When you want to throw in the towel, jump off a bridge, and end the whole disaster, what keeps you hanging on?
Anything, big or small. Family, job, wanting to be around to see the next season of your favorite TV show, the fact that someone has to feed your hamster, whatever.
Knowing that throwing in the towel means everything you’ve ever gotten through before that point, all the blood, sweat, tears, sleepless nights, or agonizing days, all that was for nothing if you give up now.
That I haven’t published anything yet. The only time I thought it wouldn’t matter if I died* was when I deleted everything I had ever written or designed. Then I remembered I had most of it on another disk and I was better. (Perhaps ironically, I doubt I’ll ever finish those stories. But that’s not the point.)
Great radio.
. Great radio…
I guess I’d just rather die fighting.
My young sons. I am the only parent they have so I know I have no choice but to keep fighting on no matter how bad things get
Knowing that others would be in pain if I gave up. Seriously, this is prime when I’m in a completely ‘throw in the towel’ mood.
Beyond that, there are people I know online that I’ve never met face-to-face, and I really want to. I keep going so that I continue to have a chance to do so. I know, it’s small, but it works for me.
I have to see what’s next.
The Small One.
Also baseball.
For me, it’d be a sin I’d rather not have on my ledger.
All I have to do is think about the pain it would cause my husband. I went through a period of suicidal ideation earlier this year and when I finally came out of my funk I was horrified to see what the prospect of losing me had done to him. He loves me. It is my duty to protect him and keep him safe. I can’t leave him.
Fear of death keeps me going.
Suicide, if done responsibly, (and I would have to do it responsibly) would just be another damn thing on my already damned long damned to-do list.
I came in to say that. Is there nothing so obscure that someone on the SDMB won’t mention it?
Because tomorrow might be the best day of my life.
Because anyone anywhere could be dead in five minutes if that’s what they wanted to do. What’s so great about it?
Because, as Harvey Fierstein put it “The great thing about suicide is that it’s not one of those things you have to do right now or you lose your chance forever. I mean, you can always do it tomorrow.”
The dread of what others would think of me otherwise.
Pretty darn irrational, but it guides pretty much all of my behavior.
I don’t look for permanent solutions for temporary problems.
Besides, I’m still having waaaaaay too much fun.
Everything.
This exactly.
I have only felt the way the OP describes in the first sentence once in my life. It was long ago and I really don’t want to recall the memory.
If I were to feel that way now - it would be everything in my life and all that it represents that keeps me going.