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?
