Predisposition
When I was young and it was summer, my maternal grandparents would come from Hong Kong to babysit me. It was a strange time in my life, what I consider my fetal years when I don’t remember learning anything, or having any awareness of my own consciousness.
My grandfather was a strong, intelligent, loving, gentle man, and my biggest hero. He showed me his war wounds, and taught me about states of matter. I even learned the term “civil war” from him when he used it (in English!) one time when some old black-and-white footage of Chinese battles came on the TV, but his English wasn’t great so I thought he was saying, “zero war”.
He was my favourite person in the world because he gave me the attention and stimulation I never got from my parents.
In one of those summers, I stole his cigarettes, two at a time so he wouldn’t notice, and hid them in the compartment of a red and white childrens drafting table. It was my way of getting him to stop smoking.
One time, I heard my grandparents shouting in the kitchen. They were fighting. My grandmother accused him of peeing on the toilet seat. It was the first time I heard them raise their voices at all, let alone at each other. I thought it was strange because at that age I was probably peeing all over the toilet seat, and no one ever yelled at me for it, so I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal.
My aunt and uncle were over because they wanted to spend time with them, and they came to see what the commotion was about. But they just stood there, listening, not wanting to take sides.
Eventually, my grandfather slowly bent at the knees, his entire body sagging, buried the heels of his hands in his eyes to rub out the tears, and said to my aunt and uncle with languishing pauses, “Sometimes, she makes me want to kill myself”.
And I knew he meant it.
I was too young to even be shocked, but for my grandfather to say something like that was completely out of character. He was invincible to me. I never understood it.
Until now.
Eventually, he went to live with my aunt and uncle for a while. They slowly became warmer when they saw each other a few weeks later. I don’t know if they ever talked about it.
Understanding Suicide
I generally don’t talk about suicide. I don’t discuss my battle with anyone, aside from close friends, because it makes most people uneasy. I never used to understand that because it didn’t scare me. Suicide is a choice — a conscious decision — and a conscious decision can’t be scary. But more recently, I found myself feeling overwhelmed, then afraid I would make a really big mistake.
That fear has kept me alive. Admittedly, I’m still trying to understand these thoughts in myself.
There have been a few high profile suicides in the news lately. When making a statement about his son’s death, Walter Koenig said “If you’re one of those people and you feel you can’t handle it anymore, you know, if you can learn anything from this, it’s that there’s people out there who really care.” Then his wife added, “All the people up here, from the police to his friends, have shown love which he didn’t realize was available to him.”
Their words show a very common fundamental misunderstanding about the reasons someone has for taking their own life.
You think love can fix us? You think it matters that you care?
The very nature of suicide is that a suicidal person doesn’t believe there’s any hope. If we felt like there was somewhere to turn, someone who could help1, that would imply there was hope. And if there was hope, they probably wouldn’t commit suicide.
We know you care, and we appreciate it when you tell us. We know how lucky we are to have the friends we do. But none of that helps. Suicide doesn’t necessarily result from a lack of external love. It can come from a lack of internal love, when we hate ourselves, or because our thoughts or problems seem too difficult to bear.
Sometimes I get advice about how to fix the issue, almost always from people who have never been suicidal. They think it’s a simple problem, and that we can just stop thinking about it and it’ll go away. Or we just need to find a hobby to distract us. Or find a passion to give us a reason to live. They don’t understand that suicidal thoughts are like a phobia — an irrational fear. You can’t easily fix irrational thoughts. They’re irrational because they don’t follow logic. Otherwise, you’d be able to cure someone’s arachnophobia simply by explaining to them, “Spiders are small and most can’t hurt you”. A person with arachnophobia knows that fact, and understands it perfectly, but put a spider next to them and they’ll be filled with uncontrollable anxiety.
Relate that back to suicidal thoughts: trying to rationalize things to a suicidal person by saying, “You have so much to live for”, is just as ineffective. Someone may have a rewarding career, a wonderful family, and good health, but none of that permeates the mind when suffering from a mental issue. The depression is irrational, and suicide isn’t the easy way out, it becomes the only way out.
From my own personal experience, the worst things you can do when handling a suicidal person are:
- worrying or getting uncomfortable — it puts pressure on us and makes us feel worse
- getting angry — it only makes us withdraw more and communicate less, and communication is one of the few outlets we have left
- telling them it would be a selfish decision — when someone is ready to kill themselves, they really don’t care and making them feel guilty is not the answer
The best things you can do for them are:
- giving them space — we need to handle things on our own terms and at our own pace, not yours, and the last thing we want is to feel like we’re inconveniencing you
- showing that you care, not just telling them — random flowers, text messages, hugs, poems (but back off if you’re told that you’re smothering)
- understanding that getting better is a long-term process, and not always permanent — we rely on your patience and understanding to get through it, and there may be regressions
- never, never, never turning down a chance to talk or hang out if they ask you — nothing makes us sink deeper in our fragile states than to feel like we aren’t important enough (we wouldn’t ask if we didn’t need to)
By no means am I suicidal right now, but yesterday I considered, and came as close to it as I’ve ever been. That was enough to scare me into the realization that I need help. Perhaps I’m fortunate enough to say that I understand how irrational these feelings are, and I know that I need to discipline, practice, effort, and systematic observation to fix myself.
- Which is very different from someone who wants to help. [↑]
If I did it
I would ingest potassium cyanide that I’d procure online or from a jewelery store. When I was young, I imagined myself using carbon monoxide fumes, but I don’t have a garage anymore. Sometimes, when I’m driving at night, I think a car will serve as well as a gun at 160km/hour, but it’s probably way too messy and uncertain. I’ve always wanted something as painless, clean, and quick as possible.
I’d do it in my house, and lie down in my bed in my boxers with the covers pulled over me. Probably listen to a playlist of Leonard Cohen’s albums from earliest to latest. If successful, it’d take three to five days for the police to find me, and it’d either be John or my work to call them. Maybe I’d set up some kind of trigger to call 911 after a day, so no one would have to deal with a gross decomposing body.
I have no idea if I’d leave a note. I can’t think of what I’d say.
Some people would be sad, but John would be most affected. It’d take him between one to three years to get over it. Everyone else would take less than a year.
John, Darren, Aaron, Louise, Rob and Mel, Pat and Jen, Trolley, my dad, possibly Joel, and maybe my uncle Joe would be at the funeral. Rana, Andrew and Alex, Jesse and Audra, Dan, Heather and Sergei, maybe even Frederic and Misun and my Tai Chi teacher, would be there too if they found out before the ceremony happened. My mom would be barred from attending. Any other family there would just be to make an appearance for my dad.
John would give the eulogy. I think he’d cry while delivering it, which would make me sad because I’ve never seen him cry before. Pat and maybe Aaron would want to say something too.
I’d let John decide what to do with my remains; whatever is easiest/cheapest for him to deal with. If I was cremated, I’d let him keep the ashes, but I’d allow him to give them to my dad if he chose to.
John would get almost everything in my estate; house, assets, RRSPs, life insurance policies, with the following exceptions:
- Darren would get Dolly, because he’s the one who would appreciate her most
- clothes would go to the Salvation Army
- all my computer equipment would go to Pat (aside from the Mac Mini and external drives, which would go to John for his home theatre system)
- Aaron would get my car and my Wacom tablet
- Frederic and Misun would get all my photographic prints (with the one exception below)
- Ryan would get my Canon Digital Rebel XT and 18-55mm lens and consoles
- Heather would get the rest of my photo gear
- My dad would get the painting Julie made of me
- My primary copy of the Tao Te Ching translated by Jonathan Star would go to Sam, my copy translated by Stephen Mitchell would go to the Tai Chi studio to be lent to anyone who wants to borrow it
- My copies of the Tao of Pooh, Te of Piglet, and illustrated copy of the Tao Te Ching by Martin Palmer, and Hoot would go to Bronwen
- My Mont Blanc Meisterstück Classique Rollerball, plant, and first copy of “Tomato Voice” would go to Julie
- My table tennis equipment and I Ching would go to Dan
- Jesse would get my ukulele
- My copies of Mind Over Mood and Reinventing Your Life would go to Jason
- My broadsword would go to Rob cause I bet he would think it was cool
And if my therapist ever found out, he would have wished that I continued my sessions.
Damaged Goods
I have to write this so I can admit it to myself.
I have to write this because I can’t think of anything else nowadays, except for how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning.
I’ve been reading a book my therapist recommended to me a long time ago, the one that deals with lifetraps. In one of the first chapters, it goes through each lifetrap by first explaining a “core need”, which is something a child should have in order to thrive. It goes through examples on how we should have been raised, and how a healthy mind will grow from that. Then it explains how the lifetrap may develop if that core need isn’t met, by giving examples of destructive childhood environments.
And for almost every lifetrap in the book, I saw my own childhood in those examples of destructive environments, such as the one about “Self-esteem”:
Self-esteem is the feeling that we are worthwhile in our personal, social, and work lives. It comes from feeling loved and respected as a child in our family, by friends, and at school.
Ideally we would all have had childhoods that support our self-esteem. We would have felt loved and appreciated by our family, accepted by peers, and successful at school. We would have received praise and encouragement without excessive criticism or rejection.
But this may not have happened to you. Perhaps you had a parent or sibling who constantly criticized you, so that nothing you did was acceptable. You felt unlovable.
As an adult, you may feel insecure about certain aspects of your life.
When I was reading that, all I could think of was one specific incident from my childhood. I was young enough that my mom would bathe me, and she would do it in the en suite bathroom of the master bedroom. One day, she came to dry me off with a towel, and both the bathroom door and the bedroom curtains were open. I told her to close the door, because I was self-conscious about being seen naked by the neighbours across the street. I was really upset about it, and instead of walking two feet to close the door, she laughed and said, “You’re no Tom Cruise”, and left it open. From that point, I’ve had this irrepressible feeling that I’m never attractive enough for someone to even be interested in seeing me naked.
And that was just one example. My childhood was filled with so many such memories, each one branching into other lifetraps.
I’ve never wondered why I have self-esteem issues. I fucking hate how self-conscious I am, because I know the extent of that self-consciousness isn’t normal. I’ve struggled with issues like that my entire life, and I can trace everything back to my parents. It fills me with rage to know that they damaged me to the point where I feel so overwhelmed by my flaws that sometimes I’d rather be dead.
If I were ever to commit suicide — and at this point I feel like I can’t rule out the possibility of this anymore — I’d say that my parents would be 55% responsible1, with my mom sharing more of that blame than my dad.
I hope she reads this one day. I hope my entire family reads this. I hope all my cousin’s moms read this, because they usually try to defend her. I want everyone to know that if I die by my own hand one day, I blame my mom more than anything else in the world. I want parents to know that they have a responsibility to their kids because they’re people too, that they have to treat them properly, and that I was an example of what happens when you don’t.
This is starting to sound like a suicide note, and it’s scaring me. Good thing I’ve always been a rational person, and I still recognize that suicide is an irrational decision for me at this moment. Sometimes, I watch suicide videos just to shock myself into realizing how final, irreversible, and horrible that decision is.
I’m at a lot better than where I was two years ago, before I went to therapy, but I’m still far from being fixed. I can admit that to myself now.
- The other 45% being my own inability to deal with these things, but I attribute that to temperament, which is inborn and hence not their fault. [↑]
Pacts
Bronwen and I agreed to a marriage pact, where we would marry each other if we weren’t in a relationship by a certain age. The thing is, she’s six years younger than me, so we decided that her expiration date is 35, and mine 41, because it’s easier for men to date/marry than women, at an older age.
Note how I didn’t say “easy”. Heaven knows I had a hard enough time with dating in my teens. And twenties. And probably 30s.
According to her, we also have a suicide pact, even though I have no recollection of this. The only reason I can think of agreeing to that is if large parts of the world were destroyed by meteors, leading to the collapse of the economic system, creating anarchy, and reducing everyone to hunter-gatherers.
Bronwen and I are most certainly not hunter-gatherers, and we’d probably suffer unbearably just trying to survive, or be killed soon after because we’re too naive or compassionate for a dog-eat-dog world. The thing is, if that happened I’d try to join forces with Pat and Jen, because they always have everything together1. So maybe if they were also killed by this cosmic hailstorm, then it would still be an option.
- Pat’s the one who believes that at least one person should be in control in every group at all times, and that he is this person. The only time he was ever inebriated was for his bachelor party. [↑]
The Importance of Importance
I should really be in bed, but whatever.
Tonight I dug up a letter John sent me a few months ago after he hurt me like never before:
I’ve been reading your blog and calling you all weekend…I know you need attention and I’m sorry I’ve been so neglectful of you that it’s reminded you of the way your parents treated you. Please stop contemplating suicide as a realistic course of action in order to remedy the problem. I love you and would really miss you and at the end of the day in a selfish way I’m scared that I’d hate you if you left me here by myself feeling as guilty as I’d feel if you did it. I think you have fundamentally misordered the priorities we all come hardwired with. To rank the absence of sadness or the presence of happiness or whatever suicide would gain you as goals higher than survival is the first error and then to seek those first goals using the methodology of suicide is the second. You’re a little Chinese man who drinks fruit shakes and is definitely intended to live longer than the genetically predisposed to die in his early 50’s Caucasoid over here. Lets keep it that way shall we, I haven’t got your eulogy polished to nearly the degree you’d want it to be.
At the time, I couldn’t get past the first few sentences because the pain was too fresh. And his words too poignant. Whereas I’m very vocal with my feelings, John is the opposite, and for him to say these things made me feel like my heart would burst. I read it tonight because I wanted to be reminded that I’m important to someone, the way I need to be.
It made me realize that a little part of me still defines myself through others. But I don’t care anymore. I have someone who loves and needs me the way I love and need him. That’s what matters. That’s what makes me feel important, like my life means something.
Knowing this brings me a great deal of comfort.
And that will be enough to get me through.
(I wonder what he’ll say at my eulogy.)
On Isotretinoin
I recently started a course of Isotretinoin, a strong medication used to cure severe acne by altering DNA transcription. For some reason, my acne has really flared up in my late twenties. I would get huge cysts on my face that would last for weeks, not to mention the hyper-pigmentation that would last even longer after the cyst went away. Needless to say, it was making me very anti-social when I was talking to people and felt like there was a huge distraction on my face.
I was referred to a dermatologist, who gave me a prescription for “full strength” (according to my body weight) to see if I could handle the side effects. The pharmacist asked me if she made a mistake because they don’t offer a dosage that strong, so now I take a combination of two dosages.
Due to the potency of the medication, there’s a huge list of side effects. The scariest is the mood changes. I’m supposed to stop the dose if I start experiencing:
- changes in my mood such as becoming depressed, feeling sad, or having crying spells
- losing interest in my usual activities
- changes in my normal sleep patterns
- becoming more irritable or aggressive than usual
- losing my appetite
- becoming unusually tired
- having trouble concentrating
- withdrawing from family and friends
- having thoughts about taking my own life
As a person who’s suffered from suicidal thoughts in the past, this was quite a frightening proposition. I asked my friends to be aware, just in case I don’t notice any changes in myself.
So far though, the only side effect has been extremely dry skin, especially on the face. The lips have been the worst; I can’t eat or drink anything without applying a thick layer of moisturizer on them, otherwise they peel like mad.
Prior to this, the only time I used Vaseline was as a sexual lubricant.
Now I get aroused every time I breathe in.
Defining Myself Through Others, Revisited
A deeper look at an old topic
Some time when I was a child, I asked my mother if she loved her nails more than she loved me. She had this kit full of nail tools — clippers, files made of metal and emery, toe separators, fake nails separated in little boxes, even a small hand-held, battery-operated dremel with different attachments used to grind, sand, and polish — that she would carry with her around the house. When I asked her this question, she picked me up in her arms, and vehemently denied it. I didn’t believe her though, not in my heart. She had always paid more attention to her nails than to me.
My dad was no better. One time I googled his name to find his work number, and came across an audio/visual site where he had written a small paragraph as a review on a projector he had. I was crushed. It was more effort than he had ever put into my life, sitting in a couple of short sentences in front of me. It would have been okay if he had been so uninterested in everything, but he wasn’t. He loved his car, he loved his home theatre, he loved his karaoke, but me he had no interest in.
So, before I had become a teenager, I started to look for some kind of approval from other people. At that point, it was Andrew and Alex. They were my best friends in grade 3 and 4, but I changed schools in grade 5. Even after this, I tried to hang out with them but they seemed to be more interested in school, and we lost touch.
Pretty soon, I realized that I wasn’t anyone’s “best friend”. I cried and I cried and I cried. I felt like I needed this to define myself. I needed be a priority to someone because I certainly wasn’t a priority to my parents. Without being someone’s best friend, I was worthless.
As an adult, you may feel insecure about certain aspects of your life. You lack self-confidence in areas where you feel vulnerable — intimate relationships, social situations, or work. Within your vulnerable areas, you feel inferior to other people. You are hypersensitive to criticism or rejection.
I still feel this way now. The problem is that the need isn’t being met. Everyone puts other people first, and the one foundation I believed I had in my life has crumbled. I’m never important enough.
Two things keep me from killing myself.
The thought that one day, I may mean something to someone. Or the thought that one day, I’ll be able to stop defining myself through others, and simply be content with who I am.
Either way, something’s gotta give.
This Is Not A Cry For Help
I have suicidal thoughts every now and then.
They don’t necessarily come out during bad times. It’s rather random. And it’s not like these thoughts involve planing how I’m going to do it, I just think of how much simpler things would be if I weren’t living. A line from Being John Malkovich comes to mind:
[Consciousness] is a terrible curse. I think. I feel. I suffer.
I think the root of my “suffering” is the anxiety I harbour. Anxiety about social situations, the state of the world, and other trivial details that make life seem complicated. I don’t want to have these thoughts, but I do. Then life gets even more complicated, and I get more anxiety. It’s a vicious circle, until it becomes not about the anxiety itself, but anxiety about having anxiety. I didn’t really identify it until I was in the car with Julie, feeling sick and sicker until I almost asked her to pull over on the highway.
All I want to do is stop thinking. Suicide would be such an easy solution, and as much as I disagree with the reasons for suicide in the first place, I honestly believe this is true.
I know I have a good life, I know how illogical these thoughts are, but that doesn’t stop them from reoccurring on a monthly basis. I remember having these thoughts as early as high school, although they were much more common back then.
More frequently, I have thoughts of mutilation, about once a week. Not self-mutilation, because there’s never anyone specifically doing it to me. It’s just me in blackness, then a floating knife flying into my windpipe, or an axe splitting my head down the middle, or an ice-pick in the back of the neck, or…well, you get the idea.
I’ve never told anyone about this. Not because I’m ashamed of it, but because I didn’t want anyone to worry. Not even my closest friends know.
But harbouring this fear and anxiety, I’m slowly realizing, is difficult. It’s preventing me from enjoying life. I’ve decided to get some help; my first appointment is in three days.
I’m tired of living with this.