Today, over at Balloon Juice, Cole posted about a commenter who had recently killed herself shortly after her beloved killed himself. I think her commenting tapered off before I started frequenting the site because her name only vaguely rings a bell.
The reason I am blogging about this is because her last note (on one of the FB Memorial pages) really struck a chord with me. She talked about how she supposedly had all these things going for her and how it wasn’t enough (I’m paraphrasing). Her explicit reason (wanting marriage and children more than anything, and feeling she would never find it as she was thirty-four) is not mine, but the similarities between our thinking made me uncomfortable.
I was seven when I realized I would die. It scared the shit out of me when I thought about not existing for the rest of eternity. I would jump out of bed, scream, and run around my room because I couldn’t handle the idea. But, I had a rough childhood.
I first thought about killing myself when I was eleven. It was frequently on my mind. When I went into a deep depression for fifteen years (22-37), I thought about it every day of my life. I thought about the different ways I could do it. I thought about what letters I would write and to whom, trying to explain my reasons for killing myself.
You know why I didn’t do it?
1) Inertia. As anyone who has suffered a deep depression knows, sometimes it takes all one’s energy just to drag your ass out of bed (hours later than planned). I didn’t have the goddamn energy to kill myself.
2) Pessimism. Life sucked. Who said whatever is on the other side will suck less? No one. And, because I am pessimistic in many ways, I thought that the other side would be worse than this side.
3) My loved ones. I live alone. If I killed myself, it might not be noticed for days (though I have a heavy internet presence). The idea that one of my friends or my brother would find my body made my blood run cold. In addition, after I got my boys, I realized that if I killed myself, their whole lives would be disrupted. Sure, I had friends who would give them a good home, but they got it pretty cushy here. It would seriously disturb them if I were to kill myself.