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All Posts,  For the Suicidal,  Miscellaneous

A Cashless Bank

It’s been an exciting few days. My website is almost completed now and most of it is working. There are still a few things to get operational, like the search facility, but people can contact me through the site now. The site menu has stopped wandering all over the page and lots of other things have been tweaked or sorted out so I’m very happy.

The thing I am happiest about, however, is that my “Reason To Live” wall is now working.

I have high hopes for this “graffiti” wall.

Most people think about suicide at some point in their life but, for most, it is a passing thing. Most people never get to the true bottom of the pit in life so they can’t really understand what it’s like to be there.

I have been suicidal and I know how it feels to be tortured, tormented and cursed by life but I don’t believe I have ever really reached rock bottom because, if I had, I would not be alive now. I have not committed suicide. I have not crossed that line. I have not gone to the place those who do kill themselves get to.

How dark must someone’s world be to choose death over living? How hopeless must a person feel to think death is the only answer? How utterly worthless must they think they are to be able to throw themselves away so completely?

Suicide has touched my life. My stepson’s body had to be cut free from the car and we could not have an open coffin. He was just 19 and, to this day, when I think of him something inside me screams in protest. He was not old enough to make such a choice – he could not know what good things might have come to him if he had given life time.

I met one man who survived the rope. He will never try again because he is brain damaged and he cannot make any plans now let alone carry them out.

In another case I never met the deceased. I only know about him because I was called in to counsel a lot of his workmates after he committed suicide at work. None of us could really comprehend what sort of hell he must have been in to put that stick of dynamite in his mouth, light it, and hold it until it went off.

It’s not possible to really know how it feels to be someone who kills themselves but I know some of how it must feel to be them.

For suicidal people the world is a cold, hard, empty, hopeless, lonely place. It is a place they cannot cope with or handle. It is filled with people who are out to harm them one way or another or just to use them. In their hearts they are sure nobody really cares, nobody can help, and there is no way out of their pain but to leave through the door of death.

Life is a burden for them to carry. It is their punishment, their sentence, for the crime of being born. They do not live, they exist, they are tormented by day after hopeless day and they can’t think of a single good reason to keep going.

One of the things suicidal people often ask is for someone to give them just one good reason to live but that’s not an easy thing to do. Everyone is different so what makes a good reason for one person wouldn’t count for another.

I created the “Reason To Live Wall” in the hope that people will share their own, personal, reason for living. If enough different reasons are added to the wall it might be possible for a suicidal person to find one that makes sense to them. It might even save a life or two.

If enough people show they care by sharing their reason for living it might help the suicidal person realise the world is not cold and people really do care. I know people care about others. You only have to look at how fast people rally around to help when tragedy strikes to know people care. Suicide is a tragedy but it isn’t one you can help with by donating money.

I am hoping donating personal reasons to live will result in the wall becoming a large and growing body of proof that people care. I’m praying hundreds of people will care enough to give their reason to live to those who have none of their own.

My statistics show there is a small but steady stream of people coming to this site after typing suicidal search terms. They are asking the internet why they should live and how they can kill themselves. I’m hoping they will find a wall filled with donated reasons to go on living that they can draw on free of charge. I’m hoping the wall will tell them people do care and the world is not such a bad place after all.

If you are willing to donate your own reason for living to the wall just click on this “Add your reason for living” link. You don’t have to register to add your reason but the wall is being moderated to prevent spam and offensive additions so your reason will not appear until after I have approved it.

If you are suicidal no donation is required. Click on the link at the top of this entry and go to the wall to make a withdrawal. Take as many reasons from the wall as you want.

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