I think about dying a lot, but I'm not exactly suicidal

I wonder sometimes how common this is — how many people walk through their lives carrying these kinds of thoughts in silence.
I wouldn't know. I don't really talk about it. And I’ve never been to therapy.
I know I probably should, but there are other issues that get in the way — namely, other issues caused by my upbringing, which make me feel like I have to do everything myself. But that’s a story for another time.

If you’re reading this, tell me — does this sound familiar to you?

For me, it doesn’t have a trigger.
It doesn’t come only when things are bad or after something upsetting.
It’s quieter than that.
It can happen while I'm doing absolutely nothing — brushing my teeth, sitting on the bus, watching a TV show.
A thought will slip into my mind: "What if I just wasn’t here anymore?"
It doesn’t feel like a scream. It feels like a whisper.
And it lingers.

I say I'm not suicidal because I don't think about hurting myself.
I don’t fantasize about it or make plans.
It’s more like wishing to be removed, quietly and without violence.
It’s like wanting to step out of a room without making a sound.

If I'm flying somewhere, part of me hopes the plane might go down — instantly, painlessly.
Some nights, I go to bed and think, "Maybe I won’t wake up. Maybe that would be fine."
When I imagine the future — old age, losing people I love, losing pieces of myself — I feel a kind of exhaustion ahead of time.
And sometimes, it seems easier to hope I won’t be around for all of it.

It doesn’t feel like giving up.
It feels like accepting that everything ends — and wondering if it would be so bad if it ended a little sooner.

I remember talking with a client, an older man, about retirement and savings.
He spoke about plans, about stretching life out carefully across the years.
And all I could think about was saving enough to go to Switzerland someday — because I feel that is a better and more humane way to do it, if the time ever came.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m depressed — if there’s a diagnosis waiting for me that I’ve been too proud or too stubborn to face.
Sometimes I wonder if this is just the way some people experience life — not a sickness, but a different temperature of living.
I don't really know.

And yet — here I am.
Living.
Working.
Laughing at jokes.
Making plans for tomorrow.
Sometimes I even catch myself feeling hope, feeling excitement about things I haven't seen or done yet.
Sometimes, I love life so much it scares me.

It’s confusing to hold both realities inside yourself: the quiet wish to go and the stubborn will to stay.

I don’t have a neat conclusion.
I’m writing this more as a question than a confession.

Am I depressed? A fool?
Or just... human?

If you recognize yourself in these words, please know you're not the only one.
Maybe part of staying alive is allowing these thoughts to come and go — not fighting them, not feeding them, just letting them pass like weather over a landscape.
Maybe surviving looks different for everyone.

Maybe survival, in the end, is quieter than we think.