[TW: Suicide]
When I was a sophomore in college, I would spend hours just researching ways to kill myself. It's trickier than you might think, if you want to do it in the way that is least traumatizing to others and most likely to kill you instead of dropping you in a painful and, more importantly, expensive limbo.
-Overdosing is notoriously ineffective. Whether it's bleach or pills, they can wreck havoc on your internal organs while still not killing you.
-Gun shots are particularly grizzly for the person who finds you and obtaining them can be problematic with the confrontation involved in a background check/purchase process, a particular obstacle for the average depressive. [fun fact: on average, women attempt suicide more often, but men actually commit it more often because men use lethal methods like gun wounds and women tend to overdose].
-It's difficult to gauge how effective falls can be, even if you can access a high enough point.
-Jumping from bridges into water is likely to make your body difficult/expensive to find [not to mention the pain of being paralyzed and then sinking into water to be drowned over the course of a fear minutes].
- Hanging has to be done right and can often be rather painful. Attempting to break one's neck is ideal instead of simply relying on asphyxiation, but if the cord snaps or something goes awry you can be injured enough to be significantly inconveniencing without actually succeeding.
When I was a sophomore in college, I would spend hours just researching ways to kill myself. It's trickier than you might think, if you want to do it in the way that is least traumatizing to others and most likely to kill you instead of dropping you in a painful and, more importantly, expensive limbo.
-Overdosing is notoriously ineffective. Whether it's bleach or pills, they can wreck havoc on your internal organs while still not killing you.
-Gun shots are particularly grizzly for the person who finds you and obtaining them can be problematic with the confrontation involved in a background check/purchase process, a particular obstacle for the average depressive. [fun fact: on average, women attempt suicide more often, but men actually commit it more often because men use lethal methods like gun wounds and women tend to overdose].
-It's difficult to gauge how effective falls can be, even if you can access a high enough point.
-Jumping from bridges into water is likely to make your body difficult/expensive to find [not to mention the pain of being paralyzed and then sinking into water to be drowned over the course of a fear minutes].
- Hanging has to be done right and can often be rather painful. Attempting to break one's neck is ideal instead of simply relying on asphyxiation, but if the cord snaps or something goes awry you can be injured enough to be significantly inconveniencing without actually succeeding.
-Cutting one's wrists can take awhile and requires particular fortitude to consistently inflict self-harm.
-Carbon monoxide poisoning via one's car is another physics problem, generally necessitating a garage or at least semi-sophisticated tubing.
In short, if there was a button I could press, I'd be long dead. But my own aversion to pain, particularly in the risk pain inherently has in potential long-term damage causing one to be a barrier to one's loved ones, and my own tired depression largely prevented me from ever attempting anything suitably lethal. When I did finally decide to try to kill myself, in September of 2006, I drove to an empty downtown parking garage at 3am, took a few sleeping pills, put a plastic bag over my head closed with a rubber band, and waited. My breath made it moist and uncomfortable, the bag probably porous for all I know. The pills, of course, in the dosage I took them, weren't effective. And my adrenaline kept me too widely alert to everything to even believe I'd be successful. When the moistwarmconstriction just seemed like it would keep on going forever without ever working, I took the bag off and sat disgusted with how I failed so pitifully even at this. I tried again, with the same results. And that was that.
This was while I was in counseling, while I had supportive friends, while I'd been thinking of suicide for years. I was probably even on antidepressants at the time. I call it a suicide attempt because I was genuinely committed to attempting suicide, but my precautions deterred success. I shot myself in the foot instead of the head. So to speak.
I didn't give up on it, though. And although there have been long periods without suicidal ideation, it's never really left. Nothing, aside from stable romantic love, can calm me like thinking about suicide can. The idea that if I can just end it all if I do anything too terrible, if I'm too much of a burden or a waste, if I'm just too tired to bother anymore is incredibly comforting. It's the satisfaction of not eating all day without the negative effects upon my work/capabilities.
In the past few months, I've been researching again as a coping mechanism; the "exit machine" on wikipedia seems quite promising. Next time, I'll use a similar method but with some adjustments. Pills are too unreliable to be effective at knocking myself out; what I need is gas [helium or hydrogen, specifically]. Helium gas pumping into the right kind of plastic bag securely fastened will knock me out quickly. The lack of oxygen either via the helium or because I'll be encased in the bag should asphyxiate me to the appropriately fatal degree. I imagine there's some risk of brain damage at being deprived of oxygen and then being saved, which merits some consideration. Exit International suggests manipulating the helium release on the cannister so one can control the amount released, ensuring consistent gas delivery. I'm not really sure I'm up to that or if it's entirely necessary. But it's comforting to have in my back pocket all the same.
[Addendum: I am honest because I need to face the demons swirling inside me, which I force by making what most might keep private public. I honestly don’t mean to alarm or elicit concern.
[Addendum: I am honest because I need to face the demons swirling inside me, which I force by making what most might keep private public. I honestly don’t mean to alarm or elicit concern.
I’m at no greater risk now than I’ve usually been. And there’s very little that can be done or said to change that.
I don’t really like it. But it’s just how these things work.]
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