Hey Sky. As somebody who has struggled with suicidal ideation for longer than you’ve been alive, I’m not gonna try to convince you one way or the other. I’m not gonna list off the reasons why you shouldn’t do it, or why people will miss you, or how valuable you are, or whatever else. I know it’ll just be empty platitudes to you, as it often is for me when I’m in the same state. If your time is truly limited, then I’m not going to waste it with that. Besides, I’m sure you’ve already ruminated over those things for hours upon end, anyway.

I know that you know that some rando on the internet isn’t going to offer you some world-changing perspective on life, so I’m not here to try to change your mind. To go through with this or not will always be your decision, and your decision alone. All I’m going to do is just offer you some things to think about, some questions to ask yourself. You don’t need to answer or explain anything to me; if you don’t even reply to this at all, that’s totally fine. But I hope you at least hear me out. And I don’t expect you to have an answer for any of these questions, either. I know I wouldn’t have these answers, myself.

First off, you mentioned wanting to implement a dead-man’s switch to alert 911 to avoid trauma. Why? If you’re going to be dead, why do you care about anybody else’s trauma? That’s not going to be your problem to deal with - you can’t be held accountable for it. Are you worried about anybody in particular finding your body? If so, why concern yourself with whether they’re 9/10 traumatized or 10/10 traumatized? Chances are that this person - whose feelings you care about enough to consider in your suicide plans - is going to go through roughly the same amount of trauma in the end, so why not just rip the band-aid off and let them find you?

If there’s somebody specific that you’re considering in your plans, have you brought up any of this to them? What’s stopping you from calling them right now and saying “I’m going to kill myself tonight, here’s why, here’s what I wanted you to know”? How would that call go? It would probably be more effective at trauma mitigation than hoping a timer works correctly, if anything. If your goal is to minimize the harm done to others, then the best way to do that is to be direct and brace them for it, I’d say.

You also said in the comments that you’re on HRT. I know that you were a bit resistive to hearing it when somebody else brought it up, but you really should consider bringing this episode up with your doctor, as any type of hormonal therapy has the potential to exacerbate mental health issues. Your doctor can consider alternative medications, or adjusting your dosage, or supplementing your prescription with something like an antidepressant to address the suicidal ideation. It’s important to recognize that what you’re feeling right now is not normal or rational; you’re talking about killing yourself over a thousand dollars of debt, which really isn’t even that much money. This isn’t going to be an Enron-level suicide (before your time, look it up). For most people, that would be like killing themselves over missing a single rent payment. I just want to highlight the disproportional escalation in this situation, in case you’re not seeing it for what it is at the moment.

What’s the worst that could happen with bringing it up to your doctor, anyway? They tell you your brain is broken and you’ll never live a normal life without medication? Okay, big whoop. It’s not like you’d have been missing out on much else, anyways. Unless you’re filthy rich, life sucks whether you’re chemically-balanced or not. Besides, how embarrassing would it be if your doctor heard the news of your death and said “bitch would’ve been just fine if she just asked for some trazodone or something”? For real, it’s entirely possible that something so simple can solve so much. So please give consideration to the idea that perhaps the solution to at least some of your problems is one of a chemical nature, not concussive. I’d at least give it a shot before ruling it out.

At any rate, nobody can stop you from doing what you gotta do. I know that whatever happens, you’ll have made whatever was the right decision for yourself. I just hope that the right decision is one where you stick around a bit longer. Hope things turn around for you.