Preface: I owe this piece to this essay on suicidal ideation in childhood by
; such a intimate and wonderfully written piece that you should go read. It got me thinking about this piece.If you’re in any way uncomfortable with topics of suicide and self harm, please don’t read this! I talk quite openly and frankly about both. Take care of yourself, I’ll see you next time.
Things that have saved my life, at one point or another, in one form or another:
A phone call. My little sister. Sunrises. Plans to go far away. An endless list of books to read. A stranger’s smile. Sleepovers. Fear. Being unable to stop laughing. My mother. Old friends. Guilt. Writing. Summers after the sun sets. Walking through the suburbs. Missing people. Possibilities. Smoke filled basements and uninhibited conversations. Spite. My cat. Movies. The boundlessness of the world. Art galleries. My father. Reconciling. Postcards. Lit up faces. Library books. Swimming in a lake. Gardening with my grandmother. Childhood nicknames. A wish to get better. A wish to get worse. Reminiscing. Creature comforts. Inscriptions on used books. My high school English teacher. The banality of making a cup of coffee. Listening to vinyls. A poorly timed knock on the door. Someone I used to love. Long dead writers. Fun little trinkets. The way my best friend laughs. Routines. A note left on my desk. The kindness of women I don’t know. Remembering. Listening to a song for the first time and knowing it will become beloved. Family pets. A campfire. A birthday card. Film pictures to develop. Puzzles to finish. Holding hands.
If there is anything I’ve learned from being passively suicidal for the majority of my life it is that you have to hold onto something. I am still here because I grasped whatever I could and held it until it hurt. Sometimes it’s something so small, so trivial, or it’s too big for you to understand fully, or it’s a terrible thing, or a wonderful thing. It doesn't matter. As long as it tethers you. As long as it keeps you here.
Being a child and wanting to die is not something you get to forget. I think it does something to you, something that muddles all your memories and is impossible to let go of or scrape out of your head. I’ve long since stopped trying. It’s just something that I went through; I was a child and I wanted to die. As a teenager, there were times it went from passive to active to dangerous, but but most of the time it was passive. I have very few memories in which I remember being happy, in which I wanted to live. All of this is part of me. I do not forget.
When I got an acceptance letter to university, I cried so hard I almost threw up. I never thought I would be alive to see it. This passive suicidality has hung over my head for as long as I can remember. It had always just been something that was there, like a scar, or a birthmark. When it came time to apply to universities, I remember thinking, how did I get here? My eleven, thirteen, fifteen-year-old selves would have gawked. Perhaps they would have been angry. I broke our suicide pact, after all. I promised myself relief and there I was, at eighteen, still alive. It was strange. I cried a lot that year.
Next year, I’ll graduate. I have not thought about dying in a long time. This is a mercy. I am doing much better than I was, but I am always so afraid that it won’t last. I take this mercy as it comes, but I never get to forget. At some point, the years I spend not thinking of death will outnumber the years I spend thinking of it. Perhaps then I will be able to forget. But for now, I carry those years with me, like a scar, like a birthmark, like something ingrained.
“Being loved, the relentless care of my family, my lovers, my friends, has sewn me back together.”
Melissa Febos, Girlhood
Many things on this list are love in various forms. Some are terrible reasons to stay alive, but the morality of what keeps you going is often secondary to the act of staying alive. I stayed out of spite, out of hatred, out of a sick desire to see just how bad things could get. I stayed because I had other ways of keeping myself sane, all of which were harmful. I stayed so my parents would not have to lose a daughter, so my little sister would not be without a big sister. My life was held up by other people's love, and I felt guilty for that, guilty for wanting to take the life my parents gave me, guilty for existing. When I came out of the worst of it, there was so much guilt and shame to wade through. I was ashamed that I did what I did to myself, I felt guilty that I was feeling the way I did when other people had it worse, that so much had gone into keeping me alive and in the end all I wanted to do was die. But I came out of it, and sometimes that is all that matters.
I suppose what I am trying to say with this is just: hold on. To whatever you can get your hands on. Find something that tethers you, and hold it. Forgive yourself for what you did to stay here. I forgive you. The world forgives you. Forgive yourself.
That’s all for now, take care of yourself.
So glad that you are still here, Hannah, and so glad that I get to read your writing ❤️🩹
Thank you for sharing. I am glad you are here.