The first time I tried to commit suicide, it was blind luck and fast reflexes that saved me. I purposely stepped in front of a moving car. I figured it'd look like an accident. Luckily the driver had really fast reflexes and managed to swerve and break. He still hit me and I rolled from the hit, but only had scrapes and bruises.
The second time, I was going to slit my wrists. I had the razor to my skin and had already tried a tiny cut to know how it felt when I started thinking about how this would destroy my mom. I was the good kid while all my siblings were fuck ups. If I did this it would destroy her to feel that she had failed all 5 of us.
Later, around 24, I finally realized I needed to find d a way to live. I was alone and watching that 70s show. It was the episode where red had a heart attack and Eric realizes he can't go to school. A very similar thing had happened to my family when I was 18. I had to give up school to help support them. It wasn't until 22 that I was able to go. I'm not sure how I kept up trying to go. Anyways, somehow I had always missed this exact episode before. When Eric broke down in the episode, I burst out crying. Like full uncontrollable heaving full body Ingelhart crying. That lasted for almost an hour. When it finally stopped, I realized I was fucking up my life. I didn't care if I lived, I secretly hoped I'd die in an accident so I wouldn't have purposely hurt my mom. I was surviving, but I wasn't living. I had fucked up going to college by getting too into drugs because they made me not care. They made me feel happy. I realized I needed to live. To really live. So I made that my goal. I would stop thinking and wishing the past was different. I would stop wishing I hadn't been sexually abused as a child. I wouldn't focus on the future though. I just tried to live in the moment. I thought about what I could immediately do to be happier and improve my life. So I dropped out of college. I was failing anyways and wasn't happy. I started exercising and became a vegetarian. I lost 70 pounds over 6 months. And I slowly stopped doing drugs. I relapsed multiple times over the next couple years before finally stopping though.
Now it's been almost 5 years since that day. I've moved over 2000 miles. I have a good job. I can afford my own place. For the first time in a very long time I feel able to plan for more than about 3 months ahead. I have the startings of a long term plan. I'm working on fixing my credit which is terrible, and I have a plan to start a 401k after I finish paying off a few debts this summer. Most of all I feel alive. I don't always feel happy, but I feel content with my life.
If I had to give advice, I would say a few things:
1) don't focus on the past. You can't change it. All you do is end up in a negative loop wishing things were different, wishing things hadn't happened, wishing you hadn't done things. You have to acetic it can't change. Then you have to force yourself to not think about it. Listen to music, draw, watch TV, read. Just do anything to not let the thoughts loop.
2) learn to meditate. The trick is don't try to not think. Instead focus on your breathing and just try to let thoughts flow. Let them enter your mind, run their course, and then leave to be replaced by something new. Just keep letting that happen. Get used to not holding onto thoughts. You can't prevent them from popping into your head, but you can learn to let them go instead of looping.
3) you can't always be happy. Sometime you will be sad. Sometime you'll feel horrible. You can be content though. You can be content with your life. That way, even when sad, you don't wish it was different.
4) live in the moment for awhile. Don't go more than 3 months into the future. Think about what can be changed. Think about what you can do immediately to start feeling better. Focus on those only. Try and do something that you enjoy our get satisfaction from. Just make sure to not live in the past or the far future. Be in the present. When you're ready, you'll start thinking about the future again. Only this time it will be about slow and small improvements on your life, not drastic changes.
5) don't try to give up every vice. I still smoke cigarettes and drink too much soda. Eventually I'll stop smoking, but not now. It still helps with other cravings too much. And third to this, don't hate yourself for those vices. Acetic you need them, accept you enjoy them. Instead applaud yourself for the vice you have given up. You deserve to keep a little one compared to the big ones you've given up.
6) lastly, sometimes you can't completely love yourself. I'm never gonna feel while. A part of me well always feel broken and dirty, but I can live with that part. It doesn't prevent me from feeling content. It helps that I volunteer places. That helps me feel like I'm doing good, and it balances out the ways in which I feel like a bad person for my past. Both what I did and what happened to me.
There's a lot more I could say, but those are the biggest things.