*** Warning: this post touches on the topics of self-harm and suicide. ***
A friend told me that whenever they felt like ending it all, they would read reddit threads written by people who had lost close relatives to suicide. I’ve tried it once, and the thought of someone I love deeply feeling that way evokes a visceral response that matches and counteracts the pain from the depression.
When my advisor emailed that he would be “devastated” if something happened to me, it felt like my depressed brain realized for the first time how profoundly I could impact the people who matter the most to me.
Right before my first hospitalization, I researched and ordered something online with the intention of taking my own life. I got a notification that it had arrived. On the way from my bedroom to the mailroom, I saw a photograph of my family on the wall. And it made me freeze. I collapsed on the ground and started sobbing. My hands were shaking when I called my friend to come to my room quick, before I changed my mind. Maybe it’s true that ending my suffering in that moment wouldn’t have hurt dozens of people, that many people at school would have been surprised for a day but would have eventually moved on with their lives. But the five people in that photograph would have had everything torn apart.
I have no idea what happens after life. I might end up someplace I don’t know, where I can’t be comforted by my mom’s hugs and my kitty’s kisses, where my grandmother can’t give me pep talks, where I don’t know a single person. The people who love me can’t cure me, but they can help me.
There was a scene from the movie, Pieces of a Woman, that hit close to home. Martha loses her first child, and as she is walking down the street, riding the bus, passing by the toy store…every child she sees reminds her of the irreversible loss of her daughter. My mother and I went to the local mall after I returned home, and, all of a sudden, she started crying. She told me that everything around her made her think of me, that walking through the mall was like walking through a time capsule. My orchestra performed at the piano store, I danced in the main hall of the mall when I was five, my friends had birthday parties at the indoor play center, I got my hair dyed for the first time at the salon on the second floor.
Knowing how much my mother would be affected didn’t take the pain away. My stomach still felt twisted in knots, and I still felt like I was burning alive in a hotbox. My brain was still racing. But I was reminded that I was loved. I don’t need to be loved by hundreds of people, because between my family and closest friends, I am loved deeply, and I really love them back.
My friend told me that if she could take my pain away, she would. But there wasn’t much she could do beyond giving me a hug. Well, if I could take her pain away, I would as well. And in this situation, I can, by not giving up on her and on this world.
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