Mental Health My Suicide Note Collection Is Bigger Than My Shoe Collection...

[dishearten]

I've been writing my own suicide notes for half my life now.
I'm 25, the first one I have is from age 13.
I find new ones at least 4 times or more per year.. I have all of them.
Everyone that I trust with this information looks at me and either says something around the words of "what the fuck.." or cannot say anything and I see so much confusion in their eyes.
I was just recently told to throw them out or lock them away since I will not rid myself of them.
I've been writing a book about my life.. (abuse, rape, growing up with high and very abusive parents and a brother and sister, my immense and inevitable understanding of the undertow, and yes of course suicide..) This purpose is about my hopeful transcendence, in which I cannot complete until I break the glass around me and realize my life is more than Grey.. So these Suicide Notes are very important in order to tell my story in all it's pain.

The thing of it is, is before I decided to write this manuscript.. I never thought of throwing these notes out.
They are a part of me.
I have not touched the collection yet because I keep finding more.. And writing more.

I remember writing a lot after my rape, I was writing a lot when I was using and felt like there was nothing more to life, I was writing them after my ex fiance or sister beat me so bad that I wound up hidden in the closet after cutting my skin apart-- I remember writing a particular one about how my parents never protected me.. About how nobody ever did.

My heart breaks writing this.. This truth hurts, but i'm really hoping someone can understand why I write so many.. And save them.

I get intrigued when I find a new one, I read it and try to remember the pain I was feeling.. What exactly was I thinking at the time.
I wrote most before bed..
I think that's when I felt the safest no matter where I was, before my sleeping pills kicked in-- I didn't have to worry, I would soon be asleep. Almost like I was simply just writing, and it was a psychological way to trick my mind to thinking the day was over, and it was okay now.. I could write it, and fall a sleep feeling much safer, in essence-- I recall always feeling like I (needed) to so I could mentally go away. Yes, it's been a game.. Perhaps just how I used to always feel about my life, getting hurt and hit, never reaching any bit of solace.. Ever.

I never thought this was strange whatsoever.. Until recently, when I was starting to copy one down for my manuscript and someone said something very nasty about how it was "just sick"..
It felt like they were rejecting me, and my beliefs. My beliefs that these are important to my past, because they're like a book in itself. They tell me things that my other writing never has.

I know I have a interesting way of thinking and this especially shows in my writing, it appears just lovely and so true to me. But recently, I've been getting judged and scrutinized for something I never thought was a problem, in fact in my writing I see so much.. Not just a broken and confused girl.

Similar to my scars, they are all different. They speak to me when I couldn't speak and just cry instead. I always found a sense of peace in my writing, and that's what mattered the most. I had no idea it would be thought of as "sick"..

It's been bothering me a great deal. It's been making me second guess myself and all I have planned for people to read and find that they've NEVER been alone.
I have no idea why anyone would think that's wrong..
I will always put others and their pain before mine, and letting them know that they aren't the only one's made of glass means everything to me.
What on this doubtful earth have I done wrong here..

Sincerely,
dishearten

 

[herbavore]

I don't see that you have done anything wrong at all. People's discomfort with it is simply their discomfort with another person's pain. Our whole culture is based on the repression of painful feelings and the pressure to pretend to exist in a constantly happy state to prove our normalcy. It sounds like you had a horrendous coming of age and many people that go through that bury everything so deeply that they are not even aware of how it continues to play out in their lives as adults. Saving those notes was a way to acknowledge your truth. Writing was a way to save yourself and in that way, I see those notes not as suicide notes only (though on the surface they are) but as a way to assert your existence and worth as a child.

I hope that you write your book. Those notes may be invaluable for that. Perhaps after that you will let them go or perhaps not. I have two experiences in my own life through which I can personally relate to what you are saying. The first is my old journals from adolescence and my twenties. I was never a very dedicated journaler but I always wrote sporadically and usually about what was upsetting or scary or made me angry, etc. The act of writing itself was a tool I used to both acknowledge the feelings and to let them go. When I turned 50 I decided that I would read them and then burn them. I read them and felt a wonderful acceptance for who I had been in those troubled years but at the same time I had to laugh at a lot of my youthful angst. I decided to let the story as it was told on those pages go because it ws never the whole story, never the whole truth. My second experience is more painful and more recent. My son died of an overdose three years ago. He was miserable before he died--addicted, in psychological anguish, isolated and scared. He called me on my mobile a lot and I never saved his messages for long because we talked and saw each other every day. But about a week before he died he called and left a message that I did not receive immediately. It was a non-verbal message--just wailing, screaming in pain over and over. After he died that was the one message that I had of my son's voice--his living voice. Every 21 days I saved it. My hands shook when I did it and I cried every time. After about a year, I did not always cry anymore but I always saved it. When I told my friends and family about it they thought I was insane and self punishing. They encouraged me to get rid of it and "remember the happy times". This had the effect of enraging me though I knew their concern was genuine and came from a loving heart. I wanted to remember everything not just the happy times. It was my other son that finally took it off my phone and saved it as an audio file on my computer. I don't listen to it anymore but it remains important to me to have it. It is always important to listen to those who love you and have your best interests at heart but it is crucial that in the end you listen to yourself.

I hope that all those notes have led you to a place where you can feel held by your life. Writing has a way of saving people. I hope you continue to heal and to write. May they go hand in hand.

 

[Fresco]

Dishearten, have you heard about The Law of Attraction?? Ever since I started reading up on LOA and applying it to my life its been a complete life-changer for me (change for the better that is)

 

[dishearten]

I don't see that you have done anything wrong at all. People's discomfort with it is simply their discomfort with another person's pain. Our whole culture is based on the repression of painful feelings and the pressure to pretend to exist in a constantly happy state to prove our normalcy. It sounds like you had a horrendous coming of age and many people that go through that bury everything so deeply that they are not even aware of how it continues to play out in their lives as adults. Saving those notes was a way to acknowledge your truth. Writing was a way to save yourself and in that way, I see those notes not as suicide notes only (though on the surface they are) but as a way to assert your existence and worth as a child.

I hope that you write your book. Those notes may be invaluable for that. Perhaps after that you will let them go or perhaps not. I have two experiences in my own life through which I can personally relate to what you are saying. The first is my old journals from adolescence and my twenties. I was never a very dedicated journaler but I always wrote sporadically and usually about what was upsetting or scary or made me angry, etc. The act of writing itself was a tool I used to both acknowledge the feelings and to let them go. When I turned 50 I decided that I would read them and then burn them. I read them and felt a wonderful acceptance for who I had been in those troubled years but at the same time I had to laugh at a lot of my youthful angst. I decided to let the story as it was told on those pages go because it ws never the whole story, never the whole truth. My second experience is more painful and more recent. My son died of an overdose three years ago. He was miserable before he died--addicted, in psychological anguish, isolated and scared. He called me on my mobile a lot and I never saved his messages for long because we talked and saw each other every day. But about a week before he died he called and left a message that I did not receive immediately. It was a non-verbal message--just wailing, screaming in pain over and over. After he died that was the one message that I had of my son's voice--his living voice. Every 21 days I saved it. My hands shook when I did it and I cried every time. After about a year, I did not always cry anymore but I always saved it. When I told my friends and family about it they thought I was insane and self punishing. They encouraged me to get rid of it and "remember the happy times". This had the effect of enraging me though I knew their concern was genuine and came from a loving heart. I wanted to remember everything not just the happy times. It was my other son that finally took it off my phone and saved it as an audio file on my computer. I don't listen to it anymore but it remains important to me to have it. It is always important to listen to those who love you and have your best interests at heart but it is crucial that in the end you listen to yourself.

I hope that all those notes have led you to a place where you can feel held by your life. Writing has a way of saving people. I hope you continue to heal and to write. May they go hand in hand.

herbavore..
thank you from the bottom of my heart.
reading your response.. made me start tearing.. you truly understand. and I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your acknowledgment. "Saving those notes was a way to acknowledge your truth. Writing was a way to save yourself and in that way, I see those notes not as suicide notes only (though on the surface they are) but as a way to assert your existence and worth as a child. "
you are absolutely right. I NEVER felt much worth as a child because my family was so pre-occupied with themselves, wasting their money on crack, and trying to fill their absences from me with material objects.
when I started writing these, I did not know I would have a collection of them now at 25.. especially so many, especially realizing that they can help others find some sort of connection with me and my pain growing up.

these people that have told me the same things that the one's who have told you to get rid of your child's voice-mail, they did not understand the connection you have with it.. and perhaps they never will.
they've told me the same thing, that i'm just torturing myself. but in all reality, I see changes in my pain, changes in my situations to why I needed so badly to run away to my paper.. when I write, it is truly my peace.. I could never rid myself of these, nor could I rid myself of everything else I have written that not many people on the other side of the spectrum could ever understand. and that's okay.

I believe your son knew you would hold on to this tape, but never beat yourself up or blame yourself as hard as it is not to. you are strong, you help others with the knowledge you have learned from your life and from your own suffering-- and that's exactly what I do.

my book will be finished, with all the beauty of the painful glass that surrounds us.

thank you more than anything for your response, it's hurtful when i'm judged based on my writing.. but my story is important and it's my duty to show others that they can live and get past what I call the Grey.
I commend you for your strength.. I hope more than anything I can find just as much..

Much love

 

[-=SS=-]

I think it's good to write and bring up things from the depths, it's part of the process of healing. I do agree with the people who say you should let it go though, that you shouldn't keep identifying with it. When someone is obsessed with something it tends to blind them, yet it is obvious to those around them that something is stealing their vitality. Human trait.. to identify with our personal story, even if it involves pain. The first step is to acknowledge the pain, which you have done. The second is to accept it and let it go. The third is to move forward and create new memories.

I know you probably don't feel like it's harming you at all or see it as a form of addiction.. but once you let it all go you'll look back and understand why those around you tried to prod you into letting it go. Nostalgia, even involving pain, is favourite past time of the human being.. but it doesn't lead anywhere. Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.