I Might Set Fire to This Later

My favorite quora post

I'm not writing this answer for upvotes. I'm also not writing it in some desperate attempt to stop anyone from ending their own life. I believe that people have an inherent right to decide for themselves that, for whatever reason, they have had enough and just want it to end.

The biggest reason that I feel this way is because I have been there, and I walk pretty close to the edge still. I did, in fact, very nearly kill myself once, and on another occasion I came pretty close. But that first time, more than two decades ago, I discovered something that was a game changer for me. It may not be a game changer for you, but it's pretty simple and I can't see any harm in you reading about my experience. I'll try to keep it reasonably brief.

Almost twenty-five years ago I found myself at a place in my life where I just felt like I could not stand it anymore. I won't go into all of the details of why. If you are one of the people that I am writing this answer for, then you have your own reasons, and they are just as real and valid for you as mine were for me.

Here's the thing. I know—and knew back then, that many people who try to kill themselves manage to screw it up. Many of those people end up brain damaged, or paralyzed or institutionalized. The world is full of people who, with the best of intentions, will pull out all the stops to prevent a person from ending their own life. These people will often insist that "Oh, I promise you, your life will get better, you're not thinking clearly right now." and they will be absolutely convinced that they are doing a good and noble thing by intervening to stop you by any means necessary.

What these people seem to be unable to grasp, is that many people who are hurting in one way or another, and are ready to make it stop, are not idiots. They know their own circumstances and in many cases there really is either no chance that things will get better, or the chance is so remote that a person might decide that it's just not worth it to them to endure whatever horrific feelings they have that have brought them to this point.

The problem with the majority of these self appointed suicide saviors is that they aren't willing to actually do a whole lot to help a person fix their life.

In my case, I decided that I'd had enough and that I was going to end my life, but I was going to be smart about it and make a very detailed plan the would virtually insure the following things:

I would not be discovered and "saved"
I would die with as little discomfort as possible
There would be very little possibility that I would fail to die, but would instead just causing permanent injury to myself, thus making my shitty life even more shitty than it already was, and
I WOULD NOT INADVERTENTLY INJURE OR KILL ANYONE ELSE IN THE PROCESS !!!
Meeting these criteria would require a well thought out and well executed plan, so I made the plan and then I decided to do a "dress rehearsal." This essentially meant that I executed my plan right up to the point where I would have actually had to do something to keep myself from dying. If I did nothing, I would die. At that point I spent a minute or two just experiencing the approach of death, knowing that no one in the universe could stop it except for me.

BAM!! That is when the magic happened. Sitting there in that state, knowing that I had total control over my own fate made me feel POWERFUL. It made me realize that I had a nifty little escape hatch that I could jump though any time I wanted to. In other words: I had a way out. In that moment suicide, became my secret weapon, and that infamous dark robed "reaper" fellow, became my big brother.

EDIT: The following image is really not disturbing; the workings of Quora however . . . ?

He isn't really all that "grim" once you get to know him. He's quiet, and extremely patient. He's in no hurry, and he hasn't got somewhere else to be. He's just there, patiently waiting until either I, or fate, decide that it's time for him to take me by the hand and escort me off stage.

Suddenly, the things in my life that had felt like horrors that I just could not stand any longer, didn't seem quite so terrifying. When you've got a bad ass big brother watching your back, well, it makes you feel brave. It made me feel angry too, but it was the good kind of anger. I felt like I was tired of having life kick the shit out of me, and that maybe it was time for me to kick back.

All of us are heroes in our own tragic story. Our stories all end with our deaths, but you know, one thing I have learned as a writer, is that if you can work out a good ending, that's more than half the battle when it comes to writing a good story, and most of us have the luxury of knowing how our stories will end. I realized that, and took a deep breath and then, you know what?

I absolutely could not wait to get out there and write the best damned tragic story I possibly could, and I have been writing it. I have had some great experiences and achieved some extraordinary accomplishments, and I've had a ball doing it, because I've known all along that I have a plan, and I know how to implement it. I can pull the eject lever any time I want to. It will be scary pulling that lever but soon I'll find myself gently parachuting to the ground, and my big brother, GR, will be standing there waiting to help me up, and dust me off, and take me for that final walk.

But: I have got pages, hell: whole chapters left to write before that happens. My story will be epic, just you wait and see.

NOTE: A few years ago a person very, very dear to me took his own life. He was an amazing guy. He was literally brilliant, and he was very emotionally tuned in. He felt other people's pain, and he rolled up his sleeves and did some fantastic work helping other people who were hurting; that's just the kind of guy that he was.

The problem with being that kind of person, is that the world can be a very cruel place, and some really horrible things happen to people—and cats. (that's another story I'll tell on Quora one of these days.)

He felt that pain, for himself and for others, and finally reached the limits of his pain threshold, and then he made a plan, and executed it. He died peacefully with his favorite music playing in his earbuds.

I heard about it when my wife called to tell me. She said the words, and the next thing I remember is lying on the floor weeping; my knees had buckled while I tried to process the magnitude of having this beautiful person that I loved so much, taken away—permanently. It left a ragged empty, bleeding hole in my heart, and in the hearts of a lot of other people too. I think that he would have been amazed if he had realized how much we loved him, and how desperately we would miss him.

His story was short—about twenty years—but it was truly was epic. He singlehandedly saved an elderly married couple from losing their house that had been condemned by the city. He organized skilled laborers to volunteer their time, he got some home improvement stores to donate sheet rock, and lumber, and all sorts of other supplies and tools, and then he planned this beautiful weekend where we all converged on this lovely couple's house, and we had a "fix 'er up" party. Those elderly folks were so sweet, and helping them felt so good.

He MADE THAT HAPPEN. That's a chapter from his story that will be sung for many years to come, and it's just one of many beautiful things he did.

We do miss him terribly though, and I'm sure that he would be surprised to know just how much we loved him, and miss him. We took him for granted. A big part of my story, thanks to him, is that I am determined to look for and find that kind of beauty in people whenever, and wherever I can. There is a lot of terrible ugliness in this world, but there is also and incredible amount of beauty. I know my big brother's got my back, and I'm glad he's patient, because I still have a lot of beauty to find, and to sing, to anyone who will listen.

That's my story. You do what you need to do, but please be careful not to hurt anyone else if you decide to pull that lever. I hope that you will decide to write a few more pages, and I hope that you will share them with us here on Quora; I'm always looking for beautiful things, and I would be willing to bet that I would find a few, and appreciate them, if you decided to write, just a few more pages