When people tell me that I don’t really want to die because
I haven’t yet been successful, and that is a really positive thing, I want to
strangle them. On the spot. I understand where you are coming from; I am still
alive, I can see that, I know, I keep surviving, and I can’t seem to die.
I need you to also understand where I am coming from now. Because every time someone says that to me, it hurts in a few ways.
The first way is that it’s a reminder of my failure; I understand that it’s a positive thing that I am still alive but you have to remember that I am someone who wants to take my own life and who finds it very upsetting that I have not yet been a violent enough person to manage that. I know you see it as a good thing that I have not yet been successful, but I don’t. It being pointed out that I have repeatedly failed at taking my own life doesn’t make me feel proud, it makes me want to go and do the job properly.
The next way it hurts is because it’s focusing on the end point. When someone is physically ill, they are given medication to combat the illness itself. When you focus on the fact that I walked to the edge of a cliff and spent hours there then walked away, and see that as a positive thing, you are ignoring that in the weeks running up to that I have been desperately struggling to survive every day. Yes, that day I managed to walk away. Great news. But it’s not because I want to live, it’s because I am stuck in a horribly painful limbo between living and dying. I am not coping and haven’t been for a long time and you judge how well I am doing by whether I make it a month without taking steps towards ending my own life.
I will be recovering when I can get through longer than 12 hours without having a substantial feeling of how desperately I want to kill myself. Whether or not I die isn’t the most important part for me, because that is not the same as finding a way to survive and be better. I understand that you think I’m going to survive because I have a string of failed attempts, but that isn’t my reality. It tears me apart every time something like that happens and no, I don’t see it as positive that I walked away. I am desperate for this to be over, I am totally desperate. If that’s through death then that is something I am ready for, but the possibility of living like this for another 60 years is not something I am willing to do.
Don’t praise my lack of ability to kill myself. Praise every day where I manage to act like a functioning human, and respect the fact that suicide attempts are not the issue for me, it’s the hours in between that are the real problem and the worst pain.
I need you to also understand where I am coming from now. Because every time someone says that to me, it hurts in a few ways.
The first way is that it’s a reminder of my failure; I understand that it’s a positive thing that I am still alive but you have to remember that I am someone who wants to take my own life and who finds it very upsetting that I have not yet been a violent enough person to manage that. I know you see it as a good thing that I have not yet been successful, but I don’t. It being pointed out that I have repeatedly failed at taking my own life doesn’t make me feel proud, it makes me want to go and do the job properly.
The next way it hurts is because it’s focusing on the end point. When someone is physically ill, they are given medication to combat the illness itself. When you focus on the fact that I walked to the edge of a cliff and spent hours there then walked away, and see that as a positive thing, you are ignoring that in the weeks running up to that I have been desperately struggling to survive every day. Yes, that day I managed to walk away. Great news. But it’s not because I want to live, it’s because I am stuck in a horribly painful limbo between living and dying. I am not coping and haven’t been for a long time and you judge how well I am doing by whether I make it a month without taking steps towards ending my own life.
I will be recovering when I can get through longer than 12 hours without having a substantial feeling of how desperately I want to kill myself. Whether or not I die isn’t the most important part for me, because that is not the same as finding a way to survive and be better. I understand that you think I’m going to survive because I have a string of failed attempts, but that isn’t my reality. It tears me apart every time something like that happens and no, I don’t see it as positive that I walked away. I am desperate for this to be over, I am totally desperate. If that’s through death then that is something I am ready for, but the possibility of living like this for another 60 years is not something I am willing to do.
Don’t praise my lack of ability to kill myself. Praise every day where I manage to act like a functioning human, and respect the fact that suicide attempts are not the issue for me, it’s the hours in between that are the real problem and the worst pain.
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