A fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies could make the difference for me.

Yeah, that was where I was going, but you guys are better at focusing it than I had been. Thanks.

It can be something really, really stupid. Like "If I survive till my next birthday, I'll buy myself that trip to Spain."

Just to add... it can also be something like "But if I screw up and survive, how'm I going to explain it?"

I think the thing about moving from suicide is starting to see the future. To be able to visualize something for yourself beyond the pain and despair that has you wanting to be done with it all. Suicide comes out of a lack of (perceived) options. Leaving it comes from realizing there are other things that could happen, and that you can choose one of those other things.

That's what the triggers that everyone else is talking about are. They're what make you see that outer world. They're what make you aware of the possibility of otherness.

There could also be the realization that you don't want to actually die, that it's not the end of your life you want but the end of this painful existance, that what you really want is some way to be reborn into a life that is new and better and painfree. And dying isn't going to give you that option.

That's what the triggers that everyone else is talking about are.

No, actually. I'm talking about what happens before the dawn starts to break. How you hang on when you can't see the future, when you don't believe things can ever get better.

Ah. Apologies. Yes, this is a necessary part. Because it can be such a long time from there to hope, and something's gotta be there to hang onto in the meanwhile.

No, actually. I'm talking about what happens before the dawn starts to break. How you hang on when you can't see the future, when you don't believe things can ever get better.

Morbid humour, a fear of people going through your things. Sometimes, the sneaking suspicion that you'd be doing them all a favour and they'd throw a party to celebrate is enough to keep a body going.

There's also the conviction that everybody will be better off without you to drag them down with your contagious depression and endless needs and complaining over stuff that you should have been able to cope with. That, since they're essentially healthy people, a couple weeks after the funeral they'll not only be getting on with their lives, the lives will be measurably better because they don't have to cope with You.

When I die, the people in my head die too. I can't drag them down too, their stories untold. They may find me in a hospital bed with tubes some day, still scribbling stuff down.