On Suicide

I think about suicide a lot. This should be no surprise. I’m a depressive: that’s what we do. I’ve been thinking about it since I was a child. I attempted it twice when I was a teenager. Ever since, I have made my plans and thought carefully on the logistics of it.

Pages like Suicide: Read This First don’t have much to say to me. Some suicides certainly arise out of irrationality and the urge to self-destruct. I was like that myself when I was younger. The need to escape right now can be overpoweringly strong. My suicidal thoughts are not like that now. I don’t cast about, searching for some implement with which to do myself in. I’ve been depressed long enough to know that almost anything is bearable. There will never be a point where I am unable to wait another day.

It comes down to this: Suicide can be a rational choice. I don’t believe in any gods and I don’t believe that suicide is a sin. Suicide is not an abhorrent choice. It can certainly sometimes be the wrong decision, but it is not inherently wrong. I own my body and my life and it is my right to decide when it ends. It is not that I particularly wish to die, but the thought of dying does not scare me. Rather, it is that I do not wish to live any more. I haven’t wanted to live in a long time. Were I more melodramatic, I might suggest that in some sense I’m already dead, but still moving.

When someone is desperate to die, it is understandable that they do not consider the consequences. I do not have that luxury. I understand that my death would cause great hurt to my family and friends. Because I have lied to many of them, they do not know that my life causes great hurt to me. I’m good at hiding these things. Even the ones who know the most probably don’t realise just how much pain living causes me. So I must accept the responsibility for hurting people I care about. And yet, I cannot live for the sake of other people. If it is selfish for me to die, then it is also selfish for others to expect me to live. And I have neither the strength, nor desire to go through the years that I see ahead of me.

This is one of the reasons I am seeking out help in the most obvious form I can, from the doctors and psychiatrists. I do not expect it to work, but I owe it to myself, my friends and family to be sure that when I say there was nothing anyone could have done, I am telling the truth. All the drugs and counselling in the world cannot change who I am, and I am fundamentally broken. It fills me with regret that in order to undo the mistake of having been born, I must hurt those who do not see it that way.

But for now, I live through another day. We’ll see where that takes me.