I’m a long term suicide survivor. I know how hard it is and how it feels to want to die. So I’ve written a novel about a girl who goes down that path and ends up in a hospital, like I did, and actually gets help. When I present it at writer’s groups, they don’t understand why the girl wants to die just because the love of her life dumped her. Geez. These people must have robot “stable emotions,” like saw dust instead of guts. It’s never just one thing but sometimes it takes just one more thing to push a person over that edge.
The novel also has humor. Rather than go into specifics, I make the mother a caricature of the controlling distant mother.
My question: Do you think other suicidal persons would want to read such a novel? My experience is that once one has gone over that edge, to consider seriously taking one’s own life, they think differently than the part of the population who wants to live no matter what. I want “them” the ones who don’t understand to understand how it feels.
Who knows? They probably won’t. In any case, if I ever get it out online, the title is “Karma’s Little Helper.”
Thanks for reading.
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PS. You can reach me at scdproject.earthlink.net . Trying to connect through these posts is very difficult! I will check the email weekly.
For me, it really comes down to whether it’s a good read, something that will grab my attention and take me away.
Life is short, so I’m not really into novels with an agenda, I just want an experience.
in my experience, those that haven’t even peered over the edge into oblivion are incapable of understanding the suicidal mentality. All information is not for everybody but I’d personally love to read a story such as yours. Nick Hornby wrote one a few years ago about 4 suicidal strangers who each chose the same spot and date(new years) to kill themselves. They eventually form a little suicide club in an attempt to keep eachother alive for as long as possible, work through the pain.
Best suicide moment ever in fiction:
The film “In Bruges”.
Hopefully you capture the internal struggle to find he strength to live while simultaneously trying to find the courage to die all while trying to struggle with the external pressures of economics, relationships, family, physical and mental illnesses … and people who can’t “wrap their heads” around why someone actually seriously considers the option of suicide
Hell – I’m on this site and read a lot of stories and even though I contemplate for my own reasons … with some people, I can’t for the life of me understand why they would find some of their “issues” so overbearing as to think death is the only way out.
good luck with your tale – it’s a hard story to tell.
critic dawg
Why? For some people whose issues you do not find overbearing. Try chemical imbalance.
I couldn’t dig into the pit because, after climbing out of that deep well, I try not to get too close to the edge. But I do my best. It is, however, written from a woman’s point of view.
I do try to tell it, the whole story. When my character wakes up alive in a mental ward, the first thing she does is demand to be freed. “You kept me alive and now I need to go out and keep making a living.” Nothing like being released more broke than before you went in to perk your spirits up.
Vedura like Aventura?haha
No, Vedura, the long form for Veda, the main female character in a fantasy series I wrote.
Sounds like it has a happy ending. Not a fairytale ending, but a happy one where she gets help and rises above her depression. :L