Trying to psych myself up

I’m not sure where to start, but I’ll be writing a lot here, so I’m going to warn you ahead of time that this will be a long read and probably very disjointed because I’m just putting down my thoughts as they come.

I’ll start with the basics: I’m a 24-year-old male and I’ve struggled with depression for over half of my life.  My formal diagnoses are major depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, both of which were given when I was around the age of 10.  I have had thoughts of suicide daily for as long as I can remember, but it has been awhile since I’ve felt seriously compelled to do it.  Rather, it had been awhile.

The past 36 hours or so have been incredibly strange.  I generally don’t feel much emotion other than fear and emptiness, but there is something going on with my frame of mind that I can’t find the word for.  The best I can describe it is to liken it to a drum roll – it’s leading up to something.  It almost feels as though my brain is trying to tell me that the time has come to end it, if that makes any sense.  I’ve spent the past day and a half researching all things suicide: looking into methods, watching videos, reading first-hand accounts, etc.  That’s what lead me to this site.

I know that I have problems beyond depression, but I haven’t sought help because I don’t see any possible outcome resulting in me living a fulfilling (or even tolerable) life.  What I’m doing right now can hardly even be called living.  I merely exist.  I wake up, I go on the computer, I watch some television and then I go to sleep.  This has been my routine for years with little to no variation.

I haven’t left my home since 2013, and even that was only for a dental appointment.  I haven’t left my home for social reasons since 2009.  I haven’t spoken to anybody other than my parents since 2011.  I stopped speaking altogether in 2015.  Despite living with both of my parents, I haven’t spoken a single word to either of them in nearly two years.  I haven’t even made eye contact with them.  I haven’t taken a shower since December.  I hide in my room and beat the shit out of myself when visitors come over.  I’m constantly afraid that people are trying to kill me or make me kill myself and I don’t understand why.  I find myself running around the house and looking out windows upwards of 50 times a day and I don’t even know what I’m expecting to see on the other side of the glass.

Lately I just can’t seem to remember anything.  I’ll find myself having to restart a movie halfway through because I’ll have no idea what has happened up to that point, and this happens while I’m actively watching a movie, not passively watching it in the background while I do something else.  I always had a great memory up until a few years ago, so I chalk this up to another symptom of my declining mental state.

I have chronic digestive issues that have been getting worse.  I can no longer have a bowel movement without the aid of laxatives.  I can hardly remember the last time my stomach didn’t feel like a war zone.  I have prescription laxatives in the medicine cupboard dating back to 2012, so the issues have been going on for at least that long.  I don’t know what’s causing it as I’ve never gotten any treatment beyond the aforementioned prescription, but I have to assume it’s my poor diet.  I never learned to cook anything so I just eat frozen junk food like Hot Pockets and Pizza Rolls.

Back when I was a kid, around the 10-12 age range, I used to tie makeshift nooses in my closet out of articles of clothing.  I would place my head inside the noose but I never had the courage to kick my feet out from under me.  I imagine that’s why many of us are still here and visiting sites like this – we want to end it but don’t have the resolve to do so.  I don’t have access to a firearm or any sort of rope, so I’m really limited in my options.  My parents both have a lot of prescription meds, but I can’t use those because they’d surely notice the missing pills and have my stomach pumped.

There is a lot of acetaminophen around the house which seems like my only real option at this point.  There are a lot of problems with this though.  The biggest issue is how slow it is.  It can take upwards of 24 hours before you even develop symptoms of overdose, and there is a lot of vomiting associated with acetaminophen poisoning.  I imagine my parents would get suspicious if they heard me puking my guts out at odd hours of the day.  My parents both work 12 hour shifts at the same time, so I figure my best bet it to take my first overdose about half an hour before they leave for work.  I’ve read that taking multiple, smaller ODs throughout the day is a better exit plan than taking one big overdose.  This would give me about 12 and a half hours to do as much damage as possible to my liver.  I’m sure that I will be caught, so I just have to hope that I can do damage to the point that it’s irreversible.  Surely I will not be put on a transplant list if I insist that I will just repeat my actions.  My parents are off work until Monday, so I’m aiming for Monday as my goal date.

I wish I had the balls to just slit my throat from ear to ear and choke on my own blood.  Maybe I could do myself in Elliott Smith style with a couple well-placed jabs to the chest.  I maintain that I could – and would – end my suffering in a heartbeat if I had access to a firearm.  Once you pull the trigger there is no room for hesitation.  There’s no room for backing out.  It just comes down to chance.  I fear that even if I had access to rope, I wouldn’t have the resolve to kick the chair out from under me.

I didn’t have a bad childhood or any particular major trauma in my life.  My family isn’t rich but we’ve never been hurting for money either.  My parents have never been physical with each other or their children and my dad has been sober since before I was born.  I was heavily bullied in high school to the point that I dropped out and finished my education online, but my problems started years before that so I can’t really point to that and say “that’s why I am where I am today.”  The reality is that I want to die.  I’ve wanted to die for over half of my life.  Nothing precipitated it… it just sort of happened.

I no longer get joy out of anything in life.  I only watch television nowadays out of habit.  I can’t even remember the last time I masturbated.  You know you’re in a bad place when you’re a male in your early 20s with no sex drive.

I worry a bit about what will happen after I die.  As an atheist, the idea of nothingness gnaws at my brain when I’m seriously contemplating suicide.

I hate what I’m going to do to my family.  My maternal grandmother committed suicide while my mother was pregnant with me, and I see how deeply it hurts her to this day.  I suppose this is the biggest reason that I didn’t end it years ago.  I’m hoping that I have sufficiently distanced myself from them to the point that they won’t have too hard a time with my passing.  I’ve never been close with my dad, so I’m not that worried about him.

Right now I’m just trying to psych myself up.  I’m trying to get myself in the frame of mind required to end my suffering.  I have typed up an 8 page note explaining my actions.  I look outside at the clear blue sky and it just looks so beautiful to me.  I can’t recall feeling this way before.  Perhaps – hopefully – it’s the contentment one supposedly feels when he has made up his mind.  I have been saving a bottle of whisky for the last 8 years to be opened on a special occasion.  If I open it I will know that the deal is sealed.  In all likelihood I will not be able to muster the courage to go through with it and I will “live” to die another day.

I just wanted to type this all up and put it out there.  If anybody actually takes the time to read this, I would appreciate any kind of response.  Whether you want to give me advice, call me a coward or simply empathize, I’ll be checking in periodically assuming I don’t go through with anything.