fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2230 ]

[ SECRET POST #2230 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2230 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

__________________________________________________

10.

__________________________________________________

11.

__________________________________________________

12.

__________________________________________________

13.

__________________________________________________

14.

__________________________________________________

15.

__________________________________________________

Notes:

Early because blizzard, not quite sure if power will last.

Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 103 secrets from Secret Submission Post #319.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I know that this is an unpopular opinion and whatnot, but I'm inclined to agree. There's no way to ask a child if they want to be born. I see the process of pregnancy and birth as the process of forcing somebody into existence...
which is rather creepy. In many cases it works out just fine, of course, so usually it's not a problem. It is quite painful when it is, though.
Suicide is not completely out of question, but these are two very different things: to be never born and to be born and then kill yourself.

I find your train of thought very worrying. From the outside, you sound pretty severely depressed, and if you are that bad off, please consider getting help.

I don't think they're severely depressed just for exploring a line of thought. It doesn't sound like they're intending to commit suicide. Anyway it's an interesting topic and I've thought about this thing before too. I wonder what it would be like if people had a choice about whether or not they're born (or reborn).

Um, I'm not sure about this. I do have a very grim world outlook, that much is true. However, it doesn't seem to interfere with my life.

What can be worrying is that I would like to have an opportunity of commiting quick and painless suicide at any given moment; but people usually assume that the wish to kill oneself bespeaks depression, and I don't feel anything that strong. It's not even like my life is bad (sometimes it is pretty good), just very tiresome. The game's not worth the candle. And I would like to drop it as soon as something really bad happens. [which does not mean that I wouldn't die content at the age of eighty, because by "really bad" I mean "terrible" or "extremely painful"]

...thank you for your concern, though. It is nice of you to worry about me.

Okay, you didn't come here to be psychoanalyzed and I didn't come here to psychoanalyze, so I'm just going to say that feeling life is tiresome and not feeling anything very strongly is classic, classic depression. When I was really depressed I described myself as being bored. That is all.

I suppose you're right *rubs the bridge of the nose*

But I'm not sure if it should bother me. It doesn't feel like something's wrong.

Yeah, those are signs of depression. It's not necessarily feeling sad or horrible. A lot of times it's just not being able to find joy and excitement in things that you should be able to find joy and excitement in. All your feelings are flattened. Feeling like a robot just going through the motions. Feeling tired all the time. Depression often isn't caused by trauma, it's purely a brain chemistry out of wack thing. It shows up a lot in late adolescence/early adulthood.

I'd talk it over with your doctor. An antidepressant may make an incredible difference in how good you feel. Like night and day.

This was how I felt/thought when I was depressed.

The game's not worth the candle.

This, in particular, is not something a non-depressed person would say. Thinking sometimes because you're tired, hey, it happens. But holding it as your default state of mind? Not good.

Like,

I would like to have an opportunity of commiting quick and painless suicide at any given moment; but people usually assume that the wish to kill oneself bespeaks depression, and I don't feel anything that strong.

This is exactly what I thought too. Please, talk to someone. :(

I'm on meds, I'm in therapy (which fucking hurts), I have a great support network. I'm a reasonably happy and mindful person, obnoxiously optimistic and generally positive.

But if I could get off this ride without kicking someone in the face, I would. That's not selfish, and that's not sick.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2013-02-10 18:13 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2013-02-10 20:08 (UTC) - Expand

(reply from suspended user)

My parents made a choice for me and my brother. For him it's worked out beautifully - he is happy more often than not, and he likes being alive. Me? I am plodding along and trying to make the best of a shitty situation (having been born as I was). More often than not I'm in crippling emotional pain. I can't work full-time because it makes me physically sick within a year or so, and I have to constantly negotiate even the most mundane chores with myself. It takes me three intense, annoying, painful hours to talk myself into leaving the house in the morning to go to work (thank god for flexible times). I've dealt with this since I can remember (and I mean that literally, one of my first clear memories is considering jumping out of a 5th story window).

I have aspergers accompanied by a depression brought on by the constant exhaustion of trying to navigate social situations without cruise control.

I know that my life will never really get much better than it is right now: Holding down a (part time) job that pays well enough for me and a person I love, and delivering satisfactory performance, occassionally cooking for myself and managing not to let my flat turn into a complete pigsty. I'm super proud of having got this far (because nobody coulda predicted it a while back), but that pride does not make me happy or obligated to live.

The only problem is that ending your life is way more problematic than actually just never having it. I'm not an asshole; I don't want to contribute to a rescue worker's or train driver's professional trauma. If I could give it back though, no strings attached, dignitas style so nobody gets hurt? In a fucking heartbeat.

So yeah, my wish to not be (not a wish to die, mind you) has everything to do with my depression, but it is not one of the symptoms. It's just the result of an honest evaluation of my life so far, and the future I see ahead of myself. I got maybe sixty years left, in which something good might or might not happen. It's kind of like a lottery you can't opt out of without hurting someone. Can you see how that's maybe something I wish my parents had considered before they had me? It's a shitty situation to be stuck in.

Ooh, I just wish something really good happens in your life. It is always great to have things you can remember fondly.

E-hugs, anon. I feel your pain. Sixty years is a long time; there's a high probability that there will be psychological changes and interesting events.

I'm sorry you are suffering, but you are being unfair to your parents. They aren't psychic. There is no way for them to have known you would end up like this -- and every reason to expect that you wouldn't.

Your wish to die has everything to do with your depression. Like 100% you can blame that fucker for this feeling. Even people with quite severe disabilities still find joy and happiness in life and are very happy to have been born. Even people living in quite desperate situations fight hard to live. Wanting to live is by far the norm, no matter the circumstance, so much so that most people don't even consider killing themselves. It's depression that's the one that tells you that it's not worth while.

You have to understand: Depression is a liar. It blames everything and everyone but itself. It comes up with impossible expectations for everyone and then punishes with derision when those expectations aren't met. It tells you that the way you feel now is the way you will always feel. It robs you of pleasure. It tells you that life isn't worth living and everyone would be fine without you. But all those things are lies. I have depression. It's an asshole.

Edited 2013-02-10 18:59 (UTC)

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2013-02-10 20:40 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2013-02-10 20:46 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

velvet_mace - 2013-02-10 22:49 (UTC) - Expand

There's nothing inherently wrong about it. You cannot account for the feelings of something that does not exist. If you have a child with the full capacity to raise it well, this isn't selfish. I do think it's selfish to think your parents should have somehow known that you would be the ejaculate that never wanted to be born. There is not evil or good bias to life naturally. Certain conditions can be, but life itself doesn't lend itself to being a good or bad choice, sense many, many things play into the quality of your life besides the simple act of birth.

By that standard, everything that ever happens to anyone is the fault of your parent. If they hadn't given birth to you, you might not have broken your arm, or got humiliated in high school, and so on. But then, wouldn't it also be your grandparents fault for bringing your parents into the world?

Well, there's nothing "inherently wrong" about anything, since the concept of evil is highly subjective and probably does not even exist outside of the human mind.

I do not disagree with you, anon, because I am aware of the logical chain you just produced. As I already mentioned, in most cases it does work out, so no reason to worry. However, as absurd as it may sound, this is a part of the reason why I feel that life mechanism sucks.

How is it selfish? Stupid - maybe, but it doesn't have anything to do with selfishness.

It is true that feelings of an unborn can't be accounted for, but I do think that there's something very wrong with the situation when parents produce to a child, then some years pass, the child says that she/he is unhappy and would prefer to be never born, and the parens are all like "well, that's your problems, we weren't obliged to know that you would turn out like this".

On the surface it sounds wrong, but in reality...I don't think it is. You can say "I'm sorry you're unhappy", but it's very difficult to pin down exactly why someone is unhappy. Could it have been their upbringing? That's often likely, but it can be other things, too. And generally people cannot determine what it is. I think it's selfish to blame it on your parents (provided you had a good childhood), because that's presuming you know EXACTLY what caused your unhappiness in the first place.

And then there's a whole argument about the meaning of happiness to someone who never wanted to exist, but that's getting very existential.

What if some years pass and your child says "I'm so happy and I'm glad that I was born!"

It's a gamble, yeah, but as you said you can't tell in advance whether or not someone wants to be born - but they might enjoy their life very, very much if they are born.

Lots of people like being alive. I'd say it's way better than 50/50 odds, so why bet that your potential kid won't enjoy life (provided you could provide it with a comfortable life - that would certainly affect whether or not they enjoy life).

(no subject)

dreemyweird - 2013-02-10 00:43 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

velvet_mace - 2013-02-10 19:04 (UTC) - Expand

I think that was part of the... was it the Cathars? They thought material life was inherently evil, so it was evil to incarnate any souls, so they only engaged in non-procreative sex? I think it was the Cathars.

Yes, it was the Cathars. I do sort of sympathize with them, by the way. They seemed to be rather peaceful, and the way they were eventually slaughtered was rather uncalled for.

As far as I remember, any kind of sex was considered evil, not just non-procreative (which would be really hard to perform, I suspect, because they had almost no effective contraception).

Edited 2013-02-09 23:13 (UTC)

I think they were unusual in that oral and anal sex were considered no worse than PIV sex. I believe that the Middle English word-ancestor of "bugger" denoted an Albigensian Cathar.

As medieval religious sects go, the Cathars were pretty harmless and they definitely did not deserve to get gruesomely Crusaded at.

Which would be really hard to perform, I suspect, because they had almost no effective contraception.

I was actually just reading about the Cathars yesterday, weirdly enough. O_o The were first thought to come from "Bulgaria", , which meant they were called Bulgres, and that word was turned by the Church in to the French Bougre and English Bugger.

In other words, they were thought to practice "buggery"/sodomy.

And even if they didn't, back-door sex was known to prevent children, and was used surreptitiously as a way for people to have sex without having to worry about children. There were also several different plants/herbs that could stop the egg from attaching to the womb/to act like a spermicide/to induce an abortion. So, there were methods of effective contraception.

I don't find it inherently selfish, but the question remains, what are we plucking the child from?
There is no proven concept of what existence or inexistence life has before it becomes a life, nor that living and its experiences are any better or worse.

I don't feel as if bringing a child into the world is inherently selfish or noble.
We're just an organism reproducing, the way organisms do.

I don't feel as if bringing a child into the world is inherently selfish or noble.
We're just an organism reproducing, the way organisms do.

I agree with this.

I don't feel as if bringing a child into the world is inherently selfish or noble.
We're just an organism reproducing, the way organisms do.

THANK YOU. Maybe it's because I have a huge extended family (50 first cousins) so one of my aunts was almost always pregnant, but I've just viewed conception/pregnancy/child-rearing as a part of life, not in terms of nobility or selfishness. I think the people here with the grimmest outlooks have known very little familial love.

"There's no way to ask a child if they want to be born."

what the fuck.

"forcing someone into existence"

i can't. i fucking can't.

wtf wtf wtf

I overall strongly disagree with most of their sentiments, but this is a fair one. You don't owe your parents anything because you can't ask to be born; similarly, you are the reason that kid is there, you are obligated to care for them until they can properly care for themselves.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only