I am writing this not because I am currently feeling suicidal (or at least, more suicidal than I normally feel) or because I want to help someone else who is. Instead I am writing this because no-one in my life has ever paid the slightest attention to my suicidal tendencies, not even my therapist who I started seeing in the first place because I was suicidal.
I have entertained thoughts of suicide ever since early in high school. I daydreamed about it because, at the time, it seemed to be the only way, to borrow a concept from the first post in this thread, to end the intolerable pain I was in. 10 years later I have yet to see any real alternative to it, finding no solutions nor lessening of pain despite withdrawing from everything that caused it and being in weekly therapy session for 3 years. Back in high school it was merely a fantasy. Sort of along the lines of: "Gee, wouldn't it be nice if I could work up the courage to kill myself so this emotional maelstrom will finally end." Courage being the key word. You see, I firmly believed that I was too chickenshit to ever try to end my own life. It was sort of an emotional life raft in a twisted, desperate way because I never had to worry about causing grief for my family because I was incapable of going through with what I yearned for. Every time the thought of suicide reared its [at the time] ugly head I was immediately crippled by intense guilt at how my family would feel at my actions so the thought that I was not capable of following through was a comfort.
Fast forward the better part of a decade and I was no longer plagued by this "emotional maelstrom". Instead my life was filled with loneliness, apathy and mild depression. Until I met an older woman. Ultimately I will recognise that this woman manipulated and controlled me from the very beginning but it takes 4 years to realise this as well as untold heartache and pain. We quickly became friends, this woman, hereafter referred to as E, and myself, being very similar in temperament and in our interests. I introduced her to my friends ... in conversation mind you, not person, as she steadfastly refused to meet with my friends on multiple occasions ... by saying that we are like a pair of twins born 9 years apart. It came as no surprise to me when I eventually fell for E as this was something of a pattern for me and something which I had been worried about since the very inception of our friendship.
And so began a rollercoaster of hormones, neurotransmitters and abuse of the pleasure pathways. I am not (yet at any rate) referring to drugs but rather the intense euphoric and anti-euphoric peaks and dips that everyone who has ever believed themselves to be in love has experienced. Yes, once again I was trapped within the emotional maelstrom which led to my longings for an end to my life in high school. Think of the happiest you have ever been in a relationship. Perhaps it is the first moment that you realise that you love your SO. Or the first time s/he says: "I love you." Or perhaps even your wedding day. Now think of the most terrible, soul eroding, mind clouding, depressing and willpower draining sorrow you have experienced in a relationship. I was experiencing both of those repeatedly on a weekly, if not daily, basis.
This little Hurricane E culminated with myself standing on the roof of a 10 story building, my mother on the phone, begging her to help me find the courage to kill myself. It was by no stretch of the imagination an appropriate or kind thing to do to her. Intellectually I understand that no mother should ever have to talk her child down off a roof and that I caused her no small amount of pain. But at the time I had absolutely no-one at all to help me and at the time the only form that help could come in was sweet, seductive oblivion. To this day if I could flip a switch or say a magic incantation or rub a magic lamp and thus remove my instinct for self preservation, then I would be cold and stiff before the words: "Mother may I?" could leave your lips and the pain and suffering of my mother be damned! Damned I say.
Ultimately I stepped down off the edge of that roof, climbed back into my car and drove back to the apartment I was sitting to dream of the soft, gentle embrace of that great equaliser, Death. That much is obvious or else we would have conclusive, electronic proof of the afterlife. E and I would renew our friendship (but never the brief abortion of a romantic relationship that we had) 2 more times and it would only be 2 years later that I would finally realise just how 1 sided our relationship was and how much E was taking advantage of me. But ever since that night on the roof, thoughts of suicide have been my constant companion. That soft, sibilant and sweet whisper at the edge of consciousness, charming you with the seductive allure of solace and succour from the sickness and soreness of earthly life. That tickle at the back of your brain, beckoning and beguiling, urging you to take that one extra step, that one extra pill or puff or pin, promising euphoria and joy that only the benzo addict who describes euphoria as the surcease of anxiety can understand. If heroin addicts are chasing the dragon, then I can only describe this shadowy figure sitting on my shoulder as chasing God. I have lived my life since then with this spectre hanging over me, waiting for my will to slip so that I may fall and fail and flail and, most importantly, FEEL no more.
Refusing to end my life was not a conscious decision that I made. It was not of a result of my mother's guidance, her love or even the guilt that an end to my suffering might cause her suffering of her own. Instead it was as a result of cowardice. I could not overcome my physical body's inbuilt, organically programmed instructions. Just as lemmings are incapable of denying their instinct to plunge head first over a cliff (oh if only it were possible!!!) I was incapable of overcoming my instinct of self preservation. This fleshy, pustulent, offensive and ugly sack of organs, chemicals and electrical signals absolutely refused to allow me to cause it to stop functioning. Go ahead and claim that it was my subconscious holding me back, that I didn't truly want to die, that I was just looking for attention or that I was trying to fool myself that death was what I wanted. I believe (and perception is reality when it comes to beliefs) that it was millions of years of evolution and genetic programming that overcame the meagre efforts of consciousness which, in pale comparison, has only been on this world for a couple of hundred thousand of years.
As a result of that evening and, more realistically, that phone call to my mother I have since been in therapy. I am now no longer drenched and pummelled by the tumultuous winds of Hurricane E but am instead trapped in a world of grey. Where others see a car as a useful tool for transportation, an interesting hobby to be worked on or a status symbol, I see an expensive, dangerous, money sink which pollutes and requires constant time and money to keep running. Where others see flowers as a pretty dash of colour to brighten the day or a symbol of love for someone special I see pathetic products of our pestilential planet which are destined to wilt and die within days of being harvested. Where others see their laptop, cellphone or pad as an exciting technological tool which enriches their lives through organisation, multimedia or information, I see an imminently obsolete, overpriced piece of crap just waiting to die on you at the most inopportune and financially devastating time. My entire life is viewed in a similar manner, through monochrome coloured glasses if you will. Now just try to imagine what I see when I look in the mirror.
My life is filled with loneliness, guilt, feelings of inferiority and regret. And the worst part? Everyone in my life totally ignores my fascination with suicide. When I bring it up with my mother, I get a guilt trip. My father ignores any mention of it. My grandmother is to my mother's guilt trip as the Atlantic Ocean is to a back yard pool. My THERAPIST gets angry, confrontational and uncooperative whenever I bring up the topic of suicide in any serious and meaningful way. I can count the number of times we have discussed it on one hand since our first session when I started seeing her because I wanted to commit suicide. Sure, sure, if we spend time focussing on making me feel better then the question of suicide becomes moot. It can be argued that it is healthier trying to introduce positivity into my life rather than remove negativity but when your therapist tells you that she will work with you only as long as you refuse to bring up suicide, there is a problem. She basically told: "If you want to kill yourself, do it. Just don't expect me to help you with the feelings. If you want to continue being counselled then you have to give up on suicide."
She tells me that I have improved over the course of our counselling. That I am now in a better place than I was when I first came to her. I do not feel any different. Apart from the glaringly obvious differences such as no longer being entangled in the web of a female spider bearing the stylised 'E' instead of an hourglass, I feel just as useless, unattractive, boring, failure-ridden and depressed as I have for the last decade. And remember, perception is reality. So if it has taken me 3 years to get this far, it will likely take me 30 tears before I ever start feeling better in the slightest. My therapist can offer no solution other than: "You need to bring all of the subconscious into the conscious and embrace it." And the only solution I can offer is suicide.
I don't think of committing suicide every day. Nor do I, usually, think of it weekly or monthly. But I can honestly say that my goal in life, my dream is to die. Dead. Destroyed. Dessicated. Decorporealised. Definitely and defiantly deceased! My dream is not to be a millionaire, to become a family man, to own a farm or to save lives. My dream is to have my heart stilled and all consciousness permanently ended. But until the day comes that I can either circumvent this verdamde instinct of self preservation or the already intolerable pain I feel renders it moot, I can only dream and yearn for suicide.
This post is probably more than I have ever told a single person if you add all of the times together that I have spoken to that person regarding my feelings and longing for death and oblivion.
Death becomes you. Now if only that bastard would pull his finger out and turn his gaze this way ...
. Thankfully just talking to her really cheers me up and she is the only bright spot in my entire life right now.
