It's Not Just a Fad

The first time I had planned to kill myself was my junior year of High School. It was 38 degrees outside and pouring rain. It was November 13th 2013 around seven o'clock at night. I had just got home from work after being chewed out by my verbally abusive boss for about the third time that week, and probably the hundredth time that month, I had completely bombed a math test, which was a subject I hadn't struggled with since the third grade.

I got home and checked the mail in my dad's old beat up truck, and found a letter addressed to me. The letter was from someone I had completely trusted telling me I wasn't good enough and no one could love or respect me with how I was. I was home alone, my dad had a school board meeting, and my mom was working three hours away.

I had already felt at that point I had depression. I had never been a happy person and the last couple months of my life had been complete and utter Hell. Adding more on top of all of that had pushed me to an edge that I had been staring at for a while, but never dared to look over.

I had called my mom and told her about the letter, cried to her for a bit, then hung up. No one was going to be home for hours, and I had kitchen full of knives.

I sat on my bed thinking about how my dad would come home and find me. No doubt my mom had already told him what happened. He'd come home, check the house first, then walk into my bedroom to find me.

Lifeless.

However that day my dad had left his meeting early and came through the door before I could even do anything.

The second time I planned to kill myself was my second semester of college. I was 1,000 miles from home, I was failing half my classes, barely passing the others, and my roommate along with the rest of the people in my building I had grown close with had all stopped talking to me.

It was a toss up between swallowing all my medication for anxiety and migraines, and maybe even a whole bottle of IBprofen, or taking a swan dive off my school's psychology building. I hadn't decided which was better: a death in which my whole body would just shut down on me, leaving me gasping for air, or hit the concrete breaking every bone in my body and having my brain scattered all over the pavement.

What stopped me was not wanting to break my parent's hearts. I couldn't do that to them, and force them to come clean up my dorm room for me.

I never once tweeted out, "save me."

I didn't send out a mass text saying I wanted to die.

I hadn't planned on killing myself for sympathy or attention.

I didn't want to die because I felt like following a 'trend.'

I genuinely wanted to kill myself.

The only thing I could feel was a pain in my chest, and the burn in my eyes as a result of crying myself to sleep every night. And if I wasn't feeling pain, I felt numb. If that's all I would be able to feel every day, I didn't even want to breathe.

Suicide isn't a fad or a fashion statement.

Suicide is a real thing that on average takes the lives of 94 people a day and about 34,000 a year leaving hundreds of thousands of people in grief over losing a loved one. Please try to explain to the family and friends of those people who took their lives that they only did it because that's the only way they knew how to get attention.

If anyone tries to tell you that your anxiety, depression, mental illness, or suicidal thoughts are your way of getting attention, tell them to f*ck off.

Because you fought your way to be here, and nobody gets to belittle that.

If you or anyone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts please call 1-800-TALK.