Suicide

I've spent my whole life mired in darkness. I was diagnosed with PTSD at 3 years of age, and by 4th grade, I was in treatment for major clinical depression. Since then, I've been in an every flowing spiral of "ok" and "dying." There's no in between, and I hate it. It's like a weight that sucks the lifeblood from me, that leaves me feeling like I'm floating in space and someone cut my lifeline back to the ship. It's oppressive, silent, heavy, forever, and unfixable. It just is. It's also tiring. I'm charismatic, a hard worker, and an expert in my field. I'm the anchor, the happy one in my groups and circles, but most days, I wake up angry that I've done so. Suicidality comes and goes, but it's around so often it's almost like an old friend. It no longer scares me. It longer seems taboo. It's a step I've taken in the past, with little knowledge, but I'm much wiser and older now. Every day, the path looks just a little more clear.

Sometimes people don't kill themselves because they want to die. Sometimes they kill themselves because they're uninterested in living.

Tonight, I put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger for the first time. I made sure that it was unloaded, but halfway convinced myself that there was still a bullet in it before putting it to my head, saying out loud that I deserved this, and pulled the trigger. Before, I did a press-check and imagined confirming that there was a round in the chamber. I imagined the extra weight of a full magazine. I kissed the gun, thanking it for helping me with what I was about to do. The shallow cup-shaped depression in the front of the tactical light held onto the notch in the back of the right side of my skull, helping keep the gun in place and aimed at the rear portion of my brain.

It was so easy.

I think that for some people, doing that might convince them that they weren't actually willing to go through with suicide. Not me.

For me, I was just reminded that I've been dicking around for far too long and need to finish things up.

There's a voice that comes out of me sometimes. Not my usual one, but the dark, cruel, determined voice of a person committed to the idea of hurting me, destroying what I love, and killing me. When I get weak enough to let him slip out, he takes over and talks to me in bathroom mirrors or under my breath while walking late at night. Not in a corny back-and-forth dialogue, but in a monologue, explaining to me at length how much of a failure of a human being I am, how I've never accomplished anything of significance, how I'm cruel and reckless for having allowed a few people to care about me, how I'm an annoyance to everyone else, and what the chain of events will be after I kill myself that will result in more positive things than my life could have accomplished. He berates me for wasting time. Reminds me that I owe it to some people to fully wrap up my affairs and not leave any messes for other people to clean up. Asks me what the fuck I'm doing drawing again. Trying to learn guitar. Making grand plans for art projects. Reminds me that I'm a long way from deserving that life and that I'm just wasting time. Threatens to grow impatient and kill me before I have a chance to finish some work. He says I need to quit my job and get a new one far away. But I won't ever get a chance to move. It will all be a cover for me packing up my things, taking care of loose ends, and giving people a chance to say bye to me. Then I'll go somewhere like a parking lot, call the police, tell them that some guy just shot himself in the head, and finally put a 9mm full stop on the end of the rambling, pointless sentence of my life.

He used to give me reasons why I needed to die, but now it's just orders. It's just understood that I'm done. I've overstayed my welcome. The game is over and I'm just taking my sweet time wandering off of the field.

I can't tell anyone. There's no point in a cry for help when I don't want help and wouldn't accept it.

There's nothing particularly wrong with my life. There's nothing in my life that I can't deal with other than myself. It's been this way for as long as I can remember and I spend every undistracted moment of thought, every day, thinking about the most terrible ways I could mutilate, dismember, and kill myself.

I try to immerse myself in work and maintain a lot of distractions, but that just makes him more angry when he finally comes out again. He wants to keep me from being able to abandon the path to suicide. He wants to break my hands so they can't do work. He wants to alienate me from my friends so I don't have their support. He wants to disfigure me. He wants to limit my options.

He wants me to conclude the remaining business I have in this world, apologize for having existed, and disappear, unable to hurt anyone ever again.

I recently found out that someone I cared for very much killed herself by putting a bullet in her brain. Back in high-school she was a part of my group of friends, went through that part of life with us that tests your bonds with the people around you and the friends you have. She was an absolutely amazing person, even though it constantly surrounded her, she never touched drugs. She held down a job and bought her own car while the rest of us dragged ourselves out of bed for concerts and parties because her parents, a doctor and lawyer, had taught her work ethic. Her personality shone wherever she went, constantly surrounded by her loyal and adoring friends when she wasn't doing other things. She was the one out of all of us that we thought would make it, would make something of herself. Fast forward to a bit ago...she had gotten married and everything seemed fine. She had achieved her dream of getting a boob job and she was ecstatic with life. Then, one day she leaves a note saying she can't love herself and she can't live that way anymore from what I've gathered. And i'm just standing there on the phone wishing with every part of me that I had contacted her again when I came back. I thought she was living her life and I would have plenty of opportunity.... But you never realise how quickly someone can just be gone. I just keep thinking...

Please don't let that light dim love, You've got so far to shine If you needed a hand to hold you could have taken mine.

I just wish she would have known that somewhere out there, someone really appreciated her for the beauty that was her as a whole person. It's a wakeup call If I've ever seen one, don't let the people you really care for stray so far away, or you may be wondering what if for a very long time.

I refuse to commit until I've done every irresponsible thing I can think of. I keep going back, though, to make sure I've done it all properly.

dear best friend's girlfriend:

don't involve my best friend in your cry for help. he's too sensitive. i am sick of him calling at three am because you're crazy. and really, taking a few pills in the middle of the night, because you broke up? because you wanted him to wait at the hospital with you while you explained that it was all a misunderstanding?

i'm sure you know how he operates, and i'm sure you know that now he's afraid to run the fuck away like he really, really needs to. is that what you wanted? pin someone to the glass, so they're too terrified that you're going to die because of their actions? good, he's trapped. poke a hole in the condom now and seal the deal.

dear best friend:

does it never occur to you that you are in control of your own life? you told me that you don't love her. you told me that it's not going to continue when you move. you told me that she's batshit and you wish you'd just stay broken up.

so why are you not extricating yourself from this situation while you can? you're a dumb ass.

dear self:

never do this to the people around you.

I'm such a procrastinator.

When I was twelve I remember an arguement between my parents. My mother has always been emotionally unstable and her partner, let's call her "Emily", was just as bad. We had family therapy and everyone also had their individual therapists to see. Family therapy was terrible We sat in a room with a giant two-way mirror. One therapist in the room with us; the others behind the mirror with their notepads and tape recorders. It's as if we were some experimental family. Anyway, through therapy my mother learned to take walks when she became upset in any way. So this day came, with this certain argument. My siblings were in their respective rooms and I was in the hallway listening. My mother and "Emily" were going at it. It was terrible. I could hear them screaming in front of me and my siblings crying behind me. My mother slammed the front door and walked out. "Emily" went down the stairs to their bedroom. I remained in the hallway and the siblings in their rooms. For a moment the world stood still. Then it errupted again when my mother quickly came back into the house, up the stairs and sat herself onto the couch. From all the therapy I knew that she was on medication and that she knew she was supposed to remove herself from any situation she felt she couldn't handle. So, I sat there and watched as she took her pills. She wanted to take her meds and get out of the house as quickly as possible. That's what it looked like to a twelve year old. I remember the soda, something dark. Pepsi or Coke. No wonder I cannot drink that crap. It was streaming down her face along with her tears. She then tried to go back out the front door but "Emily" had come up the stairs just in time to see what had happened. As my mother tried to go out the front door "Emily" kicked her, making her fall down the last couple of stairs. They again started screaming at each other. My siblings then came out of their rooms. They started screaming "don't hurt my mommy." over and over again. They tried to attack "Emily" thinking she had done something wrong when all she was doing was trying to save my mothers life. And still I just stood there. In the same spot the entire time. I stood there and watched as my mother tried to kill herself.

I've finally decided that there is just no way I'd ever kill myself intentionally.

My logic is fairly simple.

1. If things get too rough, suicide is, of course, a viable option for anyone suffering exceptional mental, physical, or spiritual duress.

2. Inevitably, however, in the course of undertaking the act I'll begin to contemplate the fact that killing myself would just keep me from trying my hand at all the interesting ACCIDENTAL ways to die. Hell...maybe I've even been putting off some rather neat little adventures for the sake of living as injury-free and psychologically-scar-less as possible. So if I were planning on dying anyhow, and therefore have nothing to lose, why not go over Niagara Falls in a barrel? Or try deep-sea drift-diving? Or hike the entire fucking United States coast-to-coast with nothing but the clothes on my back? If I really were planning on killing myself, at least I might consider robbing a bank or sneaking into the penguin exibit at the zoo first -- just to see if I could get away with it.

If I don't die accidentally doing something I might otherwise be afraid of doing because of the risk of injury, persecution, and/or death...I can always shoot myself when I get home. But I'm pretty sure that experiencing the freedom of reckless abandon may just encourage me to keep on truckin', just to see what happens next.

Indeed, sometimes the best cure for a desire for death is living like you've got nothing left to lose.

I think my friend killed herself. That or she attempted it and is back in the hospital. Which means she will kill herself at the next possible moment, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. She was a person I don't think would ever have been happy, but not because she was unable. I think she refused to be happy. That's no way to live, but I was really, really hoping she'd learn to abandon that mindset. The first thing I said to her when she told me she jumped in front of a bus was that her eyes were too pretty for her to kill herself. She said "I like that." Apparently not enough to keep it with herself. I don't want her to be dead, but I guess it is something I just accepted a while back. It still leaves me empty, but there's not much more I can feel. I almost feel a little guilty, but there's nothing I could've done. It seems like all she ever wanted out of life was for it to end. I wanted her to be happy, but I guess I'll have to settle for not sad. That's kind of a horrifying sentiment, I guess.

The hardest part of suicide is living through it.

I don't know how many times I've been tempted to just take that last step. I remember in January a few years ago, I had it all planned out : letter, knife, arm, leg, time.... I was all set. I even wrote a will for my very few possessions.

In my life, I've very rarely felt as though there was something to work towards. I make up goals, hopes, and aspirations in order to keep myself afloat now, however, that does't change the fact that I'm depressed just about constantly. I just wish I still had the outlet of cutting... unfortunately due to poor planning my little "naughty" habit was discovered.

I don't think it's selfish, as another thing has suggested, to "take myself out" of the vast equation that is life. In my case, I had no hope. When there is no hope, there is no reason to hold on. It was not my intention to lie for so long, but I did. I never told anyone about my being a cutter, I never told them just how depressed I was. When I noted how bad it was getting, I sought help and was quickly informed by my parents that I was not depressed. Were they fucking blind?

SYMPTOMS: Longsleeved shirts (constantly) Withdrawal from every-day activities Lack of sleep Lack of motivation Pale, drawn expression Hallow eyes False smiles

To me, it was obvious. However, the hope, the vague small hope that someone needed me kept me going. Then, all of a sudden that hope, too, diminished and I plotted and planned for a day when my sister and parents would be gone until very late, no chance of survival. Then, the day neared and I became excited, yes EXCITED, a the prospect of taking the last step. I looked forward to the numbed sensation of the cool knife digging into my skin. I was comforted by the thought that death was imminent. Then, the night before, I was on the internet talking to an aquaintance and something about him saved me I guess you could say. He restored my hope that someone needed me to make them laugh, to make their lives better.... So that's what I try to do... I try to make people comfortalbe, to help them, to give everything I can to them. That's what keeps me going.

Who hasn't contemplated suicide? The difference is I could never actually do it. To me it seems that people who commit suicide are incredibly selfish. Only thinking about themselves and their problems. How do they not realize that whatever they are going through could be a lot worse?There are so many people in worse situations that choose to continue living. You're not just taking away yourself, you're taking everything that you were. Everything that you meant to someone else. My advice to anyone who is seriously thinking about killing themselves, watch the movie "It's a wonderful life."

I wrote the letter on my grandmother's computer for five months - making sure that everything was perfect.

I was meticulous back then.

I opened up the drawer where my letter opener laid there. Innocent. Innocuous. When I picked it up I thought to myself questions on what I thought I was doing. I etched a word into my foot because there I could confine things. The pain was something in comparison to a paper cut and the blood was no different.

My experiment failed since I didn’t have the courage to go get something bigger. Thus I ripped up my letter and deleted it off my floppy. All the work had gone to waste – I didn’t even come close. My preteen angst pretty much went away after that, I found something new to keep my time occupied (writing) and thoughts of letter openers ceased all together.

In all honesty I think I was just bored rather then suicidal.

I lined the frame of the single door to my small bedroom with towels staplegunned against the cracks so no air would escape. I placed large, heavy books on the heating grates in the floor. Unceremoniously, I lit the coals in the large outdoor grill that I had lugged into my bedroom and began my esoteric first attempt at suicide. Every winter, people die peacefully from carbon monoxide poisoning in their sleep from burning wood or coal in unventilated rooms. This winter, I intended to be one of them. In my extensive research into suicide, I came across the short journal of a Japanese man who was ending his life by asphyxiation by car exhaust. He kept a minute-by-minute log of his thoughts and experiences as his car filled with exhaust and his life slipped away. It was charmingly lighthearted, and the gentleman sounded like someone that I would have liked to have known while he was alive. I don't recall him making any mention of why he did not wish to continue living.

I began writing my note.

"Though I know that my actions will undoubtedly hurt my loved ones, I make no apologies for what I have done. Despite what my usual demeanor may have suggested, I did not live a single day with the intention to live out a full life. Every moment reminded me of repeatedly stopping at the door right before I'm about to leave and running back to grab something I almost forgot, always finding one last thing that I have to stop and tend to before I could finally leave. Well, I've discovered, to my disappointment, that at this point in my life, I have no such distractions to keep me from this any longer. It's not that I don't truly wish to die, it's just that I've honestly been having a lot of fun lately. Alas, nothing can dispel the weight of a lifetime of knowing that I have a responsibility to end my own life.

"The reasons are too numerous to mention and too easily dismissed as a tragic combination of ordinary depression with extraordinary ambition, so I won't bother with trying to explain myself. I'll just leave it at this. I've made my life beautiful by becoming open, inquisitive, exploratory, and true to my own feelings. Now is the time that I'll stop ignoring a lifelong desire to cause my own death. I wish that I could do this without hurting or disappointing anyone, but a desire to keep my loved ones from unnecessary pain is no longer enough to keep me alive.

"I can already feel my faculties being compromised by the lack of oxygen in this room. I only wish that I had more time to write this. To explain what I wanted to accomplish in my life, impart what people truly meant to me, find some way to express the passion that overwhelmed my heart every day. The suicide note that I want to write would take a lifetime to pen, and would have to move off of paper and take other forms to fully encompass the message that I have."

I woke up, startled by my alarm clock and dazed enough to not be sure if I was really in the process of suicide or only dreaming. After turning off the alarm, I spent a long while deep in thought.

When I woke up that morning, I became a living suicide note.