Having dealt with a lot "decisions" lately, and having heard people and friends, talk in the past about how suicide is selfish and cowardly and not being able to find the words to explain what is really happening in that moment when you "choose" suicide over life, I found this short piece a good quick read.
I think I've gotten lucky on more than one occasion that in the exact moment I needed it I had someone preventing me from officially exiting the world at such a young age that it wouldn't have made any sense to anyone at all back then. But it still makes sense to me. Now I feel guilty for being alive. Like, if Robin Williams can't even fight the good fight to stick around, after all these years, than who am I to win that battle? And I have friends who struggle way harder with the question of staying alive for one more day, one more hour, one more second. And I can't even admit it to their face that I still struggle with it.
I don't think suicide is a choice per se -- like I don't remember making the choice to kill myself. It was more like giving up on the choice to be alive. Obviously I don't speak for everyone with depression. I was diagnosed with situational depression at age 12. Which didn't make sense to me because it was pretty much every situation that made me depressed. Honestly if I really understood what was 'wrong' with me back then I probably would have been 'smarter' about how I attempted to take my own life and been more successful at it.
It wasn't a selfless act to stay alive.
Mostly, it's being alive that feels so selfish to me. Like, I'm such a burden to my family and friends that I don't actually deserve all of this love and kindness and support and life. I usually just want to scream and I do so by venting my frustration at political issues or whatever the hot topic of the day is because if I stop communicating about those things then I'd have to communicate about the fact that it's almost impossible for me to get through a whole day without thinking about the time I tried to kill myself, and all of the other times that I walked along that edge.
I don't actually think about killing myself every day. I think mostly I'm reminding myself that today is not as bad as that day was, I've had worse months, I've been less sure of who I am and what I'm living for in the past and I think I'll be okay tomorrow too, but I doubt it's something I'll never experience again. I wrote a song once called 'This Sinking Feeling' and it's kind of about that feeling... just feeling like you're sinking into sand or water or whatever and there's a million layers of shit above your head that not even the best swimmer in the world could manage to tread though and somehow I popped up. It seems pretty random to me. A toss of the cosmic dice and here I am still. Yet someone who has brought the world so much more joy and happiness than I suspect I ever will has perished in the battle against themselves.
I don't even feel deserving of speaking on the subject. I don't feel like I represent anyone else's feelings and isn't that what feeling alone is? The feeling of being incapable of relating? I've only recently found other human beings I can actually relate to, and it's only through talking about things that 99% of the rest of the world doesn’t seem to see that I've found people with whom I can truly relate.. Sooooo loneliness isn't going anywhere for a while, clearly.
At this point, the most fitting behavior seems to go watch Flubber and then Death to Smoochy, and then I’ll wake up tomorrow and dance the dance again.
