At the beginning of this year I made a vow to myself. This is your only warning for suicidal ideation, because this story gets dark before it gets better. Stay with me.
I’ve struggled with suicidal ideation since I was seven years old. Suicide has always been this beautiful life raft to me, something I can look to and go, “if all else fails, I can end it.” I’ve had multiple attempts, as is in the nature of Borderline Personality Disorder and various other disorders I have. All for different triggers, but the same reason: I’m a burden and I leak my suffering onto others.
I seem to have a weird stroke of wretchedly glorious luck before I full send the attempt, and it gets diverted. Some say it’s because my heart wasn’t really in them, others that there’s someone on the other side looking out for me. Either way, I’m still here. Even though, by most of the attempts, I shouldn’t be. I attribute that to cockroach DNA.
In early January I was perhaps at my worst. I’ve had a lot of “worsts.” I can’t really remember a lot of it, depression and drinking tend to do that, but I do remember this night clearly. I was still drunk, on both alcohol and my own sadness, and I planned again. A routine I’ve mastered time and time again.
I knew how, I knew when, and I even wrote a will that probably wouldn’t hold up in court. This time, though, was different. The plan wasn’t to end it. It was to end this cycle once and for all. I gave myself the night. The night to figure out if I wanted to stay.
If the answer was no, then it had to be that night. I would take my own life. The thought, even writing this, doesn’t scare me. It sounds almost like doing my taxes. Just another chore, you know?
But, obviously, that wasn’t the route I chose. The answer was yes. I wanted to stay. I had things I still looked forward to, people to see, and everything else life had to offer.
Which brings me to my vow: If I do not take my own life tonight, then there is no returning to this state alone. I have to commit to getting better. There’s no more finding comfort in the disordered. If I stay alive, I have to commit to living. Not just surviving.
Of course, this doesn’t mean I’m suddenly cured. I still describe suicide as this “beautiful life raft.” Which is oxymoronic, but true for me. The point, however, is that it is no longer an option. I am not saying I’ll never have suicidal ideation again, but that isn’t the vow. The vow is: fight as if I damn well mean it, because I made a fucking commitment to be here.
Sometimes, we need to be reminded that we have that fight within us.
