Thanks for this thoughtful post, ciderguy. I have spent a lot of time during the 25+ years that I've been dealing with depression thinking about suicide.

I suppose the only reasons that I've come up with not to do it that make sense to me are that, first, because most of society hasn't spent years contemplating the moral implications of suicide, most of them are going to react by being shocked and sad-to-devastated if someone they know commits suicide.

I don't see any way to leave this world like that without causing a huge tear in the fabric of society. Even people who don't have extremely close personal connections are going to have this effect.

My second reason is that this is my only life, as far as I know, and I've decided, really only in the last year, that I want to be here for all of it. I used to read this poem, called "Wait" by Galway Kinnell, and I didn't want to wait, but right now I feel like I want to be around for everything.

(I don't know what the deal is with the references to hair in the poem - I think GK wrote the poem for a student of his, so maybe it was particular to that student.)

I was talking to a former therapist late last year about my constant (at that time) thoughts of suicide, and came to the conclusion that my brain was trying to reassure me that I had a way out if things got unbearable.

Since my mental states often fluctuate, I can't say that I won't go back to contemplating suicide regularly, but for now, I've decided to wait.