I can't remember exactly how old I was when I first started to contemplate suicide. I recall a time in grade seven when someone dropped a jar at school, and I was helping to clean it up. I felt drawn to picking up a large shard of glass and seeing what it would feel like to slice my wrist. Not deep, but just enough to ... I don't even know. I was wearing a thick leather bracelet at the time, so I figured I could hide the injury. So I did. A sad, pathetic loser huddling in the hallway of her elementary school calculating how long she had until anyone would be walking by. Slice. Bleed. Cover. Then sporting a Club Monaco sweatshirt for the rest of the day to ensure no one noticed the Kleenex and tape under my bracelet.
Walking through the forest when I was eleven, a friend of mine at the time was showing me a short-cut home from school. She took me through a little gully and told me a story of a girl who had hung herself from a tree after jumping off of a log into the gully. Whether it was true or not, I had no idea, but I remember thinking that it was a good spot - off the beaten path, easy to set up a rope, a long enough fall to make it end quick.
At thirteen & fourteen I was silently miserable and drugging my sorrows with OTC drugs. Extra-strength Tylenol, Ibuprofen, sleeping pills, T3's, allergy medication, and whatever else I could sneak from the medicine cabinet, or buy from the store with my allowance. Some days I was taking 10-15 pills a day. Other days I could function without. Some days my body hated me for it and let me know that what I was doing was wrong, but I didn't care. Numbing my anger and misery was all that mattered.
When taking too many pills caused me to throw up too much or give me the worst bathroom sessions ever, I had to find a new release. I started cutting my self with a pair of scissors. I had a couple of cats, so I made sure that the cuts looked like cat scratches - in case anyone noticed, or asked. My stomach, my forearms, my legs, my cheeks, my neck, my breasts. Everything was open season.
When the cutting didn't hurt anymore I escalated to hitting myself. First just punching my forearms; enough to hurt, but not leave a bruise. Then I began to punch my legs, hips, ribs and eventually my face. It was always enough to hurt, but never leave a bruise (or if it did, I hid it). Sometimes I used a heavy candle holder to bash my arms and legs. Other times I used the edge of my wardrobe dresser or bookcase. Looking back, I can still feel how soothing it was for me at the time. That's so fucked up. So fucked up.
In my late teen years there were many times I craved death. One night after a bad night with a long-term boyfriend, I went and sat on the tracks, waiting for the next train. I chickened out because I was more scared of my dad being pissed that I would be late coming home... If he only knew.
The train passed by just as I was walking in the door.
There have been many times that I have been tempted to jump in front of a bus, or OD on my meds, or drive off the road over a cliff. It would just be so easy to end my trouble. But I couldn't hurt my family that way. It would devastate them, and that stress is something they don't need. They have enough issues to worry about already.
I have been off and on suicidal for two thirds of my life. Some days closer than others. Many days rationalizing, planning, writing, and realizing it's wrong. It's a slippery slope, but I have been up and down it so many times, that I have created my own set of stairs from the treacherous climb to the light. I don't have the urge to live. I don't feel like I have a life inside of my self. I feel like an empty shell that is based on what others want me to be. I am not authentic. I never have been. I am not real. There is no me. I am a fraud. I can't continue to pretend. To be OK. To be happy. To be satisfied.
Tell me please - where do I go from here?
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