Who do you imagine when you think of a suicidal person? Age, gender, ethnicity, background, etc…. I figure there’s a lot of different suicidal stereotypes. Where am I getting at with this? Well, I mean, I figure I always knew this, but I just thought about it…
There is no actual suicidal look. Anyone can be suicidal. Anyone, regardless of how they dress, how they talk, how old or young they are… It’s not much of an epiphany I suppose. But would anyone guess that I want to die just by looking at me? How many people around me are suicidal, and I don’t even know it? How many people are suffering behind their smiles? And how many people do we assume are simple, but are really complex and introspective and just don’t speak about complex or introspective things because they aren’t relevant? Or that these supposedly simple people have had such emotional highs and lows throughout their life that it’s terrifying?
I guess I’ve been having a lot of existential crises lately. God, people are so complicated. Human beings are so complicated. Human beings, no matter how people call each other dumb for one reason or another, are so fucking intelligent, with so many thoughts running through our brains all the time. (Though, mind you, I’m fucking stupid.) And the more I learn about people, the more I learn how alike we are (though some get handed way better fucking cards than others). And there are so many of us, and any of us could go at any moment, and, from our physical perspective, once they’re gone, they’re gone. And the poorest, messiest person could be incredibly knowledgeable or introspective, and nobody would ever know. Because each of us is only one of a million. No, one of billions. Like ants. But billions of intelligent, introspective, emotional, complicated, amazing ants who make technological wonders out of bits and pieces, working together to build the incomprehensibly complicated modern society we have today. And any one of us could die at any moment.
It hurts, you know? When I was a little girl… (Oh yeah, I’m a woman. But how would you know what I look like from anything I’m typing now? It’s so strange, to get to know people through nothing more than text.) …I had big dreams, lofty ambitions, and a fairly big ego. I thought I was so smart, that I could invent things, cure diseases, write amazing books, take on the world, and my viewpoint was so skewed. I thought I could literally become anything I wanted. But… at the same time, I knew I was overwhelmed. I had a vision… or rather, a hundred big visions, but no way to get to any of them. I knew I didn’t have a plan… though I didn’t realize that my parents didn’t have one either. Or rather, we had plans, but they weren’t realistic. Fuck (and no, little me would not approve of my current cursing habits), I could barely see a year ahead of me. A part of me couldn’t imagine living past 18. While another part of me couldn’t imagine ever dying.
But I’m in my mid-twenties, and I’ve barely experienced… anything. At all. Sure, in the past 4 years, I can add “riding public transportation alone”, and, this year, I can add “having a job” to my list. But what else? Maybe “graduating” in December, assuming I survive this nightmare. But education is a means to an end, and if I don’t survive long enough to actually reach that end, what was the point?
The truth is, I don’t want actually to die. I just want to start fucking living. I want the fucking misery to stop. I want to be able to have fun without feeling horrible about it because I have far too many deadlines and not enough time to finish my work, or even sleep, let alone have fun. (And I sure as hell don’t want to be afraid of being homeless again.) I want to actually wear clothes that I want to wear. I want to have my own place… and possible maybe even a driver’s license and a car. I want to be able to buy things without fear. I want to have my first goddamn romantic relationship. I want to someday have children! (It’s so strange to actually think of myself as a mother when I still feel like a child.) There are so many things I want to do, but I haven’t had time to do them because I was forced to do other things. And I’m afraid that when I do start living, I’ll actually die, because I’ve been wishing for death for so long.
I wonder what my classmates thought about me. That I was a goody two shoes? Or a nerd? Or just strange? Maybe just a loner. Somebody I knew thought I’d make it into a good university, but did they know I come from a dirt-poor family with loose plans and no money saved up? Or that I didn’t know the first thing about applying to colleges and that I was overwhelmed with my classes and the essays? Isn’t it pathetic that I’m still lamenting about high school and the years I spent at community college? Lamenting over experiences that have gone and passed…
I’m sorry for this meandering rant. I know it kinda went all over the place. I didn’t really plan it out.
(…I would say “kinda like my life”, but I’ve been in a rut for a long time, not so much “all over the place”. And it was planned… just poorly.)
3 comments
I think about past experiences quite alot.
Try out this thing called ‘life’. I mean, can’t hurt can it? I only recently started ‘living’ recently myself. Gonna try and hang in there a few months. RE relationships, lol don’t get me started (I’m messed up).
Fun factoids. Probably a lady. People who keep the stats tell us ladies attempt about 3 times more often than men.
Women hit their prime for completing at about 50. Men complete about 10 times more often per attempt as they appear to favor firearms and so amass roughly 80 percent of the completes.