CW: Suicide Talk; February 12 2020

So it’s over. No question, anymore.

I’ve learned that everything that’s happened was because of something I did, something I said. No one will tell me what. My now-ex won’t speak to me, and everyone who knows how I alienated her has been sworn to secrecy, so I may never know why things went so wrong.

I’m moving out of my own volition, but I’ve been given a time limit. I’m supposed to get out by the end of this week, which is why I’m writing this blog post on a Wednesday. I’m going to be busy for the next few days, packing and scrambling about. I’m going to be leaving the place that feels like home and staying with my ex’s family, the only place there’s space for me to go. They aren’t charging me to stay there, for which I’m endlessly thankful, so I can keep paying my share on the apartment. Our lease isn’t up until October. I’m going to be stuck for a while.

So here’s where things get trigger-y. I’m warning y’all now, because no one should be subjected to content they find upsetting. Please don’t read this post if you find talk of suicide distressing.

Here’s why I didn’t kill myself after I realized that these events were my fault (at least in part).

It felt too late. I have a child, and I can’t subject my kid to knowing her parent took their own life so early into hers. I won’t be a tragic smear on her history if I can help it.

The other reason is that I have a lot of debt. That debt falls to my mother, if I die now; she co-signed the line of credit, which means she’s responsible if I can no longer pay it down. I won’t put my mother in that position. She’s not exactly rich, herself, and it was my poor decision-making that landed me so deep in that pit.

So I won’t kill myself now. I can’t.

But I desperately wish I’d died when I was younger.

I tried to commit suicide ten different times, from the ages of nine to eighteen. Most of the time, I attempted hanging myself, and failed because I was too heavy for the fragile things I tried to dangle myself from, or because the knots were imprecise and unpractised. When I got a bit older, I tried overdosing on things instead, and only succeeded in ruining my stomach lining for the rest of my life.

I curse myself now, over and over, for choosing the wrong things when trying to poison myself. I sob over my slipknots and I cry while cleaning my kitchen knives. I’m so angry that I didn’t try harder, try better, to die. My death would’ve left a lasting mark back then, but it wouldn’t scar as deeply as it would now.

So I’m angry with myself. I hate that I became a person that would push away the person who felt like they’d be a constant in my life. I hate that I became a person naive enough to plan a future I couldn’t bow out of if I needed to.

You know those inspirational questions people ask, like, ‘What would you say to your teenage self, if you could’? They’re supposed to make you reflect on where you are now, how far you’ve come, and be glad that you persevered, right?

I’d tell myself to try chugging drain cleaner.