The scary permanence of suicide

I’ve lost friends to suicide before in my life. I’ve lost more to unintentional overdoses and stuff like that, but there have been a few that died by suicide.

Growing up the way I did, with trauma and abuse and depression and anxiety and all of the bullshit that I endured, I had a lot of friends along the way who dealt with similar things. One in particular, who I remain friends with to this day, I was especially close with.

We made multiple suicide pacts, then tried to help each other through our worst days, picked each other up when we were the most down, and offered another drugs and alcohol when things were…whatever they were. Him and I understood each other in a way that no one else could understand us. Our friendship, while, admittedly, probably toxic…was so important to me. And I do believe that we saved each other a good bit.

Losing someone to suicide is a different kind of painful. Even more so than those I’ve known who have died by overdose…losing someone to suicide is a really, horrible, gut wrenching feeling.

I recently lost someone pretty close to me to suicide, and I’m having a hard time with it.

As a person who has attempted, and nearly killed myself, a number of times…I do understand what this person was thinking. I understand her pain and her hopelessness and the trapped way she was probably feeling.

I even understand how alone in her feelings she felt. But I just wish she knew that even though she felt that way…she wasn’t alone. I wish she would have reached out more and let me, or anyone, help her.

There is such a horrible permanence to suicide. And going through this loss again has reminded me of that.

I am no stranger to feeling suicidal. But I know that the absolute only thing to help me when I’m feeling that way is other people. It’s having that support, knowing that I’m not alone…knowing that someone else actually gives a shit. Feeling cared about and like I matter, like I’m not just a fuck up and a burden…that’s what has saved me in the past.

I try to be that person for other people. I know how lonely it is to feel the depths of that pain. And no one should go through that alone.

I’ll be honest, before I got pregnant, I did make a pretty serious attempt at ending my life. I really didn’t tell anyone about it or talk about it at all because I didn’t feel like it mattered. I didn’t feel like I mattered.

And I have worried about how I would feel and how I would recover once my pregnancy was over, which it now is. I’ve worried that I would fall back into those bad patterns, those horrible feelings…all of it. It’s been one of my biggest fear for a long time.

Losing my friend hurts. I miss her every day, and there’s definitely a void now. Suicide is so permanent. And I just wish it didn’t end that way. I wish she was still here. I know a lot of us wish that.

Right now, my own depression is… tolerable. What isn’t tolerable is my anxiety. And I’m worried that my anxiety will spill over into depression and hopelessness, making it one big cycle of bullshit.

There can be so much beauty in the world if we can just see past the pain. But the pain isn’t always so easy to see past.

I only wish I could have done more, been more present, been a better friend, been more insistent…

I wish it didn’t have to end that way. It really fucking hurts.