If you had not seen or heard of the concept of “suicide”

Would you still be able to come up with the idea?

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I remember the first time I was exposed to the concept of suicide. It was on the newspaper.

A girl, probably 12-13 years old, had chosen to jump off a skyscraper and die. (The academic stress imposed on kids in elementary school is that insane.)

The scene is still vivid in my mind.

The scene, a little subsection of the newspaper leaping out before my eyes and educating the mind, is still fresh in my memory.

I had toyed with the idea of suicide ever since. When I was back in the city it used to be something like this:

Sneaking in the bathroom. Finding the screwdriver. Unhinging the bars behind the windows. Open the window. Sit on the edge. A dizzying height.

Fall to the ground from the 22nd floor.

I was a child.

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Years later, as I was walking up the stairs to the elevator, I saw a little green tent on the landing. There was a tall apartment building with windows behind where the tent was erected.

“Is someone camping in there?” I asked my mother.

“Someone jumped.” She was curt.

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She beat me to it.

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The thing is that at some point in my life, exposure to the stories of suicide coupled with severe emotional pain caused me to come to the inevitable result. That I could choose to die if it became too much.

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What do you think?