I stumbled upon the Project while looking for ways to make the End look like it wasn’t planned. Â It’s only made me more sad to see that there are so many people that feel similar to me. Â It’s beautiful though, to see so many likeminded folks listening, and offering support to those that can’t find it in the real world. Â I’m thankful the trolls haven’t embedded themselves yet.
I’m 30 in June, which makes me old in my mind.  My 20’s have come and gone, leaving only confusion, amazement, and disappointment.  I’m more successful now than I once thought I would be, but nowhere near where I’d like to be.  It seems every time I make a move forward, I’m blown two back, and I’m not sure I can be blown much more.  I’m tired of waiting, bored, and disheartened.  I wonder what things are like on the other side, if there’s an other side, and what will happen and how/what I’ll feel in my waning moments in this life…
I dream about being able to sleep, not being woken by the trivial world around me, and not having to live inside my own head anymore. Â The constant feelings of inadequacy that I subject myself to will end, the endless thinking of what I should have done and what I should have said, or how I shouldn’t have said or done anything will stop. Â I’ll feel silence, and I think I’d really enjoy it.
The thing that has kept me from doing this already is the guilt I think I’ll feel as I think about my friends and family, how they will have to comb through the wreckage I’ll leave behind, and how I hate my pain, and that its not fair to end mine while passing excessive grief to others. Â If I can make it an accident, my attitude of life happens and the end is the only permanent thing in this world will just validate itself, and the grieving process will happen as it should.
As the winter draws to a close, I’ve thought about avalanches, and how powerful they are. Â 70-80%people pass in the first 15 minutes or so, without rescue, the cause of death being suffication, as too much CO2 is trapped around the nose and mouth. People can blame my ignorance or outward cockiness on a solo backcountry ski trip, and then when I don’t come home, they start the search.
I’ve also thought about just falling out of the back of my airplane while at work. A simple error in clipping my harness to the floor of the airplane would end in a tragic fall. I hate to think of the investigation and the military bureaucracy that would follow though. I respect almost everyone I work with too much to subject them to that. The same goes with accidentally walking into the propeller, or slipping into it on an icy ramp.
Maybe I could go for an afternoon flight, and run into some mountain wave action and end it with CFIT, but I’m only truly happy when I’m a pilot, and I don’t know if I could let myself make such a bad choice. Plus, knowing the NTSB will list Pilot Error as the cause of the accident only make me lose my credibility. I don’t want people saying “I’m glad I never flew with him.” I want them to think ‘I wish I could have flown with him, seen him at his true self, if only once.’
However it happens, I need it to be quick, irreversible, and painless. As the title suggests, I am a coward, despite the show I have been putting on for years. If I wasn’t, I’d not be where I am today. I’d be a productive American, a happy person, and I would have far more to show than I do now.
If I wasn’t a coward, maybe I could find help, and a change myself to not think about how the world would flow without me, but again with the machismo, I can’t and do what I want to do or love to do. The government doesn’t think highly of suicidal persons in the aviation world. They can’t do their jobs, and without a job, what’s the purpose.
I’ve started trying to keep my room clean, computer clean, truck clean. I figure when the time comes, someone will be forced to deal with my belongings and I shouldn’t make their job any harder. I’ve update my life insurance, and eventually, my family will be able to attend to quite a few things, as the money will not replace me, but it will help replace other burdens in life.
Maybe just thinking about it, imagining, planning, and visualizing will be the best I can ever do. Maybe the purpose of some people is to live, and bear the weight and suffering, while alleviating the weight from others? Human pin cushions, maybe?
I just don’t know.
3 comments
I understand everything you say. 30 was hard for me too. In my 20s I was successful, beautiful, engaged to an incredibly successful man, happy (I thought), and had the life. In a matter of moments my life fell apart before my eyes. I have lost everything – and no, I’m not exaggerating. A few weeks before my 31st birthday I drank a few glasses of wine, and tried to hang myself. I blacked out in seconds and woke up on the floor of the bathroom. The belt I used had broken… I don’t know how long I had been hanging there. It was so much faster and more peaceful than I could have imagined. I got up and went on with my life as if nothing had happened. I have wondered what force of nature broke me free. Is there a reason I’m still here? I find each and every single day so hard and feel like I struggle just to get through every day. There are times I wish that belt had not broken. I know I am sick. I am sick with something so much bigger and stronger than I am and don’t know when I will feel better. I look at each day though, each minute, as an experiment- on more second that I get to see happen that almost didn’t. I drive myself crazy trying to figure every aspect of my life out and feel fulfilled, but I find it impossible. I just try to take life minute by minute. I too obsess when I lay awake at night about death. I wonder about other people who have died, what it felt like, what it looked like, why death is so hidden from us. And yes- I too feel like I could never leave a mess behind. I would never want someone going through my documents and emails and loose end and especially a mound of laundry I have in my apartment. My plan always includes making sure my apartment is spotless before I move on. The aspect of it being as accidental as possible– I suppose that you’re not the type who wants to go out with a bang. But MORESO I don’t think it’s so much that you want to die as it is that you don’t want to live in this state anymore.
You know, I’ve always joked about going out with a bang; when the time comes I’ll just climb up to about 10k, pull the power back, and nose her over. I think its all talk though, I can’t imagine the what anyone else would go through. To boot, the famdamnly mental state is shaky enough. I don’t want to be the first domino.
I have almost twice before, the first time would have been with a bang, but I couldn’t open a door I’d jimmied hundreds of times before. The most recent, about 6 years ago would have been with my climbing rope, when I went to the truck to get it, it wasn’t there, and turns out a friend had grabbed it without telling me. I’m not a religious man, but I’d like to think there is something more than just consequence. Hell, I don’t know. Its funny, in just a few days I am going to retrieve a few things that go boom, and I’d never think about using them. As much training as I’ve had, there would be no way to make it accidental.
I miss being overseas, where the risk of things happening was far higher than it is here in the states. Its comforting, and allows you to focus more on your job and not the small part of the world you occupy. Maybe you’re right about the state, along with the other side I’ve thought endlessly about just going somewhere new, making a new identity, and living. I could be a rancher in South America, subsistence living in Chile, cartel pilot in Colombia… Something new, but I’m afraid to leave what little I have behind, I guess I’m human…
Did you see anything before it broke?
Nice to see a few people here are closer to my age range.
I’m a bit burnt out right now because I’ve been typing replies to people for the last hour or so, but I just want to say I think you kind of overestimate that making death appear as an accident would really make it any better for your family and friends to handle. Yeah I’m sure suicide comes with an extra dose of grief and maybe being able to make it appear like an accident would help, but not by much. People will be torn up and mourning your death regardless of how you manage to make it appear.
What is this “machismo” that you say stops you from getting help, or from doing what you want to do in life? You don’t really have to define it, because however you would describe it, I would say screw it. Letting some sort of mental programming about how you should act or what you’re supposed to be doing get in your way it pointless. If you’re ready to face your own death then what could their possibly be to fear in life? If you go get help or want to pursue a different career, certain people will ridicule you? Your reputation will take a hit? Who cares. This is your life and nobody should have the right to make you feel stuck somewhere you don’t want to be. If you’d be brave enough to end your own life because you want so badly to be free, why not use that same energy to break free and do whatever it is you feel you need to do – minus the dying part.