What would be the thing that pushes you over the edge?

Feeling hopeless and seeing no end in sight to my suffering. Being clinically depressed exasperates the situation. I’ve had these thoughts as recent as this time last year. The one thing that saved me was having children. I could never do that to my children. My mother threatened suicide several times during the last ten years of her life. It was very difficult to deal with. It still hurts to think about.

unbearable suffering with no hope of improvement.

Contemplating suicide is normal; everyone does it in one way or another. Actually doing it is going over the edge, so to speak.
What might drive me over the edge would be having to move out of my house permanently, like because of an illness or injury, health insurance/hospitalization being out of the question for monetary reasons.
(Life expectancy for a male is 76.6 years and I am 64, so time is getting short anyway…)

Well, I’m going to talk from an extremely personal perspective, because I’ve felt that way before, and tried it.I’m not going to get super specific in details for obvious reasons and I can tell you it wasn’t just one specific thing. For me it was a lot of things, changes mainly, happening at once.
I have a very bad anxiety disorder, and that was one cause of it. There was a lot of family issues going on, which was another. On top of that, I was at a new school and a lot of kids were very, very bad to me and it just all kind of crescendoed into this very large, burden that became unbearable for me. I was 11, didn’t have a good grip or understanding on things and it all just seemed like the end of the world.

Now, and to answer your question more specifically, there probably wouldn’t be a “thing” that would push me over the edge. That time in my life was the lowest I’ve ever been, and I’ve had some sucky terrible things happen since then, but I’ve been able to cope with it better. I’ve found that life is worth living no matter how bad it gets and I am going to fight through it no matter what. Although I guess if I was like convicted of a murder I didn’t commit and had to spend my life in jail I probably would. But that is a low chance of happening.

I hope I don’t come across a thing that’ll do that to me.

@SergeantQueen so despair was the main cause for you? No hope or no way to combat those things that you couldn’t control?

Yeah, I guess it could be grouped into that.

Old age and the decline of my physical and mental faculties.

Degenerative illness, looming dementia

Being alone. I know what sadness feels like, but I’ve always had family and friends to rely (and be relied) on. I think being truly alone would be unbearable.

Do you mean being isolated? Like desert island alone?

^ Me? It’s not so much being alone physically… I might enjoy a day on a desert island. I’m fine being alone, but I need to know that I have people to turn to.

I suffer from anxiety issues. I have had a few attacks land me in the ER. The feeling during the attack, is basically unbearable. The issue comes, and goes. Sometimes I have weeks, without a problem. Sometimes, I have an attack that won’t respond to my medication. If it were to go on, for too long, I would have to do something. It does not please me to say, but that would probably push me off of my fickle edge…

Having let my kids or grandkids down in a horrible way, even if it was unintentional.

What, me worry? Suicide is not an option for me. Might be painful and I don’t like pain…pain hurts.