Suicide Note

A close friend of mine called me the other day crying. She confessed to me that she had tried to commit suicide for the second time.

When I got off the phone I couldn’t help but feel that I knew the second attempt was coming. After learning of her first attempt about 3 or 4 months ago, I watched with empathy, pity, and disgust as she drunkenly continued to spiral downward towards anywhere that didn’t remind her of herself.

I think about her a lot. And not just because she’s attempted suicide, but because she is a painful reminder of the struggles I’ve endured and seen so many people endure. I remember one summer, I was 16 years old watching my father quit marijuana cold turkey. I watched him go through withdrawal symptoms – insomnia, lack of hunger, anger, suicidal thoughts. Wide-eyed, I watched him pull hair out of his head and punch himself in the face screaming about how he wished he could die. Another time, my father had been screaming at my sister for something stupid, as usual. She started having an anxiety attack so I stepped in and told him to leave. Surprisingly, he complied; and once he was out of our way, in between sobs she exclaimed that she had thoughts of stabbing herself in the stomach. “Sometimes,” she gasped, “I wish I wasn’t alive.” My sister was only 8 years old.

If any of these people – my friend, my sister, and even my father – ever succeed in committing suicide, I would be in a great deal of pain. Whenever anyone commits or attempts suicide someone will be in a great deal of pain. It seems to me that when people want to leave this world we are bound to in life, they don’t realize that their death, and even their suffering, affects everyone else – however intimate or strange everyone else may be to them.

Don’t get it twisted: Suffering is the universal language.

I want to share my own suicide note with this good friend of mine, and anyone else who is considering walking the tight rope between life and death. I hope my attempts at making any sort of connection aren’t futile – or even worse, cheesy – as my intentions couldn’t be any more sincere.

Dearest friend(s),

I have been watching you very closely, listening to and feeling your pain. I notice each self-deprecating remark; each time you say, “Oh, I’m alright,” and then avoid eye contact. I hear how closely you analyze your food intake and criticize everyone else’s supposed “visible happiness.” Each story of drug intake and each confession of emotional rollercoaster rides find their way to my core, where many of my own wounds are still open and sore. I know that you are suffering, because I suffer too. In fact, I know a lot of people who are suffering.

Too many of our friends, lovers, and family members know too well how to hate themselves, but not how to love themselves. Easily, we slip into blaming ourselves for not knowing how to find enough control to search for happiness. And before we know it we start torturing ourselves. We are professional teachers, perpetrators, and victims of loathing and self-hate.

To be honest with you, all of this self-hating, depression, and suicide has become very limiting and boring. I’m sick of hurting and worrying all the time. The bad news has gotten redundant and, now, predictable. I can only feel so much pain before it starts to drive me nuts. I understand that you are suffering, but you have to know how hard this is on me as someone who has already endured and survived these same struggles; and as someone who has seen many people deal with suicide and depression.

I’m calling us out: We need to start using our imaginations for something more innovative, productive, interactive. We need to visualize and create a new perspective with which to view ourselves and the world: a perspective that is not focused on destruction but creation.

The only thing we need to be destroying is the horrible lie we have been made to believe, the lie that claims we deserve to suffer, that we live only to suffer, and that we all die alone. We need to re-create – or give birth to – a self which acknowledges and appreciates the fact that our existence is predicated on the existence of others. If we have the power to destroy our own lives, we, too, have the power to create our own lives.

And if we can create ourselves over and over again, then anything is possible. Why would we want to run away from this exciting and pleasurable opportunity to explore the limitless possibilities of the worlds we already inhabit? We can die some other time, in a less painful, hateful, and lonely manner. And when that time comes, we can cross over together.

May our journeys through existences never end!

Maad love,

Angelica A.

Fuck off

So, my mother just called to chat.

"Hey, how's it going?" she asked me. I told her I was ok and she proceeded to ask the kind of questions that are thrown around during small-talk.

She tells me she misses me. She tells me she loves me. But apparently, if she says I'm out of the family, I'm out. She kicks me to the curb, throws a million middle fingers my way, and then talks to me like none of it happened.

I don't understand any of this. I'm so frustrated and confused! How do you tell me to fuck off and then proceed to ask me how I'm doing?!

For the past 5 months I've been put through this torture. Back and forth from vicious emails and phone calls to random check-ins. Ya know, just to say, "hey!" I can understand that my parents miss me and love me and all that crap. But I still don't get how they could force me to compromise my identity, silence me, push me away, and then confess their love for me.

"Because we're family," my mother attempts to answer my question. Because she's my mother, she loves me, and perpetually confuses the shit out of me. And, of course, because I'm her daughter I must do the same. But I don't want to, damnit. I never asked for any of this. My love has standards. I need to feel comfortable and safe to express that. Is honesty, comfort, and safety too much to ask for?

How am I supposed to deal with two confused parents who don't know how to explain to me that they love me, but sure as hell know all the right ways to tell me to fuck off? How am I supposed to help them and encourage a better relationship among all of us if I can't even bring any of the problems up without my mother ostracizing me? Why would I even want to in the first place? I have no happy image of our "family" (whatever that means) to hold on to or even want to create with them. All I want to do with them is yell at them, maybe spank 'em a few times and send them to a counselor with a coloring book and some crayons.

I'm ashamed that I'm so angry at them. And I hate how my mother spits in my face by being nice to me. Especially after she tells me I'm not allowed into the house to get any of my stuff and I have to threaten to call the cops. Where does this niceness come from? Is it to spite me or does she really feel it? If she loves me so much why can't she fucken be consistent with it?!

My mother's niceness makes me second-guess all the work I've done this past year to try to make big changes in all our lives. I've asked my parents to go to counseling and deal with being abused and being abusers. I've told them that I'm unhappy with them, that I'm angered and sad by the way I've been treated. They tell me there's no point. They tell me I'm overreacting, I'm making stuff up. They tell me to fuck off.

My earliest memory in life is watching my father shove a used, wet paintbrush in my mother's mouth when she was pregnant with my younger sister. I can't make that shit up. My father beat me. I can't make that shit up. My father ignored me for the entire month of December. The only time he spoke to me was to threaten my life and try to kick me out of the house. I can't make that shit up.

Ya know what, mom, if you can't be nice to me AND help me heal by acknowledging, pledging the rest of your life to making sure that none of this ever happens again, then YOU can fuck off.

Why Does it Hurt?

Last Thursday I went to pick up my belongings from my parents' house. They taped newspapers up in the windows so I could not see into the house. They also made sure they were gone when I showed up.

Goodbye?

Being kicked out of a family, especially one as unpleasant as the one I was born into, isn't as easy as I imagined it would be. I used to say to my partner that I would be fine never seeing or hearing from my family again. But all of a sudden when my mother started saying to me, "Fuck off" for wanting her to seek counseling, my world crashed.

Did it hurt because I wasn't given the ability to disown them? Because my own mother, the one who was supposed to be on my side during the huge battles my father forced us to deal with, was now supporting my shitty, abusive, life-sucking, good-for-nothing father? Or could it be possible that I might have some feelings for my mom, and maybe even that piece of shit father I was given?

I really don't like the thought of liking these people. They neglected me, took part in watching me suffer, and now they refuse to acknowledge any such abuse. Even worse, they absolutely refuse to make our relationship better. Trust me, I've tried. Oh God, I've tried.

Why on earth would I possibly have any feelings for them?

It's not like I'm losing the perfect family or even any good memories. When I lived with them, I would spend my days floating about the house, writing emo poetry and journal entries about how I wish I could feel emotion, enjoy food, and stop hating myself so much. Maybe I'm stuck on some idealized imaginary family that I always wanted to have. My parents have this image too, as I think I've gotten it from them. They'd share these wonderful made-up stories about our family with other people, including our extended family members, that clearly said to me: our family isn't what it should be.

I think I'm digressing. I'm not stuck on an idealized image of my family because I always knew it was fake. I think what I might be trying to get at is that through the expression of a better family we all began to notice that we at least had the same desire for a happy family. Somewhere in their thick skulls, my parents acknowledged publicly without even noticing it, that they do have the imagination for a better family. The problem is, their fantastic family created for story-time with 5-minute acquaintances has seemed to become their reality.

Of course, they had their own abuse to deal with. And because they didn't fully recover, I had to suffer too. However, living my days with the passion to heal is what separated me from them. Once I expressed that my love has standards, they dropped out of my life like flies. Sure, I may be in pain because the slightest tinge of affection might be lingering in my heart somewhere for my parents. I may even pity them for their inability to gain perspective. But I'm mourning. I mourn for the death of any hope they once had that life could be better than what they have.

My mother tells me that life with my father now is so much better than it ever was. And all I want her to hear, to know is that LIFE CAN BE SO MUCH BETTER!

Blood v. Tears: An (un)Apologetic Revelation

Sometimes I wish that all pain left a physical mark. Instead of having to endure hurtful (and obviously false) remarks about my being, I would get punched in the nose.

People don't like to listen to memory because, of course, anything anecdotal about emotion isn't proper evidence. Because words aren't real, they are just sound, balls of fluffy air that softly brushes our eardrums. No, words don't actually mean anything. In fact, this blog entry is just a figment of your imagination and no matter what combination of words I use I will never fully communicate to you what I mean.

Show them a scar or a bruise, a bloodied towel, and all of a sudden people have the gift of sight.

My parent's lack of imagination is beyond mediocre. It is narcissistic and boring.

I remember this one time, during my junior year of high school. After a dance my father picked me up in the snow and started yelling at me because he had this weird hunch that I'd skipped the dance and drove around town. Once I confessed that the dance was boring, that I in fact skipped out to hang out with some friends down the block, he took me home and threw me into a pile of barbells, loose weights, and the bench press. He proceeded to whack me with chairs and tables, calling me names and threatening my life. He concluded by punching me in the ear where my newest piercing was.

I started bleeding profusely. Once he noticed the blood, he stopped and started crying.

"I'm sorry, Angie!" he yelled in my face. He explained that he was angry because his friend had died in a car accident earlier in the day, and he was scared that I was going to die too.

I wanted to ask him that if he was so scared I was going to die, then why would he beat the crap out of me?

The next morning I was covered in bruises and my ear was swollen. While showering I analyzed every marking in my line of vision. I reveled in the fact that my father had finally snapped and took the next step: he actually tried to beat my face in like he always said he would. I secretly wished that from then on the beatings would get worse. Then, I wouldn't have to think about harming myself. Then, I would have proof for the next time I try to convince my guidance counselor at school that I'm not happy at home.

The truth is, the only reason I went to that dance was because I hated being home. And I hated my school. So why not go for a joy ride? Ya know, hang out with some people who actually respect me? These guys never called me a bitch, or mocked me, or threatened to kill me, or beat me. I felt safer driving around in their tiny beat up car than with my maniacal father who doesn't even know how to control his own temper.

When my father noticed the blood gushing out of my ear, he looked like he had a revelation. Holy shit he finally crossed the line! I think that was the fastest I ever saw him jump out of a fit of rage. How is blood dripping out of my body any different than me sobbing? I always sobbed when he got angry at me.

The pain is always there. Just because there isn't any blood, that doesn't mean the person next to you isn't dying.