).Not Allowed to Die · 6:38am Nov 16th, 2013
I've just signed away my right to kill myself. It's a funny thing really, who's going to come to collect the fine if I do? But it's enough to stop me if I get close.
I think it goes without saying that this is the worst the depression's ever been. I've got about 3 or 4 blogposts saying that now and it's as true now as it was then.
Seems the only time I'm able to post anything for you guys these days is when I'm either knee deep in maudlin bullshit or aching to be so. So while I'm here I might as well get some more personal revelations off my chest because there is literally nothing anyone could say that would hurt me half as much as I'm out to hurt myself at the moment.
And also because I'm still searching for someone I can share all of myself with. I know I've tried all of you lot before, but maybe the right person finds this eventually. I'm not counting on it, but if I don't try in even the smallest possible ways then I'm not going to get anywhere.
What else can I talk about before I wuss out of posting this on the flimsiest basis?
This blog post is literally zero risk of offending anyone and I'm still afraid of offending people. This is what it is to be nobody. To feel like your opinion isn't worth the space it's written in. I don't stand by most of my own beliefs, so why should anybody else want to hear my thoughts? I know several amongst your number don't understand what it is to be weak, but I do. I understand that. And that's not a strength, but it is something. That's what I get. That's what I see. I know what it is to not be able to rely on myself to get through a situation. I know what it is to seek strength in others. To need someone else to fill the gaps rather than aiming to strengthen yourself. It's a shame society frowns on me for feeling like this, or indeed for sharing that I feel like this, but the world is what the world is. I'm done pretending. If the only advantage of this advanced state of depression is that I don't care enough to censor myself, then I'm going to get as much of the message out as I can.
Why do I have to feel like putting others first makes me weak? Why do I have to feel like I'm not much of a man for caring? And why do I feel the former is the way things are? Am I only like this because I'm not good at anything socially acceptable? Am I even right about what's socially acceptable? Life's more questions than answers sadly. And I've still got nothing going for me and no real problems.
I want a voice. I want a life. I want to not have to sit in the corner. I want to be able to engage. I want to be able to take a risk for the things that matter. But I can't. And it is such a long way up that I'm afraid that even in all the years I have left I'll never make it, let alone in time to achieve anything.
...
I'm not sure there is a me. I can't trust anything I say, because it's all just socially acceptable projection. I can't infer from the way I behave because I'm inconsistent. My beliefs are few, petty and very tightly held, lest challenge break what little of me there is. I mentioned I'm desperate for someone I could share all of myself with, and this is why. It's all one giant puzzle that I'm too close to solve at the moment. I'm all knots and misdirection. There's something in here, I just don't know what it is or why it's so afraid of the light. Maybe someone else can put it together. Or maybe there's no answer. It's not like there's any harm to be done.
Deppression fills the spaces in me like nothing else, it's like pouring sand instead of concrete. It sinks the building eventually, but it's viable if if you've got nothing better. No matter how toxic or destructive it is, anything's better than feeling empty.
I think that's about as much as I care for. It's incoherent. It's self-effacing. It's rubbish, but it's out there. Maybe one day I'll feel something about that.
Feels like I pull this on you guys all the time, I'm sorry for this. I've got nowhere else to say this stuff. It's not exactly profile page material, but while I'm out of comission with the black dog it at least says something about why.
I hope you guys are feeling better than I am.
I don't have much to say. I'm a solutions-type person, but I know that "solutions" rarely do much against real depression. So, at this point I'm mostly typing this to let you know that I read it, and that I'm here.
If you're interested in things, I recommend them. If you're on skype, there's a chat for the Intelligent Shipping Discussions group which has people in it who like to talk, and talking to people is a good way of meeting more people, which might include the person you're looking for. You can PM me if you're interested.
Also, for no reason except something to offer, I have a TwiJack story that's in prereading this weekend. If you'd just like something to take your mind off of things, you're totally invited to check it out (just PM me or respond here). On the other hand if you're not into reading about ponies in love right now, or you can't handle some rough scenes even with (or because of) a happy ending, you don't need to feel pressured. I'm really just looking for ways to make you happier. Which, as I already said, is unlikely to do something real. It's that solutions thing again, sorry.
So, the important thing here is that I'm here for you, I listen to you, and if there's anything I can do that you think would help just let me know.
It's good to make promises to yourself. Someone once made me promise her that I wouldn't cut any more, and sometimes I hate her for it, but I've always stuck by that promise. Things come together in the end, even if you have to force it... and sometimes, that's the whole point.
Hey, that's why we are here if you need us. The whole point of this fandom is to be there for other people, isn't it?
So don't feel sorry if you tell us about your problems.
The only advice I will offer is a reminder: lots of people are where you are, or have been where you've been. I have. Many others too.
Depression is a sickness, like the flu. You can't make it go away by saying anything. So there is nothing I can say that will make it go away. Don't try to think your way out of it, it's a backwards approach. There is no cure but healing.
As for healing: it looks a lot like how you heal from the flu. Eat better, exercise, get plenty of sleep. (This is really true.) Focus on the smallest changes first though: clean your room. Laundry. Change your sheets. The cleaner you space is, the fast you heal. The start to take walks. Short one, a couple times around the block. Exercise is not about athletic, this is about allowing the blood to flow.
Eat a vegetable or two. Less sugar, more pasta. (sugar rushes result in crashes, which weaken you're ability to fight sickness) Meat, unless you're a vegetarian already, but fresh, lean meat. Do the best you can for the situation you're in: I don't know what's available where you are, but try to find a way to make an improvement.
Put away the damn computer at night. Turn off the TV. The lights keep you awake, and sleep is when your brain cleans itself and gets back to "fresh." Depression is caused by neurochemical imbalances. The brain needs to reset. You need to sleep. Go to bed a half-hour earlier than you do now. Then next week, another half-hour.
Slow steps, build the habits of good health. One little thing at a time. Start with the low-hanging fruit though. Clean your room.
It's a crass and often-made joke that suicide is only punishable if attempted, but not if successful. I have to argue with that, because punishment often happens -- just not to the perpetrator themselves. After I (poorly) attempted to end my life about a year and a half ago, a few things happened to me that changed my perspective. My perspective doesn't change easily, so I'm compelled to share them in hopes that yours may as well. Long-winded reply incoming!
In my endless cynicism one thing I realized was that my life was valuable -- and not necessarily in the way one would think. Between a leased 2010 Corolla and two and a half years of student loans, there were a couple banks out there that cared quite deeply about my continued existence. Sure, you can always return a car, but not an education. Upon doing a little research, I found that suicide would most likely not absolve the cosigners -- my parents -- of repaying my student loans. In fact, with the particular bank, not even accidental death would guarantee any kind of recompense, at least according to a few testimonies I read on the internet. My death would most certainly be punished -- my parents, already in a delicately balanced financial state, would be paying for it for a decade.
I know you're going to university yourself, so if you're using any form of borrowed money to help pay for it, allow me to guarantee you that your life is certainly valuable to someone, if only a less than honorable loan shark on a completely objective level.
Anyway, heartless objectivity aside, I shouldn't need to remind you that your life has perfectly subjective value to multiple people, myself included. I'm not even going to bother justifying my reasoning on that, partly because I've done it before, and partly because I don't even feel the need to. It's a given, a default, at least for me. If it isn't for you, well, get to work on that. I have your back unconditionally.
Drawing on my own experience, there are two things that I did that really helped change my mind when I was struggling with the decision to end my life. Though it may be difficult, emotionally or logistically, I want you to try both. Attend a viewing, and visit a cemetery. These small acts can end up being life-changing. I'll explain how it was for me.
Someone I knew only by name from high school had committed suicide -- I had no emotional investment in him as an individual, but I decided to attend his viewing. Not entirely sure why, to be honest, but I did. From what I learned and had heard of him, the kid was like me in a number of respects; he spent a lot of time on the internet and wasn't ashamed of it, had a small group of friends from differing social circles, and was awkward to the point where it detracted from his physical attractiveness. He was an enlightened young atheist who trolled religious people and anti-drug groups on Facebook. I didn't think the church would be very crowded.
Damn was I wrong. There was a tidal wave of people surrounding his casket. Maybe they're all here like me, I thought, out of distant respect instead of emotional attachment. Dead wrong again. As I walked down the aisle I realized there was hardly anyone who wasn't bawling. It didn't feel right for me to try and approach the casket amidst such hysterics, so I quietly sat in the pews about a dozen rows back. I thought I might look weird and out of place, but I was wrong again. The attendees of the viewing were so genuinely distraught that even a long-haired, unkempt, 6'4" giant in a leather trench coat and stocking cap, sitting alone in the middle of the church, did nothing to distract them. I was even approached by a social worker who had volunteered to talk to anyone there who felt they needed it.
Could they all be friends and family? I wondered. There was at least thirty to forty people surrounding his casket at any given time, and they were constantly cycling between it and the atrium. I had no way of knowing who they were, but observation really made me wonder. There were at least a dozen elderly people, two of them well-decorated Air Force retirees. There were three separate guys, each in their mid-twenties, that showed up alone and spoke to nobody, yet broke down and shed a few tears before leaving. I couldn't count how many kids his age were there -- obviously friends from high school. My community is the farthest thing from being tightly-knit; I seriously doubt that any of these people had just read about his death and randomly decided to pay respects like I had.
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I hardly spoke to this guy and he changed my life, how does that even work?
I didn't think it was possible for there to be so much grief, so much agony, so much heartbreak over the loss of an internet-addicted introvert with an unconventional hairstyle and a stutter. Perhaps some of the grieving was sympathetic to other grievers; perhaps some of it was just a show. All I know is, it sure didn't look or sound like it. The circumstances of his death seemed surprisingly irrelevant. An 'accidental' acetaminophen overdose is what they called it publicly, but a quick evaluation of his Facebook page made it clear that it had been intentional. He had done what I lacked the conviction to do, and I couldn't help but wonder, did he have any idea that it would cause this much emotional decimation?
The other perspective-changing experience I endured was a lot less specific and extremely unflattering. I was experiencing a particularly self-destructive evening several days after my better half had left me, and I had weakly decided to make another attempt on my life. As part of the process I had heavily intoxicated myself, which may or may not have led to me losing the will to go through with it. What I decided to do instead was stumble -- on foot -- to the nearest 24-hour fast food establishment and silence my grumbling stomach with a substantial quantity of the cheapest items on the menu. I believe the expression is 'eat your feelings?'
As is often the case when one can barely see straight (let alone walk straight), my plans didn't pan out as intended. I may have backpacked 108 miles over three peaks in the New Mexican Rockies back in '07, but I sure as hell wasn't prepared for a little midnight hike across town in a state of pathetic inebriation. About halfway there I completely forgot what I was doing, and decided to turn around and go home taking a different route. Said route took me past the local cemetery, and something compelled me to enter it. Had anyone seen me they surely would've called the cops -- dressed in all black and tripping over my coat tails, I was the poster child of suspicious activity, if not merely public intoxication.
Don't ask me how I was able to perform basic arithmetic in such a state, but I began to calculate the ages of each grave's occupant as I visited them. I couldn't remember their names to save my life, but for some reason I remember the ages well. 83, 91, 76, 37, to name a few that stuck. A few in their mid sixties, then a few more in their seventies. There wasn't much rhyme or reason to that at first, but then it started to hit me.
A husband was buried next to his wife -- same age -- the wife had died one year after the husband. It was anyone's guess why. Then I saw a husband and wife in their mid-sixties, both having died a couple years after a man buried nearby with the same last name, in his early twenties, had died. That could've so easily been my own parents, wasting away to grief a few miserable years after my own passing. Sure it was all guesswork, but it painted a morbidly macabre montage of what could happen if I ended up doing what I so desired to do.
Nothing hit me harder, though, than the graves without names. I'm not talking Arlington-style unidentified soldiers -- these were small, simple plaques, and they only had dates on them. I couldn't figure it out at first, but when I did, it hit me like a truck. They were stillborn -- taken by chance before they could even enter the world. That was a harder slap in the face than anything I'd ever experienced. There I was, considering taking my life because I was afraid of living and being buried alone, and here were these little guys -- buried alone before they even so much as saw the light of day. It was physically, mentally, and emotionally sobering. I cried next to those tiny, condensed plots for what felt like hours. When I finally walked home, I didn't trip once. I figure I owe it to them to at least try to do something with myself, because at least I still have some semblance of a chance.
Anyway, I don't remember if I've tossed this idea around before, but I need to come visit you, possibly next summer. If there's anything I've learned in life, it's that my parents told me a horrible lie when they advised me never to meet up with people from the internet. It's resulted in some awesomely great times. Besides, I've always wanted to visit Australia, and this is the perfect excuse, so it really needs to happen. As a disclaimer this isn't for any one particular reason -- I'm not suggesting it out of a desire to cheer you up, though if that ends up being a side effect it's a perfectly welcome one. I have a shamelessly tourist section of my heart that's almost as pushy as the section demanding I meet you in person, if that even makes sense.
A visit would be largely tentative on my health and job status, and those are variable for the next six to nine months, so if you're interested I'll keep you up to date on said developments. Hell, maybe I can even manage to drag Mindblower with me, if he isn't totally swamped and can handle an additional four-hour drive to join me on the flight. We'll have to see; either way I wanted to make the intention clear so you can have something to look forward to. In the mean time, hang in there.
Were I perhaps a bigger man, I would have more to say. However, I am seventeen. Take heart in the fact that your prose is poetic, and though I do not envy your situation, I admire the base truth of the words you write. Your depth of experience extends as far as the sands you mentioned. Someday, that will be accessible, and you will have much to offer to the world.
I am here if you ever should wish to speak. I am but one of the many friends you have, and though I cannot do as much as I would like... I will do what I'm able, so long as I'm able, for as long as I am able. I need you, Everhopeful. And though it sounds selfish... I beg of you not to forget that fact.