Hi RougeLeader,
YES, I have been in that situation many times. Although I will only touch on the big stuff here, be assured that I can relate. Just bare with me as I ramble a bit about my own experience. If nothing else, it will provide some solace for a few moments. But I suspect some of it will gift you insight into your situation. I am also glad to see others posting in support of you. Thank you.
My whole life I wanted to kill myself so badly, so many times. I was so frustrated with my inability to control myself and to fit into everyone's box. I couldn't keep the jobs I was told to get and keep. I wasn't really interested in anything suggested to me to do with my life. I tried so hard to be motivated toward worldly affairs like jobs, education, houses and relationships, but after 20 years I can confidently say it was and never will be there--although I did a good job of faking it to myself. (Yet it is worth mentioning that I have discovered an endless reservoir of motivation and energy for the path of meditation and helping others along it, as I'm sure you will or have noticed by the length of my posts.)
No matter how hard I tried to take care of myself and others--I couldn't keep it up for long, no matter how hard I tried. I just couldn't see the point in what everyone was doing! They seemed to be running in circles, being stabbed along the way, and not realizing they were doing it to themselves and each other! They also didn't seem to be interested in any outside-the-box solutions, when it was so obvious that no one had found a solution within the box (better job, car, home, partner, education, blah, blah, blah). What's the point in living that!? It's all empty of any substance, at least that is what I have found. In fact, I spent most of my life trying to convince myself they weren't empty!
I want to mention, as it ties into what I am saying, that I can confirm Michel's book suggestion is very useful. It will not go as deep as what you'll find on here, but that does NOT mean it isn't perfect for your situation. The content of the Power of Now is extremely useful for gaining a foothold on the path to liberation from suffering through acquiring wisdom and insight. My first transcendental ecstatic insight experience was while reading that book, and was what convinced me there was a way out. And after that I only had one more suicidal episode. Have you read my case history yet? If not, then I strongly encourage you to.
It was during this suicidal episode that I realized I wanted to kill mySELF. And noticing that detail got me finally thinking critically; I could kill the body and the self would die, but what then!? It didn't matter that I had not (yet) directly experienced some of my past lives as confirmation that I would be reborn if I killed myself. I just looked around at the rest of nature and realized it was obvious that it recycles everything, why wouldn't that include souls/consciousness? So then I would just reappear with another body and another, similar self. Except in that new body/self I would most likely not have the wisdom that I did at that moment that I was considering suicide. This is honestly how I look at it now.
So, If I really want to kill myself, and NOT incur any new self's which have the same weakness to suffering, therefor continuing the cycle like everyone else was whether they killed themselves or not, then meditation and enlightenment is the ONLY WAY OUT. And now these suicidal tendencies have become my greatest strength. I gained the motivation to learn to still the mind by utilizing my desire to "kill myself" (which now meant to me; attain enlightenment). Because when the mind is stilled, when you are present, the "self" is under the watchful eye of awareness. Like a parent watching over the child. So to me, every time I stilled the mind I was killing myself by keeping an eye on it. LOL. Hey, it was an outside-the-box solution, and IT WORKED. I began seeing confirmation in the form of many different charismatic experiences.
You are not alone. Every great mystic I have ever learned of went through a period where they wanted to kill themselves or didn't see the point in societal existence. And, yes, in my experience I would have to agree that I saw suicide as a type of damage control. I didn't want to hurt myself or others anymore. I so desperately did not want to even be the slightest cause of others feeling like I did in those suicidal moments. And yet I saw how endlessly we stab each other and ourselves. So when I realized that killing myself was only doing more damage on myself and everyone else, I was forced to look for another way out.
You can turn this whole thing into a goldmine, as I currently feel I have. In the last two years I have become what was always struggling against family, friend, and society to come to the surface. I thought I wanted to make a 180, to resolve the situation, but I soon realized the only way to truly resolve anything is to transcend it through wisdom, discernment, and insight into the nature of reality. And in these last two years I have FINALLY helped my whole family, as well, who also suffered from suicidal thoughts often. That is one of the most fulfilling feelings.
In my experience, the suffering of suicidal thoughts born in me an open mind, which born critical thinking, which born confidence, which born conviction in meditation and study, which born insight, wisdom, and mystical experience that began to free me from the shackles of suffering. So you can see how some teachers say we should be thankful for our suffering.
A caterpillar cuts itself off from the world before being reborn as a beautiful and free butterfly. No longer does it crawl upon the ground with everyone else--but fly wherever it pleases, perhaps up into the heavens.
I mean it when I say I'm here for you. If you wanna chat on the phone, message me and we will. I have empathy for your situation, and so while feeling your pain, I also know how very close you likely are to one of the best times of your life--perhaps even existences.
As for your fears, I can say it is a gradual process of deconstructing and facing them through the path of meditation. It's remarkable how meditation works that way. I have been in mystical experiences where the sheer profundity and ecstasy was scary, and I pulled myself out of it. Sometimes had a shot or two, but then moved a little closer to facing it head on. It's like Jhananda says about putting your toe in the water until it's used to it. Then you move a little further in. Or at least he said something to that effect
Does any of my high-energy ramblings seem useful? In my experience, I've found the most good I can do for those have been in suicidal moments like us, is to show them there is a way out, the logic and critical thinking supporting that way out, and then help them onto or back onto the path with more conviction. No one can do it for you, but we can surely point the way and support you. I hope sharing my own struggles has helped you gain confidence that others similar to you have gone through it and overcome. It seems a natural process of becoming something greater, as I mentioned about the caterpillar/butterfly. I honestly see it that we are the blessed ones. I do not say that and look down at others in anyway. It has nothing to do with that. I just know that the struggles I went through created the circumstances for a truly blessed existence. And it's due to the duality of this world, which is also the inherent unsatisfactoriness that causes us to be suicidal, that we are also capable of experiencing the blissful rise above and beyond it all.
PS As someone who spent hopeless decades under the "guidance" and "care" of western psychology and psychiatrists, I must also encourage you to stay away from them if you can help it. They only confused me. If you are at all still interested in medications or therapy, then I encourage you to have a phone call with me so I can share what wisdom those decades gave me. However, if, as I, you find you would like some helpful and relatively healthy comforts as you find your path, a few helpers I have had excellent success with myself and others are self-music therapy, writing, spending time in nature, exercising and yoga.
I can honestly say that the more I commit myself to a rigorous, self-aware contemplative life, the less I think about suicide in the sense most know the word. I only think of liberation, and the blissful, ecstatic experiences where I felt finally I had come Home. Finally the weight was lifted, and my friend, in my experience there is nothing more desirable. You could spend 40 years trying to have just one of those experiences, and it would not be time wasted. And to know that is part of the goal is so comforting and motivating. If you FEEL what I mean when I say "Home", then let that motivate you.
May this sangha all skip merrily Home--Hahaha
Much love, friend.
