The Suicide Journal 1: Selfishness

     Suicide, the nastiest of words when depression is mentioned. It's the end of the line for "calls for help" and people lately have been more talking about it.

     I have been dealing with suicidal thoughts and pressure for as long as I can remember, I'm going to outline and share some of my life leading up to this moment. At a very young age, I can remember realizing that it was possible to opt to end life rather than continue suffering. At about 8 years old I remember one day when I was sent to my biological father's room while my mother and he argued. Now at the time all I thought about was that I could watch the movie that I was told I wasn't allowed to watch, THEM.

I started being sneaky and enjoying my movie when I heard yelling, it was normal at first as I've heard parents fighting many times. I remember turning the tv up in disgust and eventually started doing the opposite and listening to the fight, like the stereotypical little kid sitting at the top of the stairs paying full attention to his parents fight

     I was entertained in a morbid way for a while but it turned so negative when someone threw something or broke something. That scared me straight out of my seat and I ran back to his room. I remember being in there, panicking and pacing around the room, thinking what if one hurts the other or what if they leave me there alone or the police show up...etc.

In my fear and panic and anger, I started trying to think of a way out (at the time I had no idea what that meant, I wasn't thinking about dying exactly, I just didn't want to be there right at that moment) then I heard the yelling and breaking get louder and I looked at the window of my biological father's room and decided to jump out. I thought it would stop the fight or I'd get away from it; either way it was a way out of that moment.

     Looking back, I was deciding to die rather than finishing that night out. That was the first time death had become an option in my mind, subconsciously, and it still is one of the most prominent memories I have defining my childhood and my blood parents in my life. So there's my introduction to suicide before I even knew what it was or the actual impact it had on my psyche even now.

     Later in life, I had moved around many times and had to deal with finding out my biological father didn't want me and finding out he had other kids he had eliminated form his life and my mom had come to a point where she chose her boyfriend over me. I moved in with my Uncle and a new phase in my life begun, starting a whole wild and deeply scarring tragic section of my life.

     My teen years, my high school years and the beginning of my romantic life all SUCKED. I mean the worst things that could have happened did exactly that. High school was as bad as it could have been between being invisible to the people that mattered to me and being made fun of by the people who mattered to the people that mattered to me and the fact that I was painfully shy and introverted in most situations, I couldn't win for winning. Looking back at my Riverside High school time, I an't think of one minute I was happy to be there or even okay with myself in any way.

The only romances I experienced were: a girl I had a crush on for years and never got the courage to even tell her (which was the right choice, Kelly never would have been interested in me) and the girl I eventually dated, which was because she was the only girl that would date me. We were absolutely not right for each other and ended one night when she threatened to kill herself because of me, a lie to try to manipulate me. So...there's my high school years as a student and boy.

     Now as a family member through that same time it was a scary time to be human. My Uncle was barely around, which later showed me he was addicted to drugs. My grandmother was constantly drunk and abusive, which had been forced into the motherly role in her 60's and then the random other family members who came to stay at my Uncle's house when they had nowhere to go. And since it was easier to pretend they all didn't exist, I escaped into hockey and didn't do anything else.

     Skip ahead a few years later, I had just gotten into church and was trying again in life. It was a very late start but it was huge that I was actually trying. So I went tot a snow camp with my church, on the way back I experienced the most emotional  and sweet time I've ever known in my short time on earth. We get back and I helped my friends get their stuff from the bus and walked back to my house on cloud 9, I'm feeling like I can take on anything...and then...I found what I was asking for but was NOT ready for at all.

     To make this long story a little shorter, I found out my Uncle had attempted suicide while I was away. He survived that night although I didn't stay to find that out then, I found out the next morning and my great friends took me to the hospital to see him. But at the time I went from the highest I've ever been emotionally to the worst point I could imagine (and this is a life where I was at a few really low points so to say I went to the lowest means a lot)

     Skipping many years later, I have been dealing with suicidal desires for years and have since dealt with a second and ultimately successful attempt by my Uncle to end his life AND a close friend who committed suicide.

     Here's where the selfishness comes in: there is a part of me that has been wanting to get out of the life that I destroyed years ago and have been barely living. Ya know the saying, "you made your bed, now time to lie in it" well that's where I was and I thought seriously about just killing myself and ending the pain I have been taking over and over for years. I used the metaphor of a boxing match as my life for years and that was not worth continuing.

     In 2013 on my birthday it hit me that my Uncle was gone and I had no one that loved me (I'm not talking about friends,  have the best friends I could possibly have) and I had to celebrate my birthday, which I have NEVER had to celebrate without my Uncle. I just wanted it all to end. I wanted to go to sleep and just never stop dreaming and never have to get up and deal with the people in my life, and never deal with the negativity that seemed and seems inevitable and I didn't want to have to be an adult and do things with just no help mentally.

     There are other parts to my psychology suicidally but selfishness is definitely part of it all.

I'm still here though and that's pretty big...to be continued

Self Image

     I'm going to share my opinion of myself with no restrains. I'm not saying this to get any sympathy because I don't deserve any, but I need to get these thoughts out of my head or else...well truly or else nothing but it'll stay with me. And that's a very bad thing.

     I used to view myself as a metaphor, a boxing match.

Credit: Julie Snyder

I used to have a fight in me that was like an optimistic boxer, that never give up attitude even when taking blows or not having the upper hand. I saw my life as a grudge match that in the end would leave me scarred and brain damaged to the point of no return, but there would be some moral victory because I would have had something to show for it like a family or a career or some great legacy that I'd leave behind. So far, the 33 years I've been on planet Earth have not proven any of this to be true so...

     My self image changed over a few years. I decided somewhere along the lines that maybe the reason things never went well for me were that I was cursed, like maybe I had some good looking  and deep soul hidden under a rough scary exterior that freaked people out. That's where my self image changed into that of another cursed character: Angel.

Credit: Joss Whedon's Angel

     Angel was a character that got a spin off show from the Joss Whedon TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, his back story portrayed him as a good guy who was turned into this evil creature and someone he hurt as this evil creature caught him and put a curse on him that he'd basically be the good guy he truly is but be hurt knowing what he's done as a vampire. He stopped doing evil things, denying himself of the pleasure he craves, with one stipulation: if he experiences true happiness the curse will break and he'll become the evil creature he doesn't want to be.

     So I thought for a while I looked at myself like a great person who was cursed. I have social awkwardness that I cannot understand or explain fully, I have constant in-my-face abandonment issues that haunt me day and night, I have the inability to make the right decisions (when I decide to do something I find out I should not have and when I don't do something, I realize too late that I should have done said thing) and I've been hampered by a slew of childhood trauma that still cripples me today. 

All of these have made me somewhat hard to get close to and each thing makes me want to be close to people (mainly someone to love and be loved by) but the longer that doesn't happen, the worse each issue gets. Example: I have abandonment issues so I try to find someone to love and when I get rejected the abandonment feeling gets worse which makes it hard for me to try but the more I don't try, the worse it gets. The more I feel further from love, the further I am able to be to anyone and the abandonment issues become even worse. Oh and one of the keys to this philosophy is that the best way to love someone is to keep them away from me. Just like David Boreanaz's character.

     For a while I connected my problems with the idea that I am something worth love stuck under a curse...but...the problem with that mentality is it glorifies me in a way that I'm not. That gave me this thought that I deserve someone to love me because I am a good looking guy with good thoughts and a good personality, which I do not and I am not. I am not some saint that has no blame in his situation other than the repercussions that come from everything. 

I used that to take no responsibility and because of that, I lived a fake life. I only experienced things through tinted glasses that showed me what I wanted to see. 

The Office's Steve Carell

     For a while I thought that but time, rejection and failure clobbered a lot of that ideology in me. The thought that I was a good person, that I wasn't as ugly as I thought gave me a hope that someone would see through the curse and give me a real chance. They'd have to see through my mistakes and ugliness and emptiness and desperation and awkwardness...but that's only if there's something under that anymore. I feared bitterness had dissolved the positivity in me and life was/is absolutely not worth it because of that. 

     Suicide became a theme in my life for a while, other people's and my attempts. I figured if the only way to love people is to keep them away from myself than an even better way to love my friends is to take myself out of the equation. I didn't and don't want to end myself but if all I do is hurt others and all I do is ruin things for everyone and anyone else, than the greater good is more important, right?

      ...that makes sense, right? That is logical and I get to be a hero...in my mind. People would be hurt for a few days, maybe a few weeks then move on and I would have removed my future ruination of their lives. Makes sense....RIGHT??! (I know, it makes sense in an illogically logical way and not a smart mentality to follow)

     Through a near death and a promise I made, I came to the conclusion that I will not end myself. Little things got a tiny bit better and I thought maybe life would get better 

Little things started going in my favor in small ways and I started to unclench a little. I even started trying things new things more (including online dating and trying to talk to girls more) I EVEN started to have a self image better than the previous ones for a little bit. To make a long story a little less long, I met someone online and even considered that I might have had a chance at being happy with her...

     Then I ruined it...and the worst part is it wasn't because of some curse or some ugliness that I'm hidden under. It was because I am a monster. I'm an ugly, scarred, bitter, hurt, rude person. I let her see the real me (which everyone says 'be the real you') I hurt her with my self image, my inability to love or be loved, my abandonment issues and my so strong desire to be with her that I strangled her in a matter of a two hour text conversation. 

     So I sit here now...knowing that I am not cursed, cursed means there was something beautiful covered by ugliness...I am not cursed, I am just disgusting and...and...so, so alone. I'm not entirely sure what to do now, go live in a cave somewhere? Move away and just not get to know anyone so no one can be hurt by me? Try to fill my void by buying things and doing enviable things? And the momentary million dollar question: should I hurt Delilah (not her real name) at the moment by cutting her off in order to save her from me in the future? Do I love her the only way I know how and scare her away?