Suicide Note: Does it Count if There's no Explanation?

I am a broken person. How shall I describe it to you in ways that you would understand? I want us to be on the same page, really, because I would like at least one person in my useless life to say ‘well, were it not illegal, I would totally agree with you killing yourself. You deserve it.’ I know that that’s rather unlikely but I shall try regardless. After all, I have spent all this time going on with a useless life, what’s one more useless thing?

When you spend years living a life that’s slightly shifted to the left, you finally end up on the broken path. People look at you and see nothing wrong. After all, I do not have the dark circles under my eyes, my personality can be summarised as ‘so confident in who she is, it’s rather off-putting,’ and I am arguably succeeding in the very field I went to university for. At first glance, everything looks right. Heck, even after getting to know me, my skewed existence does not seem to affect me in obvious ways and so everyone I open up to moves right along, never quite seeing how much of myself I sacrifice to appear normal. Or rather, choosing not to.

Being a friend to a depressed person is a draining experience. Trust me, I know. Given a choice I would not be friends with myself either – actually, I probably would be a bro and hire a hitman for my other self so, in essence, being the best kind of friend there is – so I know how exhausting it can get for everyone else around me. The despair I feel is like an infection. It does not spread to others in the obvious ways, but rather, chooses the insidious route. Talking about my depression does not make the other person sad but it might remind them that their friend is suffering and there is little they can do to alleviate that feeling. People want to feel useful. They want to be the heroes and I am a constant reminder, to those who try to help me, that no such thing exists in this world.

Sometimes the pain is so overwhelming, I am thrown into a panic. Unfortunately, I am so used to taking a dose of ibuprofen – you know, the candy of adulthood – whenever I feel persistent pain that my instinct is to reach for a strip whenever the panic attacks begin. I cannot begin to describe the wave of hopelessness that suffocates me every time I realise that no medication exists that can ease this pain. Instead, it feels like my head is sealed in an impenetrable helmet that is filled with water. No action, no matter how desperate, can save me. Alcohol, self-harm, screaming, or talking, cannot help in that situation. I am at the mercy of whatever release mechanism exists on the helmet and I cannot access it.

In those moments, I am most desperate for death.

Sometimes though, in a desperate need to hear another voice, to know that I do not exist alone in that overwhelming hopelessness, I will call a friend. Sometimes they pick up, sometimes they do not. What does it say about me that I reach out only when I feel like I am dying? That they are conditioned to think there is something wrong every time they see my name on their phone screen? I am a selfish little cunt, sure, but even I know that friendship needs more than that. However, I am also exactly the kind of person no one wants to be around physically. It is draining to try and support depressed people from afar, let alone be around them. I am stood up when I invite people for getaways. I am ignored when I invite them to lunch. Truthfully though, I cannot blame them; I am self-aware enough to know I generally suck that much.

Why, then, do I still cling to people I have so clearly conditioned into feeling exasperated every time my name comes up? Simply because I have no other options. I would much rather implode on my own than drain someone else, and in many cases I choose that path. I hold myself back from reaching out exactly because this poison inside me needs to at least be contained within my feeble mind. Sometimes, though, the panic swallows me whole. I cannot win against my own loneliness and so I reach out with my tainted hands, to try and hold the hands of another who does not deserve such a fate. But I am too selfish to relinquish their potential support.

What is left for me then, if not death by my own hand? How else shall I stop this pain?

I had a discussion over my previous suicide note. In it, I had stated that my friends will feel sad and then they will move on. I was told that this was an unnecessary statement. Thinking about it now, I disagree. More than half of the people I still have around me feel some sort of guilt over my state. I need what they will not provide, not that they cannot provide it. That is to say that a good number of my friends are in some sort of hostage situation with me. The rules of this universe imply that if they are good and kind – which they are – then they cannot abandon me. It stands to reason then that when I kill myself, they need to be reminded that I do not mind that they will move on. I have, anyway.

I have a plan, you see, but it is a long term one. Part of it is distancing myself even more than I already have and the people around me, they will notice but also not. They will feel relief that they do not have to deal with my shit and I will be happy for them. We shall both be finally happier and hopefully, I will die with a little less pain packed inside of me.