fatphobia also applies to (one point on the) Fix the News roundup.

You should not have died on election night. Absolutely not. Yes, there are great injustices in the world. But this too shall pass. Literally everything does.

Some notes:

This isn't the end of the world. It's not about to be an apocalypse. And, if the world wasn't a dystopia when half of all people died before the age of 15 (aka all of history until the past 250 years), it's definitely not a dystopia now, imho. (x, x)

Literally every single week on Fix the News, I see the news that some country has ended some disease! Usually I see multiple stories about that each week! We're making real progress that has saved billions of lives!

In 1900, 120 years ago, there were 5 full liberal democracies in the entire world. Now, about 97 countries (out of approximately 195, depending on how you count) are democracies. That's almost half the countries in the world! This is actually, writ large, a time of massive expansion of human rights, hard as it is to believe from looking at the news. (x, x)

Also Imho the most likely explanation to the Fermi Paradox is that we're only 0.13% of the way through expected lifespan of the universe (x, x). Very little time for life to evolve, comparatively.

Finally:

Unfollow this person. Unfollow everyone who posts something that makes you feel suicidal - literally and ongoingly, every time you see a post that makes you spiral, immediately unfollow that person.

It's not about sticking your head in the sand. If you want, you can calendar time to check ACTUAL news sources (NOT social media) a couple times a week to make sure you're staying up on things.

But you know what? The number one priority is keeping yourself alive.

How are things actually getting better? To quote the first article I linked:

"I could tell you that a little more than 200 years ago, nearly half of all children born died before they reached their 15th birthday, and that today it’s less than 5 percent globally. I could tell you that in pre-industrial times, starvation was a constant specter and life expectancy was in the 30s at best. I could tell you that at the dawn of the 19th century, barely more than one person in 10 was literate, while today that ratio has been nearly reversed. I could tell you that today is, on average, the best time to be alive in human history."

Stay alive. And do what you need to do to keep yourself that way.

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[signanothername]

Better the image if who built you than the image of who broke you

[blueskittlesart]

Now that you're gone

[neil-gaiman]

Hi, sir. Do you have any suggestions or tips for someone who feels like they do not want to go on living anymore?

I know that it sounds kind of counter-productive that someone who wishes to end their state of living to be seeking advice; but to be honest, I’m just looking for an excuse to hold on.

The best advice I can give, as someone who has been there, is, because it gets better again. Killing yourself is an incredibly permanent solution to what is often, in retrospect, a temporary condition. You are miserable now, so miserable that existing is painful, but you may not always be miserable. And when the sun comes out in your life and your mind and your heart, you could be very glad you are still alive and breathing.