“I don’t care that much about money,” I said to myself. “I don’t believe that money makes anyone happy,” my co- worker Heather overheard me talking to myself and said “You say it but I know it’s not true.” It startled me because I thought I was alone and also I guess she’s right. When I go broke, I am desperately upset. So upset I want to die. When you google “I Want to Die” there are 31,300,000 results. But that’s not the scariest thing. The scariest thing is that “I said this to myself and I was committed to this.”
I think very few people actually become suicidal.
Many of us get stressed, depressed, sad, and so on—but to truly have a suicidal thought is reserved for a relatively small group of people. There is a difference between thinking or talking about killing oneself, and truly having a deep desire to end one’s own life.
I have been dealing with a severe lack of love for myself for a number of years now and there have been many moments where I have felt completely numb. Or faithless. Faith is the worst thing not to have in times of pain. I’m not talking about religion. I’m talking about ones faith that tomorrow will have any joy or any pleasure all.
I have thought a lot about suicide and everything that it might entail. How I would do it, what note I would leave, how people would think about me after it was over, and so on.
Warning
I can only speak from the experience I went through. And I am going to be very careful about what I say.
Usually I don’t care but this is a touchy subject for me. In my experience, the people who actually end their own lives (My Uncle) are usually pretty secretive about how they have been feeling. It always seems to come as such a surprise—though perhaps that also has to do with the human inclination towards denial.
I guess there may have been some traits, but it’s definitely NOT obvious that this person was suffering as much as they were.
The reason I believe this to be the case is because a major cause of suicide seems to be repression. It is the person who keeps their true feelings reserved and hidden from other people that is most likely to end their own life. The more stubborn and tough a person is, the more likely they are to commit suicide when things are too difficult to handle on their own.
Here’s the thing- there is no limit to human suffering. It doesn’t matter how tough someone is, they will break under the right amount of pressure. Some people challenge this.
If we are in a place of extreme sorrow without a cause, without help, or without anyone understanding us, then it is a natural inclination to want to commit suicide. Toughing it out without seeking out help or expressing how we truly feel is the path to suicide. At least it was to my attempt.
I’ve felt the closest to the Grimm Realers door during the times when I wasn’t expressing how badly I was feeling and was trying to do everything on my own. The fact of the matter is, I can’t do this without other people.
The challenge of this illness is an impossible task without being supported by those who I love and care for.
Without love, we cannot tolerate our suffering.
The truth about suicide is that we are most vulnerable when we don’t express our vulnerability. It’s sort of a paradox. Just like when you try not to think negatively your mind wanders itself into feeling negative.
We must express our feelings in some way, whether it be seeking out counseling, talking to our family, reaching out to friends, OR starting a podcast and talking about it. We must say how much we are suffering to other people, otherwise it remains a deadly secret that dwells in our psyche.
Duh Logan, we already know this.
Okay- I am aware this all seems obvious, but it is easy to forget when we are the ones being affected.
The past year or so has been the most difficult time with my mental health, and so much of that has to do with me pretending that I am strong enough to work on myself all alone. I don’t need Friends, family or co workers to help. “No ones going to save you, but you,” a voice inside my head would say.
It has been a matter of pride I guess you could call it. I have taken my illness so personally that it has come to be a part of my person, so to speak. I have come to identify with certain aspects of my condition, particularly the profound suffering that has come with it. I feel that I have suffered in a way that most people haven’t, and this has made me reluctant to ask for help.
I can’t do it on my own, and this is perhaps the most key concept in suicide prevention.
I want to live a life worth living more than I want to die. I want to be more playful even though I know it’s hard to be playful when you’re depressed.
But if we are strong enough to take ourselves out of this world, by being playful, by staying curious; I’d say there is a pretty good chance that we are strong enough to find a way to go on living.
This has everything to do with expressing our vulnerability and being honest with the people around us about how we are.
Scratch Your Own Itch is a term I heard when I was listening to Tim Ferris talk about building start-up companies. It’s based off the ideology that creating a start-up company based off of some itch of curiosity can assist a business owner some hint to what they’re business model could be based off of.
So if you like fitness then buying into a supplement company would be Scratching Your Own Itch and fulfill your passion for living a fit and healthy life.
Well, this Itch Scratching for me is saving my life. I’m curious about so many things- fitness, business, writing, comedy, acting, art, psychology, and overall someone’s story of adversity. No matter what their interests are if they have a story about a suicide attempt I’m deeply curious as to why they tried and what keeps them living.
This Curiosity has brought me to creating a life worth living. After trying to commit suicide and failing I know I’m meant to help you be less afraid to be who you are without any anxieties of being judged or mistreated for being who you are.
No matter what your circumstances are you matter and you’re enough.