keep hoping that someone or something will save when I’m on the brink

Every attempt I’ve made has been brutal. I’d be dead already if I’d gone through with them wholeheartedly. But each time I tried some method or combination thereof that should’ve been sure to kill me, something went wrong. A mechanical failure, someone finding me. It’s not like I leave clues lying around, either. When I make an attempt I make sure that I don’t tell anyone, that I act completely normal so no one can stop me. It’s happened six times now, failure, and I know why. I don’t want to commit suicide. I just want to get out of the life I have now. To rid myself of the dilemmas of morality, what is right and wrong, what’s okay. To get rid of my penitent urge from moral transgressions that were really in many ways faultless. What I want is someone to find me and let me down. They’d tell me that one thing I want to hear; That I’m an okay person; That this sense of culpability I have isn’t real, isn’t true. To whisper to me that I’m whole, that the war is over. It’s not going to happen. That one person doesn’t exist.  For that matter, how would they find me moments before an attempt? As the son of affluent South Asian immigrants, I was sure that I had to be a specific way. The way my cousins (engineers) and my aunts and uncles (doctors and engineers) were. One specific path through life, an Ivy League Engineering degree, a masters or Ph.D, 3 kids, a suburban home and extended cable. When I went to college, this plan-my fate-fell apart. Second semester I failed Intro Engineering and it seemed to me that if I was not on my ordained straight path there was no point in me living. Most people aren’t autonomous, I believed. They do what’s expected of them through life. It’s easier others won’t question their decisions. I didn’t want to be anyone besides “most people”. At the same time, I was losing the Girl. The Girl defined not only my ideal partner, but also my ideal in living. She was beautiful, charismatic, and a polymath. She played six instruments, studied Engineering and Architecture, sang, organized protests, tutored, filmed movies, wrote, painted, etc. She never let herself have a spare moment. But long distance was a killer. We spent almost every night the entire year talking over Skype till daylight. She never slept, so I never slept unless she was visiting me. She wouldn’t have sex with me-not because she didn’t want to, but because she had been molested. I didn’t know enough to get that her lack of sexual interest in me wasn’t my fault, that she had issues she needed to work out for herself. My sexual urges for her made me feel like I was I was just as disgusting and evil as the pedophile who molested her. Despite myself I absorbed her beliefs. She was very conservative and had a dim view of people. To her the “right to life” had to be earned and most people didn’t deserve it. Those who didn’t work that hard or keep her moral backbone or were plain “not smart” in her opinion deserved death (or euthanasia). I held the polar opposite of her Malthusian views. As far as I was concerned, those who think their moral values are the ideal should battle it out amongst themselves while the rest of us merely live. She slowly won me over despite myself. I internalized her view and started to believe I was not worthy of life. I didn’t work hard enough, say or think the right things, I wasn’t the exact right color. Therefore, I figured, suicide. I made my first attempt during finals week, when it became clear that I wasn’t going to pass Mechanics. I tried twice in three days. Between the first and second attempt, I realized that I was not merely being angsty and that my behavior put myself and others in danger. I called the school psychology services, and then I called my parents. The psychological services intern on duty interviewed me then let me go. My mom came to campus to monitor me. During the second attempt, I called the Girl and told her I had a noose around my neck. She asked me to sing her a lullaby. I went in and out of hospitals for months where they put me on meds which made me gain weight and lose my inner monologue and my sex drive. I broke up with the Girl. The catalyst was the complete loss of my sex drive. I was so frightened and I came on to her while she was visiting me in an inpatient ward. It scared her and we got in a fight which continued over the phone after she left. I told people later that I dumped her because I didn’t want her to deal with my suicidality. On third attempt, which was after I’d been out for three weeks, I sent her a text that said “I’m leaving for America”. I thought it was somehow romantic, that maybe she’d spend the rest of her life in black. Not true. I survived (I was a coward and couldn’t do it) and went back to the hospital. Even if I’d succeeded she probably wouldn’t remember me the way I wanted her to. Or suffered over it the way I’d have done in her position. It’s been over a year since the first attempt. I’m in therapy most weeknights. Behavioral therapy helps a lot. I recognize that thoughts and feelings aren’t truth. They’re indicators of a state of mind. Emotions like sadness or anger mean you’re sad or angry, not that something (or someone, possibly yourself) is deserving of sadness of anger. Therapy doesn’t help me feel less morally culpable. My diagnosis reeks of iniquity; Severe Depression, Thrill-seeking Behavior, Addictive Personality, Impulsivity, and Inattentive ADHD. Thrill-seeking, addiction and impulsivity are words assigned to the reprobates whom She’d have considered superfluous. In my culture, as well, those diagnoses not mental but moral problems. Can’t I stop seeking thrills, or sate myself with bungee jumping, roller coasters, or television like everyone else? Can’t I cultivate a safe addiction, perhaps for lattes or exercise (the ultimate drug, they say) in lieu of narcotics? Can’t I stop and count 1 to 10 before my every decision? They aren’t just other people’s questions. Why can’t I do these things? Why, again and again, do I mess things up so badly? My father wonders aloud, sometimes how such an upstanding and straight-arrow man and such a deeply devout woman could’ve fathered a liar and a thief. I’ve stolen money from them for cocaine, I have a criminal record, I’ve ordered explosives off eBay with my father’s Amex card and worst of all, I’m an atheist. No matter my beliefs in morality I can’t stop my impulses in the moment, so later they stick with me and I feel blacker than al-Hajr al-Aswad, the stone blackened by all humanity’s sins. Right there-another crime. Grandiosity, dramatism, for no good reason! Here, now. In a month I’ll back in college. All I want to do is write. Creative Writing: a useless major for a useless person. Why should anyone listen to me? What do I have to say? I don’t deserve this chance. But other than writing, the only thing I really want is to commit the perfect suicide. I’d go to the Girl’s college. It’s surrounded by miles and miles of dense forest. I’m not rationally hoping that it’ll accomplish anything. She won’t love me again and I’ll just be the same useless person I am now. My parents will mourn, but I’ll still be their failure, a casket filled with unrealized potential, the first son who started out smart but ended up a burnout and a scoundrel. My dad is already on the verge of losing his job because of the explosives. He won’t leave the house until they’re disposed of. Impulsivity drives me nuts. I’ll feel just fine, and then ten minutes later, I’ll lose my will to live completely. It’s tipping me in in a suicidal direction. Emotions exhaust me and I imagine death as a whiteout. That those last few seconds of searing pain are, with the right method, painless floating and suddenly fade to white and middle C ringing and you just don’t exist anymore. Like every endorphin receptor in your body activates for a split second. A thousand orgasms- all the petits morts I no longer feel. Then nothing. A whimper. No Girl. No boys. No guilt. Just complete nonexistence, no self left to be aware.