Im done. . . goodbye

I am a 29 year old male. I have struggled with depression for as long as I can remember. I have attempted suicide several times, I chose to believe that perhaps there was a reason why I survived. As if there a purpose to my existence. However at this point I have abandoned that frail belief and have chosen to give up completely. I can not remember most of my past, the memories are there but they have become so faded and blurry I can no longer distinguish the realities of my past with the vibrant thoughts of my once over active imagination.

The first attempt I had made was when I only seven years old. Now what on earth would a seven year old possibly want to end there life over? I can no longer remember the details. Although when I focus on that event I can feel the anger and hurt. I remember taking the steak knife from the kitchen drawer and sitting in my closet. I held it to my chest and slowly began forcing it toward my heart. My aunt whom was babysitting me at the time, eventually came to check on me. She found me in that position with blood starting to trickle down my hand. the after math fades away and becomes blurry again.

There is a slight memory of my tree house. I was “running” away and decided to stay in there until somebody cared enough to find me. It was well after dark and I had snuck into the garage and stole a coffee can and filled it with gas. For some reason I was determined that it would be a good source of heat and light. I was correct for the time being, although I was awoken in the middle of the night to the smell and heat of my tree house burning. I barely made it out before the floor and a wall collapsed in the fire. I do not remember if there was any consequences to that however it was far enough in the woods that nobody would have been able to see the damage.

My mother decided it was best to leave me and my brother with her boyfriend (there has been a lot of speculation that he is my real father) while she moved to Maryland to start over. My brother was told the truth and immediately went to live with our dad.  A fresh life with no responsibilities. I never really got along with him and after about week or so of hearing “Your mother is at work, the store, sleeping, vacation” I was finally told that she abandoned me.  I went to stay with my father, his wife, there son, her daughter and my older brother. I was already rather angry with everything that was going on in my life and did not adjust to the transition very well. I never really got along with my siblings. We always fought and my younger half brother was a spoiled brat which I deemed to remind him of everyday. My step sister was on the fence, we fought but we also got along, same as my older brother. Those two were merely sibling rivalry, I hated my half brother with a passion that still burns as hot today.

After a couple years there I had finally managed to track down my mother and ended up moving to Maryland with her. I later found out that my father had called her and told her that if she didn’t want me then I was to placed in foster care. The first couple of months with her was great, I was finally happy. My older brother came to visit and ended up staying. It was good to see him but the rivalry ignited again. I found a kid with similar interests and he introduced me to drugs and alcohol. I started stealing from the local stores and more so the gas station that my mother was working at. I would go into the cooler to help her stock and steal beer and cigarettes from the back room. I didn’t care anymore, I was determined to be happy and the drugs and acceptance of my peers filled that void nicely.

The second attempt was when I was thirteen, living in a trailer park in Maryland with my mother and older brother. He and his friends had made several bike trails in the woods behind the park. I had helped them for some of it so that I would be allowed to ride on them as well. In the process I had found a nice little secluded spot away from the trails. That became my hideout. I built a camp, stocked it up with all of my stolen beer and had several very nice parties with my friends. Thirteen, drugs, beer and sex. What more could I have wanted? I was still very unhappy and angry at everything that walked and breathed. I learned how to tie a noose and practiced to get it right. I didn’t want to screw up because of a failed knot. It was some time later when I finally decided to end it all. I had already picked out the perfect tree, it was at my camp. That tree was actually the main reason that I picked that spot. It was huge, with large branches. I had often climbed it and walked through my suicide in my mind. This was going to be the last time I would climb it. I tied my perfect noose off on that beautiful, strong branch. slipped the rope around my neck and sat there for several hours, asking god for forgiveness and a sign as to why I should continue my life. There was never any reply or second thought about doing it. I leaned forward and felt myself slide off the branch. I remember feeling the noose tighten around my neck. I woke up in the next night to the sound of thunder and cold rain on my face. The branch broke, the biggest thickest branch broke. It was at this point that I thought maybe I had a purpose, a reason to be alive.

Nobody really noticed the rope burn around my neck. I did catch my mother looking at it once but she never said anything about it. It had been several weeks and nothing had changed in my life. I went back to slacking off in school and escaping my problems while baking my brain. I remember faintly a young blond girl that I had met at school. She was beautiful and funny. I think she was adopted or in foster care. We talked, had a lot in common. We dated for awhile but one night we snuck out with her sister and her boyfriend. His mom worked at some church downtown so we got a cab and snuck in there. It was going great at first, then they started having sex and I wanted to as well. I was very aggressive with her after she turned me down. Not abusive, but i scared her. She was on her period and didn’t want to or didn’t know how to tell me. Had I of known that at the time It wouldn’t have been a problem. I seen her a couple of times at school, then she disappeared. If I could change anything in my life it would be the way I acted toward her that night. Everything else I can accept and live with but she was truly innocent and I never meant to treat her like that.

I stayed in Maryland for a couple years and then we all moved back home. Nothing ever really changed, just the locations and people in my life. I found new friends to get me high and drunk. Never really had a best friend, only people that I knew. Nobody really knew me, only what I chose to tell them. New school, new people, same problems. I graduated from marijuana to pills and coke and some point in this transition. Pills were okay but cocaine was my choice. Comfortably numb with the energy to get stuff done. I started skipping school and had several run ins with the local magistrate over it. Eventually my mother put in a correctional facility for adolescent children. The first time she tricked me into going to out to lunch with her, promised milkshakes. Instead I was dropped off at Children and Youth Services. Placement was hell, actually being sober was hell. The first thing I did when I got out was to get high and drunk. Nothing changed. I was put back in placement a couple more times. The lessons that I learned there did eventually kick in but not for years. I dropped out of school as soon as I turned seventeen.

The third attempt was under a small bridge in a small town. I don’t remember what brought me to it but I was trashed. Pills, coke and way to much alcohol. I remember puking into the river and watching it float down stream. I had .22 revolver that I had stolen from father a couple years ago. I had three shells in it, decided to play Russian roulette. I had a 50/50 chance here, those odds were more even then anything else in my life. I decided to make sure it was going to still fire first. I squeezed one of into the stream. It was extremely loud under that bridge and for a moment I was afraid that the police may show up. That scare didn’t last long as the argument of “How can they arrest a dead body” played through my mind. I spun the cylinder and put the barrel to my head. I waited for a minute to see if there was any arguments as to why I shouldn’t pull the trigger in my head. I slowly squeezed it, only to hear the dull clank of an empty chamber. Again I spun it and aimed at the stream, another deafening bang. One shot left, I spun the cylinder, pressed to my temple and pulled the trigger. I was rather upset at this point and wanted to make sure that I had put all three shells in. There was in fact one left and there was a dent on primer where the firing pin had struck it. That last shot was a dud? This only strengthened my belief that I was meant for something but still had no idea what or why.

I ended up getting my G.E.D. I was extremely proud of this being as after years of destroying my brain and never really paying attention i school anyhow, I managed to get a B average on the G.E.D. and I never studied at all. I had actually accomplished something and this helped to motivate me to stop doing drugs. I was able to quit smoking weed and swallowing pills, I slowed way down on the drinking. I realized how addicted I was to coke though. I was unable to to quit but i managed to partake only a couple times a month and only when I could afford to buy my own. A couple years of meaningless janitorial and dish washing jobs. I was not very work ethical although i was trying to better my life. I met an odd young woman who had a daughter. We hit it off at first and dated for awhile. Turns out she was still into partying and I was tired of her going out while I stayed at home with her daughter. I loved that little girl though, she was my reason for staying clean at the time. It was almost three years when I finally left her mother. I was heartbroken. Several months later I got a call from her, she was pregnant and she was sure it was mine. I denied it since she was out all the time and was certain she was cheating on me anyhow. The paternity test proved it and when I first seen him there no denying it anyhow. He looks just like me. I wanted to work things out with her but at the time her family hated me and I don’t blame them. I ended hooking up with another a girl. We decided to join the army together and got married to ensure we would be stained together. We had dated for about six months. She never really loved me. We started having issues almost immediately after we was married. I made it through basic and AIT only to find that she had been cheating on me the whole time. We both got sent to Iraq as soon as we got to our duty station in Texas.

She was sent home from duty because she was pregnant. I wasn’t really speaking with her but I heard she fell down a flight of stairs back home and lost the baby. I’m not sure if it was mine or not. She did not make anything easy on me while I was overseas and I started trying to work things out with my sons mother again. She was currently in a relationship with the closest thing I had to best a friend. I had asked him to keep an eye on them while I was overseas. Apparently he did it all too well. I found out that cocaine was very well supplied from the locals at my base in Iraq. I loved being in the army but I was going through way to much to appreciate it and I soon began screwing up. I had been promoted up to specialist and was up for another promotion to Sergent when I started really losing it. I got caught several time on duty without my gear on, no helmet, no flak jacket. That was a huge mistake but I did not really care anymore. I got called for a urinalysis’s and it came up dirty of course. I was demoted back down to a private.

The fourth attempt was in Iraq. I was having trouble sleeping and talked to the counselor about getting something to help. I was given ambien. It worked, rather well. It was Valentines day and I waited in line to get on a phone to call my wife for about five hours. When I finally got through she was having sex with her boyfriend and felt it was good idea to let me listen. I ended up taking fourteen ambien and trying to stay awake. I briefly remember being carried out of my bed by my squad leader and one of my sergeants. I woke up six hours later in the sick bay with monitors attached to me and my Sergent sleeping in a cot next to me. I felt great, unnaturally great. The specials in charge ran some tests and said I had stay there for the night. I ended going outside for a smoke and ran around the border of my camp before returning. My Sergent was awake then and looking for me. He said my heart stopped a couple times, he was worried and that’s why he stayed with me.

The next day I found out that I was suppose to be on a convoy that night and one of my squad members stepped up to fill my spot. The Humvee I was suppose to be driving got hit. He never came back. The gunner was sent to Germany to recover. It was suppose to be me. He was a good man, had a happy family, wife that loved him. I had nothing, yet I get to live. If I had just held it together for another hour before taking those I would have been driving and my life would have been finally finished. I would have been a casualty of war. I would have died for a reason, a good cause. instead I’m left to drudge on in my weary existence with no purpose or direction. I can not stop thinking about that moment.

The fifth attempt, although not really an attempt. It was just last year. I had lost my job, my girlfriend and was being evicted. I was in and out of sleep for a couple of months. Everyday turned into a foggy haze, I was no longer sure if I was awake or dreaming. I had tied a noose around the rafters in the attic storage space in my apartment. I remember staring at it for a long time and then coming to sitting on my couch in the living room. I thought it was just a dream and brushed it off, however as the day progressed I could not help thinking about it so I went up to check and verify my sanity. Except that it was there, I did not dream of doing it, I had actually done it. I honestly did not want to die although I had nothing to look forward to. I ended up calling a crisis line for vets and they helped me out a lot. I lived in a homeless shelter for vets for a little while until i had a job and was feeling a little more clear in my head. I was given access to medical treatment and tests for PTSD. They found a growth in my cat scan. Although they do not think it cancerous it could attribute to my severe headaches.

I have been drug free for five years now. However with sobriety comes a daunting reality and a constant reminder of why I started using to begin with. I truly hate people. Society in general. I wish I could just wake up and be the last human on the planet. Once again i have lost my job and my home. This has happened every year around this time. I can not seem to get on my feet. I can not deal with other people. If I could live in the woods alone I would. I know how to survive in the wilderness. This society is what is keeping me down. I have some serious mental issues with people that I can get over. It will never get any better and I am tired of trying to hide my true self around people to make them happy when they do nothing but tear me down and laugh about it. If I could find a spot of land to live on in the middle of nowhere I would go without a second thought or look back. However in order to do that I would need money, and so begins that viscous little cycle I seem to be caught in. I am giving up, this is not a cry for help, this is my story. So when anyone who cares enough to wonder what had happened to me can come here and read this.

Goodbye