So, suicide is a weird thing.
I don’t mean to offend anyone with the above statement so allow me to explain further.
Every day since it’s entered my brain that at some point whether in the near or later future, I will most certainly be ending my life, there has been a war inside my mind. Now, there has always been a war inside my mind. The devil and the angel on my shoulder..the good wolf and the bad wolf, we’ve all heard those examples and cliches, but all in all they sum it up. The good voice telling me I’m great and awesome and offer the world a lot, and the bad voice telling me I suck ass and should just kill myself already and save the world some resources.
But lately this dichotomy has switched. It’s still the “you’re great;you suck” in a sense but it’s actually even clearer then before. Everything I do now is either viewed by me as a step towards preserving life or a step towards ending it. Everything. I have a dentist’s appointment scheduled for next week and thought to myself, who the hell cares what state my teeth are in if I’m not gonna be alive in 5 years? Every positive thought I’ve been able to muster and the money I’ve been spending on therapy and pills is money I’m pouring into self-preservation, life. And all the money I’m using to pay off student loan debt (the only reason I’m existing is to pay down my debt before I go) moves me closer to a day I’m free to make a clear choice about the need to end my life, without any financial guilt clouding the decision.
When I shower reasonably often, it makes me feel better. That’s moving me in the direction of life. When I think a silly thought or feel more connected to my true self, it makes me want to live. But this scares me. Because so much of me still wants to die. It’s like I’m trying to balance myself where I’m okay enough that I can at least make it through the next year or 2 to pay down my debt but I don’t want to get to a mental state where I actually want to go on, because in so many ways I do not want that, nor do I really think I could even maintain that state for any length of time. I mean if I could feel excited about life, I’d prolly have decided to be okay and live already a long time ago. I feel like I’m teetering. “Don’t look too happy so that they start asking you to do shit you don’t wanna do but don’t look so depressed as shit that they ship you off to a mental ward asap.” It’s a very fine line I walk.
So basically, the thought of suicide permeates every thought I think these days. I weigh every decision now whether it’ll matter in 5 years not because I’m so wise and using that cliche but because I probably won’t be here then, so it truly doesn’t actually matter. Although that survival instinctual aspect of myself is still intact, there are so many hurdles I know I will not be able to jump. I haven’t jumped them thus far and have accepted they’re not ones I can breach. So even though 20% of me wants to see this life through, that 80% is winning out, the odds are just too stacked against me.
4 comments
You’re more resilient than you think. You mostly want to die and yet you’ve managed to determine a goal which keeps you alive for the immediate future. If the thought of your life stretching out before you is too much.. Just accept that once you reach your goal you’ve set.. there might be something else beyond it.
It can be ridiculous.. a band I want to see live… one last time. (8 months) or a new game i want to play (3 months) or that good cup of coffee from the shop where they play quirky familiar music (1 day).
I never thought i’d be alive at this age.. but here i am. I still plan on not dying naturally but.. not tomorrow.
Like Roak said, it’s good to differentiate your immediate future from the big future. Something I just thought of while reading your post is that you can approach life like a crappy apartment…
You need to get out. But as long as you’re stuck living tgere, you can make it as pleasant or pain free as possible. Clean up, put some plants around, put up curtains. These things might not change the fact that you live in a crappy apartment, but they can make it more tolerable in the immediate future.
So for example, going to the dentist… Yeah it may not matter in 5 years, but at least you’ll have 5 years of a dazzling white smile before you kill yourself (ha).
Oh I also wanted to say I really like your analysis of life. Life, and the universe in general, are full of seemingly pointless forces that cancel each other out. Why does a star rage so hot in a sea of infinite cold? Why does a salmon struggle so hard to swim upstream only to get caught & eaten by some guy for dinner? Why did I bother to make my bed for the millionth time… haven’t I learned by now that I just muss it up every night?
It all seems so futile. So I guess the best you can do is find some contrived perspective (ie the immediate future) where it does make sense. Briefly. Before you awaken to the greater reality of pointlessness. Well this was depressing… Sorry
Roak, I agree those little milestones do help it…but in a lot of ways I’m not even sure I can make it to pay off all of my debt. Just trying to pay off as much as I can.
Cyanidesofmarch, I like your idea of sprucing up someplace even if it just makes you happy. With depression I feel like Charlie Brown, I’m like “why bother” but there is good reason to even if it just makes you happy for a little while. That being said my room is a disaster at the moment… Thanks and I agree the futility is so frustrating. I always wish I was a more hopeful and loving person because I feel like those are the people who find meaning in the futility of it all.