Quotes / Mid-Suicide Regret

“[Ken] Baldwin was twenty-eight and severely depressed on the August day in 1985 when he told his wife not to expect him home till late. “I wanted to disappear,” he said. “So the Golden Gate was the spot. I’d heard that the water just sweeps you under.” On the bridge, Baldwin counted to ten and stayed frozen. He counted to ten again, then vaulted over. “I still see my hands coming off the railing,” he said. As he crossed the chord in flight, Baldwin recalls, “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable—except for having just jumped.

"Jumpers", The New Yorker, October 5, 2003

“I became despondent. I just wanted to love someone. I just wanted to care about someone. [Player], you might not believe this... But I decided... It wasn't worth living anymore. Not in a world without love. Not in a world without you. So... I decided to follow in your footsteps. I would erase myself from existence. And you know what? I succeeded.”

“But as I left this mortal coil... I started to feel apprehensive. If you don't have a SOUL, what happens when you...? Something primal started to burn inside me. "No," I thought. "I don't want to die!" ... Then I woke up. Like it was all just a bad dream. I was back at the garden. Back at my "save point."”

—Flowey's genocide speech, Undertale

The weak breeze whispers nothing. The water screams sublime
His feet shift, teeter-totter
Deep breath, stand back, it’s time
Toes untouch the overpass
Soon, he’s waterbound
Eyes locked shut but peek to see
The view from halfway down

A little wind, a summer sun
A river rich and regal
A flood of fond endorphins
Brings a calm that knows no equal
You’re flying now
You see things much more clear than from the ground
It’s all okay, it would be
Were you not now halfway down

Thrash to break from gravity
What now could slow the drop?
All I’d give for toes to touch
The safety back at top
But this is it, the deed is done
Silence drowns the sound
Before I leaped I should’ve seen
The view from halfway down

I really should’ve thought about
The view from halfway down
I wish I could’ve known about
The view from halfway down.

—Secretariat's Poem, "The View From Halfway Down", Bojack Horseman

I wanna live, wanna live
Deep inside I've always been
Reaching out for a hand
So don't let this be the end

—IA, "Shinitai-chan"

Now that I'm staring down at the darkest abyss
I'm not sure what I want, but I don't think it's this
As my comrades call to stand fast and forge on
I make sail for the dawn 'til the darkness has gone

—The Longest Johns, "Bones in the Ocean"