Doctors tend to ask if you are suicidal. I’m not. I accepted a while ago that I could not bring myself to do anything that intentionally hurt the people I love. Since I first wrote this sentence down, a close friend of mine took his own life. Before this, I had begun to feel increasingly like my desire not to be here anymore was beginning to outweigh my desire not to break my family’s hearts. Because, much as I don’t see the appeal, I have to admit that it would. I struggled, in the wake of my friend’s suicide, to understand how I felt about it. At first, I thought I was sad; it’s the obvious emotion, and I was sad; I was sad for his family and for his girlfriend, for the devastation that was so evident. But more than that, I gradually realised that I was jealous and, much to my horror, I was happy for him. Because I knew, I think, the relief he must have felt in his decision. And as much as it broke my heart that he died alone, and so far away from home, I was pleased that he had escaped whatever had brought him to that ledge.
Ever so selfishly, I was also a little angry at him because witnessing my family’s reaction to his death made it impossible for me to escape. I should probably say that my parents are aware of my history of depression and I am extremely lucky in how thoroughly loving and supportive they are. They worry about me more than I can stand sometimes, because I can see how sad it makes them that they can’t fix everything for me. If I killed myself, they would think they had failed me, and they haven’t – not once.
Ideally, I think I would just like to stop. To lie down somewhere, and then everyone can carry on with their lives without having to stop and mourn, and I can just quietly curl up and wait this out. Because I have to ask: at what point do we acknowledge that it’s not working? That we tried but, quite frankly, no good is coming from this and it’s exhausting. Why is there shame in that? I’m not saying that humanity is a bust (although sometimes I wonder, I mean seriously, look at it.) But, say you make a hundred mugs; chances are, some portion of those mugs are gong to wrong – they’ve got holes in or whatever. You can pour as much coffee as you want through those bad boys, it’ll just seep right out of them. They’re not fit for purpose. And that’s fine. Throw the mug out, start again, whatever. Don’t keep pouring shit into it. It’s just plain stupid. I mean, a terrible analogy, but stupid nonetheless.
I think people get angry about this kind of attitude. I know that there’s some vague consensus that life is precious and I get that, I do. I am happy for people who feel that way. But, on the other hand, it’s not really is it? We are all beautiful little snowflakes sure but, to be fair, there are bloody billions of us; some of us are bound to melt before we ever settle.
So now I find myself in an entirely new situation The only other time I have been suicidal was during a severe episode and it was not at all like this, it was desperate and urgent. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I didn’t want to die – I just didn’t want to be in the place I was anymore. But this time, it isn’t fear – it’s resignation, it’s acceptance. I have thought about it a lot and in a strangely objective manner, and I have come to the conclusion that what I would like more than anything is to stop. But, since I can’t right now, I have to work out how to keep going until I can.