Saving myself

In the mirror I only see,

What everyone else wants me to be.

Empty eyes, hollow heart

When did this become of me?

When did this start?

I have shared with you only a slight glimpse of some pretty treacherous things that took place within my life. However I’d like to highlight one particular occasion that a lot of you probably do not know about me and probably don’t really want to know. So I’d like to invite you to stop reading here because things get pretty heavy throughout this memory and I don’t wish for you to be burdened by my baggage. I am keeping you from the embarrassment or feeling the need to come ‘save me’ or ask if I am okay. Let me be clear, I am completely and totally one hundred percent fine…well, maybe not…but rest assured I am in no need of a hero or any “helping hand” at this time. I have been on my own for years throughout my many struggles in life and I have made it thus far through all of the agonizing events that took place. I am not writing in anticipation that someone will rescue me and I am not writing for the attention that I may or may not receive. I am writing to raise awareness and to help myself cope through different adversaries. Please don’t lose your heads while you read what comes spilling out of my disturbed mind, I have learned that you need to keep all of the sanity that you can.

Drown my sorrows, forget my past

Cutting deeper, make it last

With a knife that loves to feel

Open a vein, make it real

Shaky hands, tight grip

Pushing farther as I start to slip

Forcing pain to feel something more

Inviting death in with a wide open door

Taking a plunge, full on dive

Who knew this could make me feel so alive?

When did you start to notice that it wasn’t me inside? When did you see the blackness that was thriving within was slowly taking over my body, mind and spirit? Or did you not see?  Did you even bother to look? Perhaps you turned the other cheek, perhaps you did not wish to see the collapse of another soul within your grasp. Perhaps, you didn’t even care.

As I gazed into the crimson streaked porcelain, my body felt weightless and immobile. Lying next to the once bleached tub; I let the blood drip gradually and progressively out of my figure and down the metal drain, forever.  My eyes feel thick, too frail to keep them exposed I start to float off into the empty nothingness that I feel surrounded with every day. My skull is spiraling in circles and begins to pulse at a constant pressure. I am tangled in a heap on the bathroom floor of an empty house with no one there to come to my rescue. I am ready to let the blackness consume me entirely when I hear the garage door start to creek open on the opposite end of the house, I am not gone yet and I know I won’t be by the time the occupants enter inside. I pull my head off the cold, rigid tile and begin to collect my sunken thoughts. Taking in the haunted sight of the bathroom, I get a grip and drag my body up forcing myself to move out of my death trap I created. I run steamy hot water over the bathtub and start to clean up the mess that I had made only moments prior. I search for a first aid kit within the medicine cabinet and grudgingly bandage my self-inflicted wounds. Once the area has been scrubbed of all evidence I exit cautiously just as my family comes barreling in the door from their night out. Without a single word I slip into my own safe-haven of a room and away from the almost crime scene.  I will attempt again on another day, today was only a practice. Perhaps a quicker method will have to suffice.

In lieu of Robin Williams killing himself this past month I decided I would share my own story with you. Although first I would like to shed some light on my own personal opinion of what suicide means to me and the effect that it may cause for those around you. I think that Robin Williams was an exceptional actor, comedian, and person all together. He brought joy and laughter to those around him, as well as us who watched him from in front of a screen. I believe he had demons that some people could have never even pictured swimming around inside of him. I also have the strong opinion that what he did was selfish, immature, and should not be memorialized in the least bit. He is a traitor to his fans, family, and brings disrespect for those who did care about him.
Now, before you get upset and tell me how sad it is that he died and he was a lost soul who is finally at peace let me remind you of the story I just spat out for you. I have been in those shoes; I have walked that road many many times with dragging feet. I wanted to know what death felt like, I wanted to have the taste of a metal rifle inside my mouth, I wanted to drain my blood from my disturbed and pained body, I wanted to swallow all of my pills and slowly drift to sleep some nights. I wanted to do all of that. I didn’t want to continue on with my life and I didn’t want to feel the awful things that I felt day in and day out. 

Where would you be if I had gone through with it? Where would my family be? What ripple effect would I have caused from ending my life?

Well, in all honesty you would probably be doing the same thing you are now. My family would eventually have moved on with their own lives and the ripple effect would have subsided after a while. However, it would have caused traumatic difference to everyone and everything in some way. I truly believe that now. At the time I didn’t realize what I was doing would affect anyone, anyone but me that is. I just wanted to be washed from this planet, lifted of all of my problems, and be eliminated from the hurt that took over my soul. You may ask how I got through it or what I did to get help, let me tell you….
This mental state and need to move on from earth never really did go away. I pushed it down and bottled up my depression and self-loathing for years. It came and went, and sometimes I was able to keep it from overriding me through self-mutilation, substance abuse, and promiscuity. Eventually I had a lot going for me that when I was forced to think about it, I convinced myself that I had to keep going for a just a little bit longer. It was sort of working, but it definitely began to get more and more difficult as I got older and things started to pop up about my childhood, or memories would invade me and cause my pain to be re-lived by opening up old scars.
Last November, the fifth to be exact was a normal day for me. I woke up, went to work and conversed with other coworkers. At eleven thirty I was notified of a text message that in turn changed my life for forever. After a snowball effect of events I found myself at the beach staring down into the lifeless eyes of one of my friends who had just pulled the trigger. Dried blood coated his still body, and music was spilling from his phone which lay next to an eight page (in detail) suicide note. My first emotion was sadness, I felt like not only had his life ended but so did mine. I was washed with complete agony as I dialed 911 and explained the sight before my eyes. My next one was numb; I didn’t think I felt anything as I was interviewed by police officers and investigators. I gazed as they picked up all of his belongings and his carcass and hauled him away while my body felt completely empty. Nothing. I felt lifeless just as he was now. The next few days I was filled with anger and resentment as I processed everything in my head. I tried to make sense of it all; I tried to reason as to why this happened and how I could have stopped it. I was mad at myself, my coworkers, and even my friend himself. I couldn’t bring myself to focus on anything but the scene I took in at the beach. I began self-medicating with alcohol, I couldn’t sleep without waking in sweat from seeing his glazed over eyes, I couldn’t even think about anything else. It took over my life for a few months. I shed many tears, I probably felt every single emotion there is to feel and tried to rationalize everything. I am sure his family did the same, and I am sure when his toddler son grows up he will do that too. All of us, who loved him and actually cared about him, were torn and broken inside. We will be for the rest of our lives. Nothing will ever be the same. The feelings may slowly fall away but they will come back, every November, every single mention of the word suicide, his name, everything….we will remember. We will hold an empty space in our hearts for him.
I finally was able to pull myself out of the slump I was in (it took every single fiber of my being) and started to really understand the whole situation. This was a troubled man who was most definitely struggling with some monsters that some of us could never even begin to comprehend. This was not my fault, and it’s not anyone else’s fault. It’s his. He chose not to stay on this earth and he chose the selfish way out. We all have pain and suffering, granted some exceeds others; but it’s not an excuse to inflict that sort of punishment on others. Which is essentially what you are doing if you look at it that way, the really strong people in life are those who excel past their adversaries and move on or get help. I promise I am not trying to make a saint out of myself, because you best believe I have a long way to go on my road to recovery. There are plenty of programs and means to help someone with their troubles and woes, trust me I have had to contact a few myself. (That’s me stepping off my soap box and admitting nobody is perfect and certainly not me). If you chose not to seek out for help than you aren’t giving up on yourself, you are giving up on everyone else…those who never gave up on you. I struggle with my own set of dark creatures within as you have gotten a foretaste of, wounds that go deeper than skin itself; However I realized that I could never drag my family, friends, and anyone else who might be an admirer of me through my discomfort. I only wanted to end my suffering, not inflict it on other people....that is cruelty at best.
It is a terrible battle and let me attest to this statement, it is a really terrible battle to do tackle on your own. But I promise, it is worth it.
I don’t believe that we should glorify those that decided to take the easy way out and push their problems onto those around them. Granted Robin Williams was such a profound influence on the people of the world, he is not someone to be made a hero. It sends a negative message to those who have contemplated suicide that ending your life is okay, when in all reality is not. You are essentially telling people that hey, he was a really cool guy and he is finally at peace with himself….then you give this morphed perception to another depressed person that they too can be at peace and be memorialized like a total star. The end of their suffering begins a whole new suffering for the rest of the world. 

You keep saying “RIP *insert name her*, I LOVED that guy”

 But did you take the time to tell him you loved him the day before it all came crashing down? Did you take the time to notice that he was on the edge of jumping off the cliff of oblivion; did you take the time to ask him if he needed any help?
 It’s an extremely taboo subject especially amongst military members who are forced through dreaded suicide briefs every so often.  We receive classes and courses on the matter, but do we ever really TALK about the issue at hand here? Do we ever actually take the time to notice the signs or do we dismiss those who we believe want attention or are just “really weird”….did you see the cuts on that girl? Did you notice how he keeps talking about being alone? Did you even care? Did you?

Nobody noticed when I changed myself completely, nobody bothered to ask me if I was doing well when I was just barely scraping by. Nobody saw the black circles under my eyes from sleepless nights…or maybe they did…maybe they turned the other way.

Keep in mind, not everyone is searching for attention or if they are then they probably have other problems that need to be tackled. Stop treating Suicide like it is okay and stop worshiping those who commit it. The rest of us have to pick up the pieces when it’s over and it’s not very pleasurable trying to put them back together after such a cost.  

Cool metal inside my mouth

Seems my life has gone a little south.

Biting down hard to keep the sobs away

I remember how I got here today.

Shattered and torn from my past

I don’t have any reason to make it last.

The slow sensation as I begin to pull back

Descending into a slow self-inflicted attack…

Walls splattered with evidence of crime

But erasing me is only a matter of time.

Jerked awake from my bed,

The nightmare is over, I am not dead.