Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Suicide: What’s It About?

I mean, fundamentally, what does it come down to?

Sometimes I think suicide is about pain.  The too much, never-ending, all-encompassing pain of existence.  The kind that wrenches you from the inside out. 

Or it could be escape.  Maybe we just need a way out when we’re out of options.  Sometimes all the options suck, and it’s truly the lesser of the evils.  Sometimes we’re too paralyzed with indecision to even*pick* an option.  Or there are so many options we don’t want the responsibility of being forced to choose one, and then live with the consequences. 

What about love?  Maybe it’s a lack of love.  Love from others.  From family.  Love for our own self.  Like Matchbox Twenty, “I don’t know if I’ve ever been really loved ... by a hand that’s touched me.”  And I feel like something should have given by now.  And I’m more than a little bit angry.  I spent seven years in a relationship that was more dysfunction than love.  It wasted my time, my life, my .... goodness?  The part of me that believed in the grander meaning of love, the goodness of people; not the fairytale ending, mind you: I’ve never bought into that.  But there’s a certain kind of lasting spiritual connection to another human being I used to believe in, which got trampled along the way.

So then maybe it’s anger.  I’m so angry at the people in my past, my present, and probably my damn future that I can’t stand myself sometimes.  I’m angry at life for all the things it could be, but is not.  I’m angry either AT God or that I don’t believe in God, one of the two.

Religion, then?  A lack of faith in anything or anyone?  The fact that everything I’ve ever trusted in has left me despairing? Religion, after all, is “ultimate” in our lives, so perhaps it’s the *ultimate* disappointment, the overarching emptiness, the aching whole in life that I have no way to fill.

Other times, I think it’s about needs that will never be met.  And I’m not talking about food, shelter or water – although sometimes the mere act of trying to survive is enough to take us out – but also human needs.  Affection.  Companionship.  Trust.  Security.  Sometimes I ask myself what I will do if I never experience these things again.  If no one ever hugs me or holds me or stands by me.  More importantly, what if I never have sex again?  I’m not effing kidding here, I miss it.  What if neither the grand nor base pleasures of life come my way again; is a world without joy a place worth staying?

It might just be the struggle.  On days like today, my being wants there to be a foreseeable end to this sensation that I’m trying to run through water.  I’m tired.  I’m just sooo, soo tired of trying.  And failing.  And flailing.  And having to try again.  It feels as though, at any given moment, one more try will be too much to bear. 

Maybe it’s all these things.  Maybe it’s about being human.  Maybe it’s far more universal a concept than we’re led to believe in our shame-ridden society.  Maybe it’s the knowing that I’m not alone in all these feelings, yet being unable to connect to anyone in any profound, meaningful way.  So many things well up inside with no outlet; despair ensues. 

Alienation, then?  The outsider to life, always looking in, wondering how the others are making it?  

5 comments:

  1. Very strong piece. I felt very deeply what you said here.I have been right where you are all i wanted to do was go to sleep and stay asleep forever.sometimes the failing and falling and flailing SEEMS like too much to bear,but if you hang on and just wait, things get (in teeny tiny increments) better,then the next thing you know,after a while, things get good and you realize that you haven't been sad in a few days,months,hours. and after that you'll more likely than not find that you're laughing and feeling good and hopeful and confident.Just wait okay?hold on.

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  2. Oh good, I'm glad you're posting more often.

    I have the opposite problem in that I would be happy if I never had sex again but my husband is miserable without it and starts having anger issues when too long without. So I have to force myself to not be true to myself and my body for the greater good of the family, which feels just repulsive.

    I had a lot of suicidal thoughts the year I was 20 and every so often, they crop up again. I think a lot of it has to do with being an emotional sponge, hypersensitive, and not recognizing that you carry emotions and expectations in your space that aren't your own. any time you feel trapped, it's not you. Recognizing the patterns of behavior that don't serve you is 90% of the game...which is why I think writing is so precious.

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  3. Sex can become such a power issue in relationships. Whenever it doesn't flow naturally, basically. Is it more of a lack of desire, or something off-putting about it?

    I had 2 years of good sex in my life, and that's when I was 17-18. Once I moved in with that guy, it was 5 years of dealing with his escalating porn addiction, being pushed to do things I didn't want to, and eventually becoming downright repulsed by the touch of him.

    The theory of 2 people getting their intimate wants and needs met seems an unattainable ideal. Honestly, I think my parents' divorce boiled down to 30-odd years of those very issues.

    I am for sure an emotional sponge, and have always been extremely sensitive. I don't really express myself, except for in writing. And I'm sure that comes from a lifetime of being around people who invalidate my feelings.

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  4. I've been thinking a lot about this marriage thing and how we're all programmed to want it and try to make it happen, when yeah--the likelihood that people's growth as individuals can be complementary is so slim, it becomes, most of the time, a game of finding the lowest common denominator of agreement, and compromising everything else about our selves.

    That's my cynical side talking though--I have this hope/belief that if I give it up to the universe, it'll come up with a solution that isn't invasive to my body and isn't divorce. I think it's just hormones that created the lack of libido for me--before I just wanted to procreate, and now that I have, all that baby-making lust is gone and I can't help thinking about how sex is a big waste of time and kind of dumb too.

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  5. I've never had a child and therefore don't know what happens to a woman's hormones, but it did give me a giggle that you described sex as "kind of dumb." I suppose without the raging, driving hormones the whole act could become a little weird.

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