I can remember the first time that I learned about suicide. I was sitting in a hotel room in Williamsburg, Virginia with my family watching the news while on a family vacation. I must have been around the age of 8 at the time. The victim was from an old 90s television show and he had hung himself due to a battle with depression. From that day on for many years to come, I would look at death and suicide and feel fear and was unable to sleep or get this off of my mind. I couldn’t understand how it could get so bad for someone that they would choose to hang themselves.
For many years, I struggled with my own depression and anxiety due to a number of factors, and although the first time I had to defend myself against any thoughts of thinking I would be suicidal with my therapist, I never thought that I would give it much thought more than I already had.
Every few months this thought creeps into my mind and makes me question why I wouldn’t just remove myself from this world and end my pain. Many say that this is a selfish act, but is it more selfish to ask someone to remain in a world which hurts them every day to live in? What’s the answer? That’s what is running through my mind on repeat right now.
I spoke with my therapist about my suicidal thoughts and assured her that I would not be doing anything that she needed to worry about. She believed me and said that she didn’t think that I was a threat to myself and felt comfortable giving me resources to help in those desperate moments of self-despair. She told me that I needed to be more direct when explaining to my girlfriend the gravity and depth of what I was going through, something that I had never done before. I got up the courage after a few days to finally tell her how bad my depression had gotten and told her in less obvious words than “I want to kill myself”, but that I had been on the line with a crisis centre out of what I feared I would do to myself.
In response, she sat and listened and wanted to help so badly with coming up with a plan that would help address these issues immediately. Once those words had left my mouth, it was as if I opened a gate that said “It is okay to talk about this openly now”. This, however, was not the direction I expected to take and found myself openly joking about commiting suicide. My girlfriend told me that if I did that, she would kill me. I responded “I’d already be dead, so that wouldn’t work” and I found that hilarious and she was less than thrilled.
Last night, I felt this deep sense of dread come over me and I could feel my stomach turning. I dreaded that she had to leave for work the next day because she had been working so hard to help me be okay the past two days, I was scared of what her not being home would mean for me. I voiced my worry to her and she tried to understand what I meant by that. The very first question that came out of her mouth was “why, are you going to do something???” I could feel the fear in her voice now that she knew how I truly felt inside everyday and I reassured her that I wouldn’t.
I’ve found that the thoughts of suicide have become somewhat a place of safe-haven thoughts, like it was the answer to my problems. Although this would ultimately make myself feel better in my mind, I knew that it could potentially destroy the lives of many around me and that is what I am grappling with the most. I do not want to destroy my loved ones, I simply want to stop the pain that I feel every day. I dread the thought of beginning work tomorrow and can feel myself wanting to run like I usually do. When things get tough, I run. I can’t handle it. I struggle to see myself at one job for an extended period of time because I ultimately cannot deal with any kind of stress.
So, this is where I sit. I am broken and hurting inside and I want the suffering to be over with. I want to end it. How do I do that without hurting everyone around me?