I’ve suffered depression ever since I could remember. Â I grew up moving around a lot and never really having any friends. Â I’d always feel terribly alone, made to be an outsider, sitting alone with a book (my only friends it seemed like) to hide my tears behind. Â I was bullied often for my broken nose (which also gave me horrible migraines). I first tried to kill myself at age 7 by drowning. Â I just remember feeling so broken and tired of bullying/isolation. Â That wasn’t my first time to seek the solace of death.
In my teens, I tried overdosing on sleeping pills. Â I wanted relief from the unrelenting depression and nagging suicidal thoughts. I ended up going to the ER when I developed convulsions and remember my dad saying that I should have just used a gun.
In my early twenties, I tried hanging. Â Odd thing was how when I did survive due to shifting of the rope, no one really knew of the incident. Â There wasn’t a group of people saying how relieved they were I was alive; it was just get ready for work and wear a turtleneck for a couple days to hide the rope burn.
I haven’t attempted in almost ten years, because I always had the bridge as my fire exit if all goes to hell. Â I’m considered incredibly intelligent and have a deep love for history, but depression has derailed hopes to get into graduate school. Â Writing is my passion and while I have a book that is attracting agents’ attention; it isn’t wide market appeal for them to take a chance on it in this market. Â I even taught overseas for a couple years and while I was considered amazing at the job; it wasn’t my passion and being around people drains me.
I feel so hopeless and empty. Â Depression and suicidal idealation has been a lifelong struggle. Â While I found some decent anti-depressants, I still have no motivation and feel life isn’t worth living if i don’t have a fulfilling career. Having a pet is one of the few things to lower my suicidal feelings, but I have been moving around a lot (jobs in Korea and now staying with one of my few friends).
I want to jump off Golden Gate early next week and then maybe this pain would be over. I feel like a failure at life. Â I just couldn’t be happy like anyone else. I remember in 3rd grade “winning” the most serious kid award for never smiling. Â You’d think someone would wonder if I was okay rather than making light of how I was silent and didn’t act carefree like other kids. I remember being told to never tell anyone I was depressed or I’d be locked up in some hospital.
I just always felt different than everyone (I was diagnosed with pdd/aspergers and saw many specialists when I was little as I didn’t talk until I was about 6). Â I always felt like I connected better with animals than I do people. Â While now, I’ve had people say that I opened them up how to see the world differently and am actually incredibly interesting to talk to, I still feel like that hurt child all those years ago and my depression was at its worst in college so I didn’t do a lot of networking/study abroad/etc to make myself a strong candidate for grad school. Â I lived my life thinking that nothing mattered as I’d just be dead the following year.
My mom accepts me more and I’m grateful that I can talk to her about my depression and for her to acknowledge my transition (I’m mtf trans, but I transitioned at about age 20ish, pass really well, and got everything legally changed). Â My other family members don’t talk to me anymore and when I was teaching in Korea, it was lonely to have to keep my past secret. I also feel like I can’t talk to my mom about everything; she doesn’t know that I’m planning to end it as I remember some harsh words she told me as a kid in regards to my suicidal feelings.
Thank you to anyone who has read this far. Â Being forgotten scares me far more than death. It wasn’t fair for my younger self to have become so desensitized to suicide to where I know think of it as casually as I would pouring a glass of juice.
I guess saddest irony is that people are drawn to the bridge to metaphorically be with all those others who might know our pain; yet, depression makes you feel like no one else can relate. Â ~~Elise
6 comments
I feel such a kinship to you. Im a “rising star” intellectually who has a hard time relating to others. Ibfelt the way I feel listening to David Foster Wallace when I read your post.
Ok. i can feel your pain. i know how it feels. but let me tell you. if you dont stop it u will keep suffering, maybe for your past or for your future. There is no death way, death will take you to your zero start. Think about what death is and realise there is a 5th dimension where we cant go if we are not in moods of facing the facts of life. If you will keep on this life path i suggest you following the teaches of Gurdjieff, but dont take it to severe and FORGET the bridge option, and if you dont, just remind yourself and have luck where you stay! But please, face the facts. Hope this will help you keep on through. We all have bad moments but we all are gods.
I can relate to how your’e feeling. I was never diagnosed with depression or anything as a child, but have had suicidal ideation since the age of around 8 or so. Like you, I was told never to let on to having any kind of “mental illness” or I’d be put in the hospital and it would be on my “permanent record.” Like you, my parents saw how unhappy I was (though it was only when I was in my 30s that they told me they they knew), yet did nothing about it.
Although I am currently in a doctoral program in grad school, I have been somewhat derailed with a serious relapse and two suicide attempts, forcing me to be on medical leave. While I have been medically cleared to return to school in the spring, I have no motivation to continue on with the program; it’s in a field that I’m not even really interested in, moving me toward a career that I do not feel is actually going to bring me joy or satisfaction.
I have been to therapists, been on medication, been hospitalized, and been to a residential treatment center and none of it has helped. My mind keeps coming back here. I see no future that does not include my depression; further, I see no point in continuing to struggle for a future that ultimately ends the same way for everyone.
So, I guess all of that is to say, I understand where you are coming from, even though our experiences are different, and I understand where you want to go. Whatever decision you ultimately make, I hope you find the peace you are looking for.
Finding others who understand me is rare so I really appreciate everyone’s comments. Depression and intelligence seem to walk hand-in-hand. From Plath to van Gogh, Cobain to Hemmingway, a gift of genius has the curse of depression. David Foster Wallace’s description of being suicidal is very apt. While part of me doesn’t want to die, the other is more afraid/ despairing of the metaphorical fire in his analogy. Sometimes I wonder if ignorance is truly bliss, but then again, I wouldn’t want to live a life where I was easily amused and placated by celebrity gossip.
The endless cycle of therapists, medicine, and even partial hospitalization seems to be putting off the inevitable. Yet, I hope all of you can find the strength to go on. It’d be a shame for those lax of mind to inherit the earth when the gifted destroy themselves.
I feel that maybe I could go on if I had a decent place of my own, a piano again, a dog, a career in an enriching field such as history, make just enough money off my books to get by, and a community of friends that would jump at the opportunity to visit a museum/ archeological site/ arcade and indulge in nerdy excursions like dnd and games.
Yet, to muster that in the throes of the depression is like the plight of Sisyphus, pushing a boulder uphill and not really getting anywhere. Nagging suicidal thoughts and depression seem unceasing and it saddens me that our society, and those around the world, seem so focused on the banal and destructive greed.
I think before I head to the bridge, I will make a day of visiting the museum, eating something I like, listening to music, seeing animals at the zoo or pet store, and going on one final run before taking the final dive into the Pacific.
I’ve considered the bridge as a way out. We have the Jacques Cartier Bridge here that has put up some anti jumper railings due to that bridge being rated the second most popular jumping bridge after the Golden Gate Bridge, but there is still the Champlain Bridge and others… It does seem like a tempting method, or it did for quite some time to me until I came across the statements from a few people who survived the jumps and described how it felt. I’m including a link to one guy’s account of what it was like, but there are far more detailed stories out there that really describe the pain that one would potentially go through. I don’t know, I just don’t want to be tortured in my last moments. I, like most, want a peaceful exit… one with very little to no pain.
http://nypost.com/2013/06/30/he-jumped-off-the-golden-gate-bridge-and-lived/
The pain comes from if one survives it. From a science article I have read, it points out how our brain is on a half second or so delay. So in truth, we could be hitting the water but thinking we were still 20 meters from the water. Most people don’t remember the point of impact. Perhaps wrong to say, but as a frustrated author who survived a lot of really difficult situations, I see that he got a book deal out of it. 99% chance of dying, 1% book deal… doesn’t seem so bad.