I tried to commit suicide three times in my life, each time with absolute certainty that I would succeed, only to fail three times in committing suicide. We are all different and I'm pretty sure nobody could convince me not to do it if I made the decision and put my mind to it. I felt like nobody could understand me completely, after all how could they when I couldn't understand someone else 100% completely? So how can someone else but me make a massive decision like this, I thought? It's a very dark place to be in, and I can't find words to describe the sensation of overcoming the most basic of survival instinct and "knowing" you're about to die. I believe it is essentially the same as dying, if you are completely honest with your assessment of not being able to survive what you are about to do. Zero doubts. Next thing was, I woke up, doubting the very reality around me. Only for a brief moment of shock though, because soon the very same pain that compelled me to my actions reminded me of my failure.
After the third time I gave up, personally I felt convinced that something is preventing me to take the early exit, whatever it was I couldn't tell, I just refused believe it was coincidence anymore, it was too hard to integrate all those traumatic experiences in any other meaningful way.
Many years passed, painful years, but I wasn't obsessed about dying anymore, the amount of pain combined with those three experiences had somehow fucked me up mentally. Couldn't really put a finger on what exactly happened, but it's like I failed so bad that it forced me to rethink how I think and feel about my emotions, I found distance to them. Distance provided safety, but I am permanently scarred emotionally. I acknowledge this in a bizarre, neutral yet melancholic way. I don't know if I feel genuine love anymore for example, I imitate what I believe to be love, but it feels like something I've mostly picked up and it's like trying to have a glass of water from mere shards of glass if that makes any sense. I very rarely think of this, because it's hard to think about something you don't feel but you are absolutely positive that you once felt. You kind of forget about it and just live your life, not questioning your belief of having those emotions. But every once in a while something reminds you of it, and you remember losing something fundamental, but it doesn't really evoke a feeling like you think it should, which makes it even more convincing, but only in a rational way, not emotional.
I am very much glad that I'm still here, though. I really can't say that if I could go back in time I would prevent myself from doing what I did because I was so convinced at the time it was the only way, I could have probably rationalized that not even a future version of me could know that suicide wasn't a better option because he obviously didn't do it, and who else could come closer to understanding how I felt except me myself? On one hand it resulted in the person who I am today, a person that is glad to be alive, but on the other hand I could as easily be dead.
I crossed some really fundamental lines and I can never undo what I did to my psyche. I wish I didn't, it's rarely a positive thing to have feelings of loss. Whenever I say the words 'I love you', deep down I feel a little guilty, because despite trying my best, I have doubts that it means the same when others say those words (I mean this in a more general way, not implying that everyone doesn't feel love uniquely). Nobody will ever really know either, because I do try to love to the best of my ability, so it appears genuine because at least I'm not intentionally holding out or anything. It is really much easier to try not to think about it and especially much easier to not speak in person about it with people who I care about, so as to not confuse them and cause them to have negative feelings.
Does it make me a hypocrite to personally not recommend attempting suicide, because I tried it three times, even if I feel glad to be alive now? I don't know, but in the end the chaos of life that can bring one on the brink of suicide can also pull one out of there, sometimes in ways that are simply inconceivable, I believe it has to work that way, there are no absolute dead ends in the universe because that would break causality. That thought gives me hope at least. Still, it doesn't mean one can't get stuck in a seemingly impossible to get out of black hole, sometimes for such an unbearably long time that no current coping mechanism is sufficient anymore.
I have a great deal of respect for personal autonomy and believe everyone has the right to make these decisions for themselves, it feels wrong to me to force either death or life upon another person. I think I might be too terrified to live if it was somehow permanent, the fact that life (in this body at least) is only temporary and I have the control over my own existence as the person who I am gives me the courage to actually live my life.
:D
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