There is a carnival of love surrounding .me. It is wild and crazy and weird love from wonderfully weird people that I can never throw away no matter how much I try. I have two nephews, a niece, a brother, a sister, a mother, a father, a grandmother, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends. I cannot possibly throw my life in their face and waste all the love they have given me. There’s no option involved. No matter how bad it gets I will never attempt suicide again. This carnival ride will not stop because of me. I will not get off unless it is my time. I know now that I do not determine the time, that is in God’s hands, not mine. I want to assure my loved ones that I can guarantee my commitment to give them the love they give me. They have never stopped loving me, and the least I can do is stick around long enough to give them back the love they have given me unconditionally.

I love us.

I love my family.

I love my mother.

I love my friends.

How could I possibly give that up?

Don’t do it. It will get better. There are a million brilliant things about this life that make it worth living.

Love for love.

Always,

Luke

PS

There’s always a PS. I meant what I said above. But sometimes suicide is an offer that you can’t refuse. All the love in the world cannot challenge the throes of depression. It is not without consideration that someone chooses to leave behind their loved ones. The carnival rages inside of you and you would love to get off the rollercoaster and eat cotton candy with the people you love, but life isn’t sickening sweetness, it leaves you nauseous even after you step off. I don’t want to speak for other people. Everyone has to make the ultimate decision whether to go on or not, we all do. Love is a weird thing that does not conquer all. Sometimes suicide victims love too much rather than not enough. All I know is that love is not usually the problem, it is the sad fact of mental illness. It is like dying of cancer, it is that outside of one’s control.

I have to admit, I don’t know depression as well as most. It is depression that leads to most suicide attempts, of which there are every thirty seconds or so. Deep sadness for me is of the bipolar psychotic variety. It is not a choice made consciously, a decision to end one’s life because you see nothing good about it, all doom and gloom, there’s nothing to live for. I don’t mean to sound flippant, that goes very deep, and I am amazed at how hard it is to live in the face of that profound mental pain. 

I have wrestled with God. My suicide attempts were products of losing those battles. It felt inevitable, like I did not have any choice in the matter, believe me I struggled, and all the love in the world could not stop me from trying to kill myself…as much as I tried not to. No one can fully guarantee that given the right amount of pressure, they will not be able to continue living this life. 

What I can guarantee for me is that I am so overwhelmed with love, happiness, and positivity, it is inconceivable that things will get so bad that I will ever be in such a desperate state of mind to throw it all away. Inside the carnival is .me and I can hold up the funny mirror to myself and laugh at the past and feel hope for the future. The mystical rollercoaster is over and I don’t want to go again. 

Family first, if I maintain that philosophy and practice in my everyday life I think I will be okay. There are a lot of loved ones on the carousel with me and they want me to stay. Why? Why jump off? Why? So much to live for, so much love to live for.

PSS 

This is an additional thought after the PS. There’s always a PSS. 

There are few things sadder than being left behind in the wake of a loved one taking their life. I don’t know why exactly it strikes us all so intensely and permanently. I guess it suggests that the person you loved was so deeply unhappy, so miserable, for it to come to such a dramatic conclusion. How could anyone do that!? It’s the worst thing imaginable for someone to have to go through. You can only imagine how bad it got for them to do what they did. What their death leaves you with is a lifetime of paranoia that you didn’t do enough. You didn’t make the person you loved happy enough to continue living. Was my love not good enough to make them stay!? That’s the question you are left with.

You could come up with a million reasons that make life worth living. You might give such a list to your ailing partner. From ice cream to music to conversation to sex to novels, etc. You might think by listing all the reasons in the world to keep going, to relish life, to know that it will get better, that it will help them to feel and deserve to feel happiness. Not even a billion items to live for will conquer the determination of some sick people to put an end to their suffering. 

That is all to say, that it is not your fault. No one on either side of death is at fault. Suicide is a sickness. It is not the fault of anyone to catch the disease of mental anguish. This mental sickness can be even more powerful than love, so you couldn’t be at fault for not loving them enough. So forgive yourself. Then forgive them.

It is a balmy day at the beach. I could have never imagined it would get better. Dark dark dark black holes of mental pain, stretching into a future of blackness that would never stop. When I attempted suicide nine years ago, I was surrounded by love. It wasn’t even calculated. Love was not a factor, it was beside the point, irrelevant, unimportant in the face of a darkness that was so much greater. The suffering was all-consuming, and I felt I had only one option, it was not a choice, it was an offer that I could not refuse: hell or an end to hell, eternal sadness or an end to sadness. It was exactly that stark of a decision.

It hurts like a beach ball to keep these emotions in play in the air, hoping beyond hope that it doesn’t fall on the ground and pop with the loud bang of yet another personal meltdown. I am writing with paranoia. The subject of suicide scares me and stirs something deep inside of .me. 

You know, I don’t know who my audience is, I don’t know what they get out of this, if anything. But I have put in the effort to my own detriment. I can only hope that it is worth it, that there is someone reading this who finds respite from my own experience of surviving four suicide attempts. I hope beyond hope that the pain it causes me to write so much of what you find here–and elsewhere–is worth it.