Metaphorically speaking.

A blog post about suicide.

I guess, it’s not possible to say how suicide feels, because if you know, you can’t write about it. But the moment right before it, right up to the last second, you can write about that. Although, I don’t think there has been a word invented that can portray the feeling. A drought and a flood at the same time in the same place – is there a word for that?  Being suicidal is literally the worst thing in the world, and – It’s worse than death. Allow me to use a few metaphors to try and explain. It’s not in any order – because it’s not like that.

Remember the residential at the end of junior school. Where you did loads of exciting things; abseiling, canoeing, raft building, Jacobs ladder and the leap of faith.For those of you that didn’t go (probably because you had weird attachment issues to your mum), the leap of faith is a 10m pole set about 3 foot away from a trapeze. The idea is to climb the pole, jump, grab the trapeze – hooray, everyone cheers! The thing is, with the leap of faith, it doesn’t matter how many greasy teaching assistants or arrogant young PGL instructors try to encourage people to jump, everyone hesitates. Stood on top of that pole, in the most vulnerable of positions, that’s when your heart races,  that’s when you look down, that’s when you want to climb back to the floor. Once you’ve jumped – that all goes away. Whether you grab the trapeze or not, there’s no need to be scared anymore, it’s over. 

Feeling suicidal is like being stood on that pole. Except it’s 1000ft tall, you don’t have a harness on and your hands are tied behind your back. You’re edging closer, centimeter by centimeter, your legs are trembling, your mind is racing, you are so unbalanced – and there is no safety net. You still want to jump. You know what’s coming, you’ve processed it all one thousand times – and you still want to jump. You can’t climb back down, there is no other way – jump.

Being suicidal is like stalking yourself, following yourself around, pointing out everyday objects as potential deadly weapons. Every high building, every sharp object, every long flexible item, anything that could block your throat. Like a director in your ear, that no one else can hear, and you carry on with conversations, swallowing harder, sweating, wringing your hands, forcing those quick closed mouth smiles whilst clenching your jaw.
”Shit sorry, what were you saying, I was daydreaming” **
** I was completely consumed with the intricate plan to end my life I just developed whilst looking over your shoulder.

The hardest part about being suicidal is that it becomes rational (in your mind anyway). You don’t want to fight the battle anymore, and that’s a sure fired way to stop it. The people who are close enough to you to know of your dark thoughts, they say things like “you can’t give up now”, well, actually I can, I will hold that white flag way above my head and I will surrender. I’ve tried, over and over again and as they pull out the “maybe tomorrow will be better” card, your analysis of the past number of years of mental torment, leads you to the conclusion, that actually, it wont. It will be a continuation of the vast shitstorm of your mind, that will push you to your knees, and repeatedly smack your head off the concrete.

Suicide is like an apple, a toxic apple. Some people take a bite, just one bite, and they spit it out. They don’t touch the apple ever again. That one bite reminds them how sweet the rest of the fruit in the bowl is and they eat that instead.
It seems however, some people, like I, get a taste for toxic apples. As much as the other fruit is sweet, the apple is sweeter, it’s shine sells itself as the perfect solution. I’ve taken more than one bite. Fuck it, I’ve eaten a whole orchard. I’ve attempted to take my own life hundreds and hundreds of times.

What is supposed to stop me? The thing with committing murder, the thing that stops most people from strangling their boss when they hand you admin at 4.45pm on a Friday, is the law. Consequences. Prison.  Well, with suicide, I’m not going to go to prison. The prospect is far more attractive – it’s peace, no more anguish, no more torment, no more battling, no more pain. Peace.

The catastrophe. That’s what is supposed to stop you. The foresight of the damage you will cause. The hole you will create in the hearts of those that love you. The fact that someone has to find you. The amount of talk I’ve had with the therapist about it. He says that your family an friends will feel like they weren’t enough, they will be seven times more likely to kill themselves, they will never be OK with it, they will never get over it. But suicide, gets back in your ear, and it lies to you. They will be better off without you. They will be OK. They will get over it.

The drought and the flood, that’s where it comes in. Thinking about what you’re going to leave behind. The emptiness is so full. It’s not that I don’t love you. I love you more than you could ever imagine. I haven’t just lived with you, alongside you, I’ve lived for you. What has saved me, it has all been for you. People think, that when your suicidal, that you don’t think of others – it’s all you think about. And that’s where the illness takes over, because in that last second before you try, it doesn’t make a difference.

I’ve experienced suicide in every form. I’ve seen the nurses cry as they struggle to save me. I’ve seen the eyes of my family fill up when the nurses tell them what happened. I’ve lost a best friend to suicide. I’ve stood with her mum at her grave. I wish with all my heart that it took it away. That I never wanted to jump from the pole. That I could stop stalking myself. That i never wanted to bite the apple again. It doesn’t work like that.

Dissociative Identity Disorder and suicide. The most horrific of combinations. Because in the simplest way to describe it, I’ve tried to kill myself a thousand times, and don’t remember a single one. Imagine waking up, with bruises on your neck, slashes on your arms, tablets in your stomach, items in your throat, on top of a building – and you never intended for any of it. It’s like having someone try to murder you, every second of every day. I have to go into hospital, I have to be saved, over and over again. It wears you down. Another alter wants to die and it becomes contagious. Their irrational thoughts start to make sense. Its quick sand, and you’re being sucked in.

I am being force fed the apple. What does feeling suicidal look like to me, metaphorically speaking, opening my mouth.