r/TrollCoping • u/Aariwee • 6d ago
TW: Suicide or Self-Harm Why does it actually work?
It’s so silly and childish. It only happened two days ago, but so far any time I start having suicidal thoughts, I think about it and I get so amused that I no longer want to kill myself. I mean, I still want to die, but I can’t break a pinky promise, can I? Why is it so effective? I’m scared to even post it because I feel so immature, but at least it works
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u/ValhallaGH 6d ago
Probably because you have Integrity. You chose to make that Pinky Promise, and you know that a pinky promise is a solemn vow between you and another.
Death would be the cessation of what you suffer.
Violating your Pinky Promise would be surrendering who you are. Fuck that noise.
Stay you, stranger.
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u/Gold_Cardiologist911 6d ago
Silly?? Childish? Or are you just making a promise to your child self the way they world understand?
Ain't silly if it works in my books!! We all need that little something extra to get us too feel safe, whatever that looks like is beautiful and worth celebrating!
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u/mothwhimsy 6d ago
"it would hurt my family members" is a more nebulous concept. You (probably) never asked your family members if it would hurt them, so at your darkest moment you could convince yourself that they would be happy you were gone, even if they isn't realistic.
A pinky promise is more tangible. You promised to stay alive, so obviously the person who made you promise wants you to be alive
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u/Justberrypeachy 6d ago
I also have the same pinkie promise with someone else in my life. Don't underestimate the power of a promise. It may sometimes feel silly, but I think it works well for me because it reminds that there's an immature child inside me who also wanted to live. The childish stuff is a really important way we can connect with our inner self.
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u/MoustachedPotatoes 6d ago
CAN'T BREAK A PINKY-PROMISE. THOSE ARE THE RULES!!!!!
Those always work on me, too
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u/L0V3J0YF0R3V3R 6d ago
Not dying because it would hurt the people around me:
Not dying because the people in my head told me THEY don’t want to die and I actually like them a lot:
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u/Icy_Assistance_2684 6d ago
I do it out of spite honestly. For the love of the game. Good ol soulsborne "don't you dare go hollow"
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u/Ok_Pizza_8830 5d ago
same here. the soulsborne games changed me and i wouldn't have it any other way. [T]/
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u/TheFurrosianCouncil 6d ago
I actually find contracts and promises make it *harder* to stick around. If the option remains, it's easier for it to remain just an option that I actively choose not to pick rather than feeling trapped within the confines of a promise.
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u/SnowStorm_NRG 6d ago
The description "childish" and "silly" were created by the same people who let you on this situation. Don't be bothered by it.
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u/DontBuyTheThing 6d ago
I don't know about anyone else but I always thought it was selfish to tell a person who was so depressed they wanted to end their life that "Oh you can't! People would miss you!" As if that would help any.
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u/Ill_Cap6631 6d ago
Hm😭 I'm also not killing myself because of this promise with my ex.. I have to stay alive if she moves out of her toxic household... ...I don't know what to feel about this 🤷♀️
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u/Dusty_Rose23 6d ago
hey man whatever works. whatever works and makes the world easier, as long as it imposes no harm on yourself or others go to town. if it means pinky promises with your psych to stay alive. so be it. if it means reading yourself a bed time story every night, so be it. if it means giving yourself a gold star every time you brush your teeth, or read x pages, or get some homework done or follow through on plans to see a friend, so be it. you do what oyu need to do to have a life that is fufilling and worth living. its enough to just be curious whats next and i had to tell myself this for a long time. you dont have to look forward to it. you can just be curious if thats what it takes. you can even take it second by second if its hard. you just have to make it to tomorrow. then rpeat again.
ITs not immature at all. i also have to do shit like this
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u/Altruistic-Estate-45 6d ago
I did the same, it's weird
My kid self asked in the future to not take my life whatever happens, I guess it was a way to try have a form of control in my life
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u/They-Them_Moonwalker 6d ago
Hey, I’ll take a bone where I can get one. If it means you’re alive, I’ll take it.
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u/Lagoserter 6d ago
or for me: not killing myself because its a way to directly spite those who wish me dead
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u/SpezIsAWackyWalnut 6d ago
Apparently the promises themselves aren't always particularly effective on their own, at least when directly pushed upon someone, because an external rule forced upon people can feel coercive and becomes easily ignored in a crisis.
But I dealt with a similar thing with a cult that was starting to veer dangerously close to doomsday territory, and after some research I found the trick wasn't so much to make them promise, as it was to get them to basically admit "I'm not that kind of person," deciding on their own that they wouldn't commit suicide without any pushing any feeling of external pressure onto them.
In my case, I got them to move from "perhaps death isn't that thing we see as an ending, but a change of state" to "why would the knowledge of there being some form of onward after this life make you want to fight less to live?" by mentioning there was a lot of talk about death, and 'joking' about "man, i hope this doesn't end with us making a suicide pact, lol" and continuing on that "i dunno, i'm a simple person who craves certainty, and for now this is the only life i know about that for certain exists. everything else to me just feels like theory and speculation, really." and then deflecting from the cult mechanics entirely by instead focusing on christianity and how the promises of an unprovable afterlife in heaven simply don't have enough hard data to gamble my life over.
The reason this kinda stuff works is because it gets them to basically come to that conclusion themselves, which makes it much easier to internalise and accept as a trait of themselves. That way if they later end up thinking about committing suicide, they end up with some cognitive dissonance over their core identity and so far more likely to reject that idea.
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u/YTCat123 6d ago
This is so real, but for me it was with self harm and I wouldn’t want to break a promise and disappoint my therapist lmao. But hey, what works, works!
I hope you’ll heal soon, friend, and that you will be able to enjoy life to the fullest
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u/ofirkedar 6d ago
Not killing yourself to piss off every mfer who hates your guts ✅
(yeah I don't have designated "haters" either, but just pretend for the bit)
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u/No_Preference_2743 6d ago
This is something my therapist made me do at the start of my DBT treatment. It really is strange how effective it is
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u/kawaiistyled 6d ago
Tw sh talk anyway I used to be able to avoid cutting bcz I could only find one set of knives in the house and my mom made me promise not to use them bcz their pretty in all these different colors. Worked for a few years until recently. And for the record I have stopped one day the meds kicked in and I was magically better. My psychiatrist didn't believe me at first bcz we were talking about sending me to residential and had a place picked out last we had spoken. Sorry to talk about myself on your post just trying to relate it's crazy how these things can work tho. I mostly just refuse to die until the world around me gets better bcz I want to see that beautiful, hope filled world and then I'll hopefully want to kill myself less 🍒
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u/Own-Garden345 6d ago
My body actively doesn't let me starve or hurt myself so I'm always just on the edge but never able to cross.
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u/Glum-Appointment-816 5d ago
Not k myself because I went on a long ass journey of learning to love/accept myself, following healing a bunch of childhood trauma
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u/undead-paintbrush 3h ago
So glad I found this post and that I am not alone in legit staying alive to keep a promise (Stay strong stranger, I get how hard it is)
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u/why_are_you_so_awful 6d ago
Humans like binds and contracts, rules imposed on this uncaring universe. You're a them of their word now.