** Hi mom! You don’t want to read this. Just a fair warning. **

** Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts and justifications **

** National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1–800–273–8255 **

** Check out the BCDX disclaimer here **

When I am depressed I become suicidal. 

I usually spin it as “I want the world to stop” or something. 

Usually this gets me “oh, ok. You don’t really want to die, you just want the pain to stop”. 

Yep. 

I do want the pain to stop. 

And it will stop if I die.

 I usually nod along though because that gets me in what I think of as “less trouble”. 

I didn’t want to end up in a psych ward. 

** Hi mom! Now would be a good time to stop reading. **

So when I got asked “well, do you have a plan? Because if you do that would be really bad”. 

Of course I said no. 

Of course I lied. 

Of course they believed me. 

Because they thought we were having an open conversation about my feelings. 

And we sort of were. 

I was telling them how much pain I was in and they were trying to help with that pain. 

They just didn’t really know how to. 

No one really does. 

** Hi mom! Another good place to stop reading **

My counselor told me I should start keeping a journal of how I was feeling and keep it in a lock box so no one else could find it. 

So I did. 

There was only one entry. 

My plan. 

In detail. 

** National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1–800–273–8255 **

No one has ever seen it, I still have the lock box in my house but I lost the key along the way. 

There was only one problem with my plan. 

The discovery of my body. 

I think my mom sensed something along those lines because she said a few times “we would all miss you so much” and “it would be horrible for whoever found you”. 

I had a few friends commit suicide throughout high school and college and that was always the part that stuck out in my mind. 

The story of who found them and how they looked. 

Being from the South most of my friends swallowed a bullet. 

Even the girls. 

That wasn’t my plan, but it was effective. 

No one could call those a “cry for help”. 

I didn’t need to “attempt” suicide to cry for help, I had already been crying for help for months. 

** Hi mom! If you’ve made it this far you might as well continue but… it’s still not pretty **

I had a friend in high school ask me if I thought it was selfish for people to try and stop someone else from committing suicide because they would miss them. 

At the time I thought no because I couldn’t imagine being in so much pain that death seemed like the answer. 

Because it was “a permanent solution to a temporary problem”. 

I didn’t understand that the problem doesn’t feel temporary when it’s depression. 

All you can feel is pain that feels like it’s always been there and will be there forever. 

You can’t remember what it feels like to not be in pain. 

So yeah. 

Now I think it is selfish to ask someone to stay in that kind of deep pain just because you would miss them. 

I’m not saying it’s wrong, sometimes being selfish is the right thing to do. 

And the selfishness of those around me was one of the only things that kept me from carrying out my plan. 

What made me do little things to stop the temptation. 

I only touched knives when someone else was in the room. 

I stopped shaving my legs so I wouldn’t have razors near my skin. 

I stopped locking the door when I showered because my dad’s razor was on the sink. 

** National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1–800–273–8255 **

I just kept imagining someone finding me. 

I couldn’t do that to someone else, it might spark the kind of pain I was feeling in them. 

And that wasn’t worth the risk. 

It was worth feeling the pain that everyone swore was going to lessen eventually. 

It did eventually. 

The mind numbing pain is gone. 

It could always come back though. 

For every fun high I have there is the potential for a horrible low. 

That terrifies me. 

I just hope next time the people around me continue to be selfish. 

Loudly.

** Hi mom! I always knew you would get to this point. I hope you didn’t get too upset. I mean, I’m still here after all. **

** National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1–800–273–8255 **

Checkout out the audio version on my Spotify “Podcast”

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0kJPrcDTH1K6TShdbj1kXp?si=4a9a9b58ac534c3f