m y . t h o u g h t s . o n . t h i n g s

written Spring 2002:
If you host a site on geocities, there's a feature you can use that lets you see common phrases people have entered into search engines and found your site with. A very common phrase used to access this site has been: 'best way to commit suicide'. So, I'm going to answer this in my opinion - how I would commit suicide. But I'm also going to give my advice (even though it's not really advice, just my idea) of how to keep going and living when you're constantly bombarded with suicidal feelings. And last, but not least, I'm going to give my honest, if somewhat unorthodox, thoughts on suicide itself: the subject itself, the actual act, and the effect on everyone else.

First off, I am not about to commit suicide - please don't email me suicide hotline numbers or anything! But just because I'm not about to kill myself, dosen't mean I haven't thought about it. I have.

Suicide: what leads anyone to consider it? It seems that we've all been brought up to know that suicide is a horrible, unnecessary, and desperate thing to do. It is one of the few things that is never considered anything but of utmost seriousness. To hear someone mention this forbidden word practically means that person is depressed and suicidal. However, I think someone can think about and discuss suicide without actually following though with the action. In the same way, one can plan a trip to another country, knowing full well they will never actually take the trip.

How would I commit suicide?: Well, my plan always was to stick a rather large and sharp knife in my backpack and head early one morning to these small study/prayer rooms we have in the Biblical Studies building. I would close myself in there, write a really long and explanatory suicide note and then slit my wrists. I'm sure no one would notice I was gone until at least late at night when my roomates would notice I didn't come home. No one checks on you in those little rooms, that's kind of the point of them, that no one will disturb you. And plus, I think my last dying act would be that those rooms would no longer be considered sacred, or a place of prayer. They would be spooky, everyone would always know that that's the place where a well-known figure on campus unexpectedly killed herself.

OK, now enough of that. I've heard from numerous people that taking a crapload of pills dosen't always work. It just can make you exceedingly sick and will make everyone constanly keep you under watch thiking that you'll do it again. Of course, if you just desperatly need a cry for attention and to make people realize the desperation you're facing, then I guess that is why you'd do the pills thing. I don't really know about ways to kill yourself. I really don't. I just knew that for me, when I was planning ways, I wanted to at least take the brave way out and not the cowardly way out. (OK, please, please, read this article to the end, don't go kill yourself now or think that I am about to. Let me finish explaining!!)

You want to die. How do you keep living?: OK, well, I know what it's like to not have the desire in you anymore to do anything. It's impossible to 'snap out of it' when you have no desire to. You seriously feel as though you cannot do ANYTHING. I remember these thoughts. You want to end it all 'cause you seriuosly hate life and it is tourtue to live and pretend that life is alright.

My suggestion for living when you feel like this is: DO SOMETHING. I know that sounds completley retarded, how do you find the desire to do anything? But think about it, you are thinking about committing suicide. That is such a huge step, a huge action you are about to undertake. You do have the ability in you to commit suicide and therefore you have the ability to do SOMETHING. But just try making that something different than suicide. Take a huge risk, or don't. Throw all caution to the wind. Take a drive and don't come back for 2 days. Eat an entire gallon of ice cream. Why not? who cares? You hate life anyways, so who cares what you do. Steal a candy bar from a store. Maybe you'll get caught, maybe you won't. But at least you'll be alive. Do something you would've never dreamed about. And once you do that something, do something else. and something else. Eventually, you'll find that while you may not stop hating life, you'll be able to tolerate it. and you'll discover that occasionally, you'll actually find joy in a few little things. Don't rush trying to find joy in things. It may come eventually. Just work on trying to tolerate life for now. And keep doing thigs. If anything, they make the days pass by faster.

It's weird for me to continue this essay NOW when I no longer constantly want to be dead. Becasue, half of this essay was writen THEN, when I saw suicide in a much more favorable light.

I do not think suicide is evil or bad. I don't think it is the cowardly way out, on the contrary, I think getting up the guts to kill yourself when you feel that you can no longer do anything, including live, is extremly bold and daring. I do not see why humans can not be in charge of their own lives and choose to be dead if they wish. Why prolong the torture? We all die eventually. Why not die a planned death as opposed to an unexpected one? And also I think (but maybe this is just me) that always hearing how much your family/friends, etc. would be devastated if you killed yourself as an excuse to make you not do it, only causes you to be more trapped into the life which hate and makes you feel as though suicide IS the only way out. (again, this could just be me)

But, while I disagree with most that suicide is bad, I do agree that it should be avoided, if at all possible. OK, here's the deal: Life sucks, it really does, but we ARE here. I don't know why, I don't know the ultimate purpose to this life and hey, there may not be one at all. But, we're alive, for some reason or another, and we might as well make the best of it. This is our only time to have this life, maybe it sucked in the past and it may even suck in the future, but hold on to it while you got it, you know?

Or, at least, this is what I think about it all. Thanks for reading this all the way to the end and I hope I've made some sense. I also hope that I haven't lead anyone to committing suicide or that I haven't led anyone to believe that suicide is only for cowardly losers. I just wrote this to be honest in my opinion of suicide, 'cause I don't think the subject is talked about openly enough.

last updated:
9/21/04