LIFEHACK

I had a lifehack once, it saved my life. I’ve had depression for as long as I can remember and was an alcoholic for about ten years. So, in what felt like a logical move at the time, I signed up to be a Mental Health Advocate at work. My thinking that, whilst I’m not great with people, there’s a difference between being sociable and being present. If someone genuinely needs help, my empathy is not performative, it’s authentic, and its presence is given entirely. Anyway, it didn’t go great, for similar reasons why I can complain for hours about how ridiculous CBT is to someone neurodivergent. But what really bugged me, was being told that suicide is simply when someone wants to die – and all you need to do is snap them out of it. In my personal experience, that’s not true. I pushed back, but apparently, I was wrong. I’m going to share my experiences, but I’m not attempting to define suicide, only what it means to me. Suicidal thoughts for me usually exist as fleeting thoughts, be it whilst standing on a train platform fantasising about jumping, or swerving a car towards something unwelcoming. And then, hopefully, awareness kicks in, fear follows, and I step back. But for most of the time, it’s just background music, humming a sense of how peaceful it might be, without any real intention behind them, in much like the way it is when daydreaming about winning the lottery. Yes, the general censes here is a subtle but undeniable desire to die, but there was this one time… In a story, this would be the part where my eyes tug upwards, gazing to where the past still lives. This one time always comes to mind, because it was the longest period of commitment I’ve had to the idea without snapping out of it, and it’s the only time I didn’t want to die. The set up was to just drive into a tree, nothing neither theatrical nor new, except for one small crafty little change, – I’d just let go of the steering wheel. Brilliant, I thought, like I’d discovered a lifehack, as one of the biggest hurdles in any successful suicide attempt was always guilt. Guilt was what would normally stop me, – the people I’d hurt or disappoint. Suicide is quite an intentional statement, and is what gives it its ambivalent charm, like a double-edged sword, and we all love a good contradiction. But to just let go of a steering wheel? – I thought I’d found a loophole, I was actually quite proud of myself and felt it a shame I couldn’t share my great breakthrough. All I had to do was just let go of the steering wheel – thus removing guilt. Maybe I’ll die, maybe I won’t, but, in my head, if I did – it wasn’t my fault, it was just fate. – it was my guilt-free loophole. But, like every victory, it was just a rebranded loss, because somewhere between the formation of my plan, and the execution, was regret. I’d now crossed a line I hadn’t crossed before, and something in me knew, actually knew, that this was it. I can’t fully explain it, but once that line was crossed, I felt like I couldn’t stop. It was done, sealed in an envelope and sent. And once the doubts had made their home in my head, the realisation moved in. – I don’t actually want to die, but there was nothing left to stop me. I was screaming on the inside and completely on autopilot on the outside. I did not want to die. In case you’re on the edge of your seat, I can confirm that I missed the tree, and because the deal I’d made with myself was that fate would decide – a second attempt would be intentional, which meant the guilt could come back. So it was over, freed by the logic that sealed it. Looking back, I now see it as positive, because for all that time I was internally screaming that I didn’t want to go – something stuck. I still struggle with depression, and I still fantasise about not being here, but it is much easier to keep them for what they are, just fantasy. I’m still a Mental Health Advocate, because I’ll always be there if someone needs me, but I think the trainers are wrong, “Snap them out of it” assumes the person wants to die and just needs distracting. But sometimes the person is already screaming to be saved – they just don’t have anything left to stop them. Maybe I’m being pedantic, but I think that distinction does matter. The mistake is assuming suicidal thinking always comes from the same place, and that you can pull someone back with a generic interruption. Because at its core, whether it’s guilt, fear, anger, love, shame, or something else entirely, people need a reason to stay. And sometimes those reasons can be reached again, and sometimes interruption can be enough to make someone remember. But for me, it wasn’t that I’d forgotten my guilt, it was that I had consciously removed it, and with that one simple technicality, I’d lost my reason.