I don’t even know where to start explaining this…for that matter I’m not even sure that I’m trying to explain something to begin with. Maybe I’m just trying to understand it. Maybe some part of my brain is hoping that if I string enough words together someone, somewhere, will be able to explain it all to me.
I don’t even know if I’m suicidal. I used to think that “suicidal” was something definitive. Something that you’d know if you were or you weren’t. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d miss, you know? I suppose if someone asked me outright I’d say no, I’m not suicidal. Except that my favorite moment of the day is that split second before any thoughts enter my head in the morning. Except that some days I am so dead inside that I sit down and drink everything I can get my hands on and listen to the saddest music I can find so that I’ll remember what it’s like to feel. And then there are other nights when I wake up in the middle of the night crying, and I can feel that something is so very, very wrong. Except that I took half a bottle of Xanax and drank until I was unconscious, and when I woke up the next morning I had absolutely no idea what had happened the night before beyond the pills and the alcohol. I woke up in bed to a friend calling me because he said he was afraid I wasn’t going to wake up after the night before…I don’t even remember talking to him. It’s hard to explain how I can simultaneously realize just how very very messed up that sounds and still stand there both believing and assuring him that there’s nothing to worry about. Except that I found my way to this site after lying in bed holding a loaded gun to my forehead with my finger on the trigger and the safety off, and I got up to google whether or not I’d feel pain if I shot myself in the head. But other than that no, I’m not suicidal….
I don’t know how to explain that I can do all of these things and still rationally think to myself that I’m not suicidal. It’s not like it’s a “suicidal gesture” for attention or something, because I’m absolutely terrified of anyone ever finding out. I guess I think I’m not suicidal because I really, really do not want to kill myself. I just want to be dead. I prayed to a god that I’m not even sure I believe in, and when I talked to him I put it this way…people die in accidents all the time. Good people, people with families and futures and potential. Thousands of people every day die…and I just said to god, next time, could you please take me instead of one of them? I don’t want to live, but I am too afraid to die. But deep inside, I’m more afraid NOT to. Because I’m so tired. I’m tired of feeling this huge aching hole in my chest that wasn’t there before. I’m tired of being angry at people for being happy. I’m tired of fighting the thoughts in my own head just to make it through the day without losing it.
I can’t sleep anymore. I used to suffer from insomnia. Then, for a while, I was at a good place in my life. I could sleep nights. I felt whole and complete. Losing him was when this all started I suppose…it went beyond heartbreak. I was shattered, broken in every way that a person can be broken. And somewhere along the line it stopped being about him and started being about me. It’s been years now. I’m just generally, overwhelmingly broken, still. I don’t miss him anymore…I miss me. I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know why I can’t put myself back together. Losing him was just a spark to a roaring fire that I think was already here…or maybe not. Who am I to judge really, since I don’t even know whether or not I’m suicidal?
I get tired of not being able to sleep these days. I take pills to sleep, and I turn on episodes of Star Trek that I’ve seen hundreds of times so that I have something to concentrate on while I’m in bed that lets me not think. If I focus very, very closely on the television sometimes the pills can carry me off before my brain interferes. And sometimes they can’t, and I lie awake all night. Sometimes, when I’m crying on those nights, I whisper for my mother. I’m 25 years old, and by any measure I’m what the world considers a very successful person. I’m bright, and articulate, and energetic. I smile and I laugh. I have what has been called a “dry wit” and I’m good at making others laugh. I’m a lawyer. My friends love me, my family loves me, and there are people in my life who would be there for me in a second if I called them. But I don’t do it, because I don’t know what to say, and I don’t want them to leave. If I actually called my mother she would do anything I needed her to, because she loves me. But I don’t want to hurt her, and I don’t want to scare her. And so this 25 year old hardcore lawyer lies in bed and whispers for her mommy.
I think that’s a big part of why I can’t kill myself. I want to die so badly, but I don’t want to hurt my mother. I think it would hurt her less if I could just die of natural causes. I know my death would hurt her no matter what, but my suicide would destroy her. I don’t know what will happen if I don’t die soon.
I’ve called suicide hotlines more than once, but I always hang up when someone answers because I never know what to tell them. I have no idea what to say and I don’t know what they could possibly tell me. I feel like calling those hotlines is a hoax when I do it…like people will think that I’m just after attention because I don’t really know what I need. Of course, attention is the last thing I want, but I feel like all of these resources for people who are suicidal aren’t for me to use. Like I’m not allowed.
After all, I don’t want to kill myself. I just want so very desperately to be dead.
12 comments
That’s an amazing story and you wrote it really beautifully. I know exactly how you feel. I hope we both find some relief.
Thank you for sharing and I am sorry that you are going through what you are going through. It seems to me that you live a double life – outwardly you’re successful and seem to have it all together while inwardly you wish to be dead. I’ve only been seriously suicidal once in my life, and it nearly cost me just that, my life.
For me the journey from suicidal thought to suicidal action began when I was on a plane flying from Toronto (where I was working during the week) to NYC (where I lived). I thought to myself, “I wish this plane would just crash.” Of course my family and friends would have been upset but I wouldn’t have to feel the way I was feeling anymore. Like you, outwardly, I was successful, had good relationships with my family and tons of friends. Also like you, I had a secret, and it was a secret that I was adamant about not sharing with anyone.
Three months after that first suicidal thought, after sleeping between 0 and 3 hours a night, I flat-lined in the back of an ambulance due to intentionally caused acute carbon monoxide poisoning. Depressive insomnia can drive anyone to the brink of suicide I believe.
My biggest problem/fear back then was admitting that I had one, and reaching out for the help I so desperately needed. I had never needed help of this kind in my life and I didn’t know what was going on with the thing that I saw as my greatest asset which had NEVER let me down before – my mind/brain.
Your story reminds me so much of my own that I fear you may make the same choices that I did.
I’m offering that you summon the courage to do that which you seem to be afraid of… admit that you need help to not feel the way that you feel. Please consider giving your mother a chance to be your mother. Please consider trying to think creatively about ways to change your situation as opposed to continuing to think destructively. If you’re not up to sharing with a friend or loved one yet, please consider reaching out for professional help.
It took me some time, but I re-created myself and my life with the help of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy.
Finally, it would be my pleasure to help you personally. I have coached a number of suicidal people and helped them end their suicidality instead of their lives. I do not do it professionally, but nothing is more fulfilling to me than sharing what I’ve learned to help people end the suicidal storm, in their heads. You can reach me at incredulity at gmail dot com.
Sincerely,
Francesco
I really dunno what to say to yeh right now, it’s one of these very rare times where I have no idea what to say…. I do think you’re suicidal, and to be honest I think it’s quite interesting to hear someone like you. yeh say yeh dont wanna kill you’re self, but that you deep inside wish you were dead. I want to die, but I don’t think that’s really what I wish for deep inside…. nekst time you sit and wanna shoot you’re self, think of all the friends you’ve got. and a good idea would may be to show one of those great friends of yours what yeh wrote here. than yeh won’t have to say anything. ok, this was really, uhm…. clumsy written, as I’ve already told yeh, I really have no idea what to say….-.-‘
Wow, thats a great story, I know how you feel!
i fell the same, deepdeep down i wish i was dead, but coming to do it, it will never happen, A natural cause sounds best. Just dyeing.
Thankyou for sharing that with us .. -.-
I never really thought I would find someone who could describe my thoughts exactly. I need help too. I need someone to save me.
I feel the same way..I dont wanna commit suicide…but why is it always in my mind. there is nothing wrong with your thoughts and there is nothing wrong with mine… our brains are more open to feelings then the rest of the world
Well Put!! I don’t want to die…but i don’t want to live feeling bad/sad/disappointed/hopeless like this anymore, and I can’t seem to NOT feel like this. This makes not living seem like the only way to not feel like this.
Every time I’ve tried to explain to a doctor or a counselor that I want to just stop ‘being’ and I’m not necessarily going to go and do it, they practically scoff at me and write down ‘suicidal’ on their notepads anyway… They were making me begin to think I’m insane because I truly do not have it in me to just kill myself. However, I’ve been through so much hell and abuse in every way in my life, and I’m still struggling. And I’d give nearly anything to just have it… stop.
A year and a half ago I fell in the bathtub and was knocked unconscious. I had never had a concussion before and wasn’t sure what was happening, I just knew I felt like I was dying. And I remember lying in the shower, the water still running, and barely feeling it hit my skin. And I remember praying to a God I don’t even believe in to let it be death… I begged for it. I’ve tried nonstop to find new reasons to live, but I end up always putting my entire body and soul into a relationship and creating an ‘illusion’ of hope. And as soon as that hope is gone… I want to die again. And then I start thinking of ways to die… falling down the stairs, letting go of the wheel of my car, drowning. I could never actually slit my wrist, pull a trigger, down a bottle of pills, but like you said – I wish I could be one of those to accidentally die in some tragic accident. I feel incredibly selfish for it because of those who I’d hurt… but it’s there nonetheless.
If anyone has any advice on where to go for this or what to do, I’m more than willing to listen…
Thank you so much for sharing this and making me feel a little less alone…
You and I are practically the same person. I hope it gets better for you, because I know how bad that conflict hurts.
If I didn’t feel suicide was so selfish I would have been dead years ago; I don’t have any problem with killing myself, I have a problem with causing so much hurt and pain to my family. So instead I live in this hell.
I hope you take some small comfort, as I did reading your story, in that you are not alone in this madness.
I wish you all the luck in the World; may you find peace.
please don’t do that i know how you feel when you feel depressed just think of the people you love , it helps
You don’t have to listen to me, but I found that your story held a lot of significance to me, for a small and perhaps insignificant example, you published it on my birthday.
I’m still a teenager and people tell me that it’s not unusual to feel the way that I do. Even though I self harm and have tried to kill myself before, they insist on telling me that there is people out there like me and that my problems could be worse, which doesn’t help me at all. I don’t relate to people very well, in fact in general my social skills or lack make me incapable of doing that, but in some way I felt I could relate to you. I don’t know whether I can help you, but I just wanted to let you know that I am like you.
The only reason that I haven’t tried to kill myself again is, because I know now after my first attempt at suicide, exactly how it will devastate my family and friends and in particular my mother. Most nights before I go to bed I pray to god that I won’t have to wake up in the morning to face another day. Like you, I wish that god would replace the death of an innocent person with me, someone who wants to die. I feel like I don’t deserve anything and especially not a life that I’m not fighting for.
About the suicide hotlines I’ve rang one before, but only once, it was samaritans and they kept my mind off of my thoughts for a while, which helped a bit. Since then, whenever I feel really low, which is usually at night, I take on a debate with myself whether to ring someone for help or to just wade it out. In the end I normally just wade it out, because I never know what to say to them and even if I did what could they do to help me? I wade out each period of desperation as they come and I know that there will always be another after the last, but as I’ve already mentioned it’s the ruins left behind that keep from doing what I want.
Be a better person than me and have the courage to seek help and use it to the best of your ability. I may not know you, but I believe that you deserve to live, you must have worked hard in your life to become a lawyer and surely that shouldn’t be thrown away. Like I said though you don’t have to listen to me and part of me doesn’t exect you to, but all the same I wish you the best in your life.