forty-one.

Ten years ago, I posted my suicide note here: https://suicideproject.org/2014/06/thirty-one/

I drank myself to sleep that night. In the morning, I threw up blood and, for some reason, went to work. I was fired that day for being late and was then evicted from where I was living. After living in my car for a few months, I met a woman on a temp job that became interested in me. I fully embraced self-destruction and began snorting heroin while this woman would shoot up. After a week, I wanted to find a flophouse for us to move in together, but once she admitted she was a prostitute, I lost interest. I tried to overdose on the heroin I had left, but was found by the police and revived in an ambulance. I kept working, I lost the will to kill myself and resorted to alcohol and drug use, opting for the slow death. Soon, I met another woman and we connected due to our mental illnesses, among many other things. I got sober, we supported each other, pushed each other to give therapy another chance, pushed each other to try medication again. We were together a year before we decided to get married. A few months later, she found out she was pregnant and we were so excited. We began to plan our future, I got a big raise and promotion at work, she decided to go back to school to become a nurse. When she was 15 weeks along, she went to California to visit her mother and had a really bad bipolar episode. I later found out she stopped taking her medication because of how it may affect the baby. She disappeared from her mother’s house and a few days later, she was found dead from an overdose.

I don’t know why I kept working and living. At first, I told myself it was because it would be what she wanted. I went back to drinking and drugs. Then it became just drinking. I cut back, tried to get better, restarted therapy, tried medication again, went to group grief counseling once a week, threw myself into my job. I got another raise and promotion, I moved into a better apartment, I bought a better car. And I kept trying

Last year, between the stress of my job and the sudden negative shift in my mental health, I began my downward spiral. I had spent years trying to better myself and find a reason to live and had made no progress in therapy. Eventually, I stopped therapy, stopped medication (which had stopped working months before), and stopped grief counseling. I made the decision two months ago to quit my job and make plans to die. My last day will be on two weeks, and I have stayed on a month longer to make sure my employees have everything they need and to make the transition to their new boss as smooth as possible.

The 9th anniversary of losing my fiancee and our baby is coming up soon. I was raised in the church but haven’t really believed since I was 16. I’m 41 now. The hope I always held onto is gone. All that is left is a nagging fear of Hell, a shard of the religious indoctrination I experienced as a child. I believe I can overcome that fear with a night of drugs and alcohol and will finally be able to leave this world. I am in more mental and emotional pain than I have ever been in before. And, even more so, I am tired. Tired of trying and failing and losing. I can’t do another ten years. I can’t come back here and write a post titled “fifty-one”. I think I am ready, finally