Welp, it’s been three years since the last time I visited this site. I’m in a pretty similar scenario too: feigning illness to get out of school and be alone at home, debating what my next action should be. It’s so frustrating that I keep feeling unsatisfied , like something is missing. I have friends, caring ones at that, good grades. Hell, I even have a girlfriend now, whether that’s for better or for worse. But I still struggle to feel attached or feel compassion for anything. Sure, in the moment I can forget about my desire to be wiped off this existence, but it always comes back, it’s always lingering right around the corner.
I care, I really do, about the well being of others. That’s part of the reason I am deathly (that’s ironic) terrified of just up and offing myself. I hate disappointing others. I don’t want to kill myself if it means crushing my friends, my family, or anyone who cares. Ideally, I hope to isolate myself from everyone, and finally be in a place where my suffering can only hurt myself. Where there is no potential for anyone to ever find out how I really feel.
Reflecting, I suppose there are several reasons as to why I’ve progressed to my current state of mind. Recently a member of my area’s Summer high school Stage program committed suicide. He was a senior who had been accepted into a prestigious college. I didn’t know him, nor had I ever done the program, but a few of my friends had knew him. It didn’t have any effect on me, but I saw how distraught some of the others were, even people who hadn’t spoken to him in a year. I’m not entirely sure that I can relate to his suffering, but I had reaffirmed to myself that I wouldn’t let my death bring sadness or pain to anyone else.
This last week has been probably my worst yet. I’ve given in to to a despair and given up on my school work. This is from a student in the top ten of his class for high school. I can’t say that I haven’t enjoyed any of my classes, but I can never motivate myself to be productive and work to my best effort. My mother has always pushed for me to be one of the academically best, and it is for her and my fear of disappointing her that I have always pushed for the challenging workload. Unfortunately, I feel as though I have let Mark Twain down, and let my education interfere with my learning. My schedule is so fucked up with honor societies and homework and projects that I never find time for relaxing/self-meditation or following my passion that I am pursuing in college: music. At this time though, I’ve fallen so behind on due dates and classwork that my only savior is the early Spring (or perhaps it’s more of a late Winter) recess in which we are getting next week off.
I now sit here, pondering my next move. As of right now, I am almost genuinely considering all my options with equal possibility of being carried out. I’ve never brought significant self-harm to myself before, but it has become awfully tempting in recent light. Last night was the first time that I seriously considered misusing or even attempting an overdose on otc drugs. I was a lot closer than I’d like to admit, searching what combinations had what effects, with a few cold and pain relievers at my bedside. I’ve considered sharing my feelings to someone, but my biggest fear is to be treated like i can’t be dependent, or that I would disappoint my family or friends for being this way. At the same time, though, it gnaws away at me to have all of this bottled up to myself. I want to run away, to disappear from everyone’s life, to be where it what I do won’t matter anymore.
This… this has helped. I can say that I feel less frustrated than when I started this post. Admittedly, this was not meant to be so long. I felt I was too flustered to even describe how I felt. A few sentences turned into a paragraph, which then created a few others. My deepest thanks for anyone taking time for reading the dark secrets of my mind.
3 comments
Sounds like you well deserve a day off. Hope you have time for some music and meditation.
Concentrate on yourself. Don’t lose yourself in this cluster of emotion and impacts. Life is a series of impacts but you decide how they affect. Make it positive. They may seem like Small steps now but in the future it’ll feel like huge leaps. Hope you can carry on with your dream of music. Always here. Good luck
“It’s so frustrating that I keep feeling unsatisfied…I still struggle to feel attached or feel compassion for anything.”
These are your hormones most likely. What you can do is find a distraction (book, friend, video game) to help cope with them. Being pessimistic, I believe everyone’s unsatisfied over something. Why aren’t you happy? What would make you happy? You could be stressed out over the work you’re tired of doing, but you have to keep doing it, or else….
“I hate disappointing others. I don’t want to kill myself if it means crushing my friends, my family, or anyone who cares.”
Another reason is because killing yourself is selfish, and you don’t want to be remembered as the guy who rejected everyone who cared about him. These are your morals, however, there are ways you can rationalize suicide. For example, everyone has to die someday someway, and living only prolongs the inevitable. Another example would be that death, although scary, is natural; animals (including us) die everyday. A little over 150,000 people die each day according to Google, and of that about 3000 are suicides. Also, if there’s no afterlife when we die, just oblivion, then anything we do in life doesn’t really matter. But if there IS an afterlife, and there are consequences for suicide, then I for one hope they aren’t too severe… Still, suicide hurts people who love you, and if our essence, identity and memory continue on to an afterlife, how are you going to deal with the guilt? How are you going to make it up to them? Maybe when you see them again, you can apologize and ask them to let what happened on Earth stay on Earth. If they love you, then they’ll let you go. Like releasing some beloved pet back into the wild where it belongs, they’ll understand.
“It didn’t have any effect on me, but I saw how distraught some of the others were, even people who hadn’t spoken to him in a year.”
It allowed you to see the impact and effects of suicide. Some people may see him as using a permanent solution to solve a temporary problem. It might inspire other suicidal people to attempt suicide. I mean, guy-who-suicided is now free of all future problems and frustration. He could be temporarily sad for leaving all his friends and family on Earth behind, but he’ll see them again. Right now he could be exploring the universe, or like living and having fun in a lucid dream. We don’t know. All we know is that he’s not with us anymore and that sooner or later we’re going to join him in losing our lives. Death makes us aware of that. On the plus side, at least suicides get to determine how they want to die rather than let nature or fate decide for them.
“I wouldn’t let my death bring sadness or pain to anyone else.”
You don’t want your death to hurt anyone. For that you’ll need to stay in school, get a job, move out, gradually detach from friends and family, and contemplate an ending. To reach this goal would take years and even then, there is no guarantee of success–with any part of it. But it’s a worthy goal.
“I’ve given in to a despair and given up on my school work. This is from a student in the top ten of his class for high school.”
I, too, was in the top ten of my high school class. Now, I’m 22, pretending to be a college student because I burnt out, lost my scholarship, and can’t tell my parents that I can’t afford college anymore. I hope to get out of all this mess before June… My advice, finish high school, but wait a year before you go to college if you can. I started thinking about suicide toward the end of high school, too. I was burnt out, and then in college, while studying to become an engineer, everything went downhill. I’m not going to say things will get better because things could get worse and harder. I think you’re just a bit stressed. You say you have friends, a decent family, and even a girlfriend. You’re lucky and should be grateful. By the way, if you pursue music, you better like singing, classical music, and band music.
“Last night was the first time that I seriously considered misusing or even attempting an overdose on otc drugs.”
NO. Overdosing is prone to failure and you could end up being revived, apprehended, and sent to an institution for therapy. Death is serious and hormones can cause you to behave impulsively like that and make you regret doing things you know you shouldn’t. If it’s been a constant thing on your mind for say over two years and you believe you have a sound reason for suicide, then by all means. As soon as you become an adult, you have the right to die how and when you want. It’s your life. Nobody’s forcing or requiring you to live. Still, there are a handful of people who want you around, so live on their behalf for the time being. Again, I don’t believe your desire to die is “profound.” Maybe you can confide in a friend. Just say, “Hey, Bob, you ever wanted to just disappear.” And then go from there. I told my mom and sister I wanted to jump off a 9 story building 2 years ago, and my life improved a little, but nothing really changed… They just knew I was sad about something they couldn’t understand. I still feel obligated to pretend I’m happy around them. Even though they know I see no point to life and want to end it all, it’s like nobody wants to talk about it. I give them seemingly meaningless clues and joke about not wanting to live, but they don’t take it serious. I feel like I’m wasting my time on Earth. I rather exist someplace else, if I could. But it seems I have to get out of Earth first.
“I can say that I feel less frustrated than when I started this post.”
Writing out your thoughts helps with stress and frustration. I have an app on my iPhone called Momento when I need to vent. If you ever need someone to listen, send me an email loque@riseup.net. I don’t honestly know how long I’m going to be here. I was supposed to be gone 2 years ago but due to me not wanting to hurt folks’ feelings I am still sadly here…