It seems people are confused by this comment. My interpretation is that you mean what I've heard phrased as 'kill the person you are'. Meaning, if it's your life situations and identity that are causing you such distress, why not just walk away?

This could mean switching careers, getting divorced, cutting ties with friends, moving far away, or a combination thereof. After all, suicide would end all of those things too, in a worse way. So if you were willing to do that most final and extreme action, why not just say screw it and start driving? After all you'd have nothing to lose compared to suicide.

In some cases just the realization that one can make changes is significant.

Suicide means an end to all pain and consequences for your actions though (or at least consequences you will have to deal with yourself, as you will no longer exist), and dropping everything and just walking away means you will still have to deal with the consequences of walking away, and the pain of picking up the pieces afterward.

The downvotes speak for themselves. This advice is too unclear to be helpful, and too general to be useful. Instead​ of giving general advice and feeling better, we should try to dig deeper, and resolve the actual problem. As far as the other person wants help, at least.

Uhhh, that was solid advice until the last sentence.

You're right, we should seek to avoid the death of self at any cost.

So thinking about your advice a bit more, it's actually pretty good. I've been in a pretty weird situation where I'm realizing [traditionally well paying and considered successful career] is not the route I currently want to go in my life and want to spend a few years chasing a dream of competing in the top levels of a sport I love.

I'm kind of suicide those original career goals at the moment, but want to make sure I gave life somewhat of the biggest attempt I could.

The are always simple answers to complex issues, and they are usually wrong. This answer desperately needs more insight.

I've heard this advice many times, mostly in shitty memes and as part of /feels/ threads.

I think the problem with it that if you are at that point, you're already feeling utterly hopeless.

Suggesting that someone who's suicidal:

* willingly loses everything in their life

* starts from nothing

* fights their way through the chaos that is building a new life for yourself

* in a strange and unknown place

* with no support at all

is naive and unhelpful.

To me it also feels pretty dismissive, up there with "you should smile more".

Not sure what you're getting at there.

That people can abandon their life instead of committing suicide. But it does not matter, the message was downvoted for lack of clarity, and is too general to be useful.

And those are valid criticisms in this case. There's value in what you said at the top of this reply tree. It deserves to be expressed with more care and clarity next time than were invested this time.

I think it was probably the choice of words in the last sentence (before edit) in particular that bothered people.

I downvoted the message because it's wrong, not because it's unclear.

Your comment shows a lack of understanding of suicidal thinking across a population.