At 27, I’ve settled into a comfortable coexistence with my suicidality. We’ve made peace, or at least a temporary accord negotiated by therapy and medication. It’s still hard sometimes, but not as hard as you might think. What makes it harder is being unable to talk about it freely: the weightiness of the confession, the impossibility of explaining that it both is and isn’t as serious as it sounds. I don’t always want to be alive. Yes, I mean it. No, you shouldn’t be afraid for me. No, I’m not in danger of killing myself right now. Yes, I really mean it.
How do you explain that?
After that, I celebrated each birthday with surprise because each age I hit was one I assumed I wouldn’t reach.
I know exactly this feeling. I often expected the escape from terrible depression would eventually be suicide. I still expect to die by my own hand when my quality of life declines from health problems or old age in the future.
Funny thing is, my father was the same way. He procured for himself whatever drug is administered in right-to-die cases and warned me that he had it a number of years ago. But he never asked for it when he went into hospice due to age-related health issues. He clung to life until it was gone.
Wow did this feel like it was written for me. The analogy of treading water, ultimately resigned to the idea that at some point, you’ll succumb, but hoping it isn’t soon.
Recently, I took a trip to Europe. There I was able to experiment with micro-dosing shrooms, and it really helped me find the connection to life and others that I’ve been missing. No, I wasn’t blitzed off 5 grams, wandering around with saucer plate pupils, I was micro-dosing while on an antidepressant which dulls the effect considerably. On one particular occasion, I opened up about some troubles I’ve had to two nice guys that were at the same concert with me. They were incredibly drunk (I’m sober from alcohol 5 years) so I felt safe in confiding stuff to them that I might normally hide. In our conversation, I talked about how these events manifested in suicidal thoughts and a half-hearted attempt, and their reaction? “Us too.”
I then went around for the rest of the night, and whenever I talked to a guy, I’d randomly add “hey, I’m glad you didn’t kill yourself.” and every single man I said that to teared up and thanked me (I said it to one woman and she looked at me like I was crazy, so I stuck with guys after that haha).
Suicide death hasn’t been this high since the great depression, it’s clearly linked to the predominant financial stress we all feel. They refer to them as “deaths of despair.”
I don’t know why I’m writing this but I feel like my comment should have a point so I’ll say this: Voting to advance social welfare saves lives. Literally.
Men generally do not have community spaces or social support networks at this moment in history. It’s something that urgently needs a social movement to address that also doesn’t involve bigotry, flag-waving or outright nazism as an antidote.
I am glad you didn’t kill yourself, too. Stay strong.
I’ve had this since my teens. Some days, weeks, even months are harder than others, but no matter what I always feel like an attention-seeking fraud for not being “serious” about suicide, like others who actually try it
I cope through humour, mostly. I affectionately refer to the train station near me as my “get out of jail free card”, for when things get too much and I eventually succumb. It’ somehow helps to know I’m kidding, but also not kidding. Though I’ve thought and planned enough to know if I did ever really do it, that’s probably not what I’d do.
But yeah. I find all I can do is take each day as it comes.
Please don’t kill yourself by train, for the sake of the driver, and onlookers. I saw someone behead themselves by train when I was 17 and I’m still mad at them for it. How dare they put that shit on everyone in the area