Today is World Suicide Prevention Day, an important, vast, and well-organized event you can read about and get involved with here. The forever moral: If you or anyone you know are considering taking your own life, immediately call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, 1-800-273-8255.

Today is also the day we're going to run an I, Anonymous submission that I got last week and have been thinking about ever since. In the world of suicide prevention—the world in which any suicide is a tragic failure, and where even expressions of grief are criticized for falling outside suicide prevention guidelines—our giving voice to a person admitting suicidal ideation will likely be seen as an extreme no-no. But I'm not willing to let "suicide prevention" be the primary guiding principle of society—things are complicated (especially around issues of euthanasia), suicidal ideation is not suicide, and this writer is using I, Anonymous just as it's meant to be used—as a place where even the most unacceptable admissions can be aired. Trigger warning: suicidal ideation. And again, if you or anyone you know are considering taking your own life, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255

This is the hardest thing I have ever had to write. I have had suicidal thoughts since I was twelve. I'm almost forty now. I suppose not killing myself by now should feel like an accomplishment, but it doesn't. I'm only really still alive out of a sense of obligation and a general sense of politeness. But after almost thirty years, those qualities just don't carry much weight anymore.

To summarize my life quickly, from ages 12 to 20, my major life events consisted of trauma, no particularly close friends, bullying, acne, etc. While most teens are celebrating their hormones, I was dealing with a pretty severe case of PTSD. I was called a loser by a lot of kids, girls especially (I'm heterosexual in theory if not in practice). Despite all this, I still believed things could get better. I got my shit together and got into college and was happy for about two weeks before I started having epileptic seizures. I've dealt with epilepsy and the side effects of anti-seizure medication since I was 20 (and those can feel like doing three or four shots before going off to start your day, and not in a good way), not to mention lots of injuries from falling due to seizures. Maybe I still have PTSD. Other than hugs that I can see coming and mentally prepare for in advance, I don't like being touched.

I'm sure I'm coming off like "oh, poor me." I know other people have it harder. It's okay by me if they want to off themselves, too. It seems like the people who feel like life is worth living ALREADY HAVE the things you're supposed to want to live for (loved ones, close friends, strong family ties, etc.) and take for granted that everyone else does too, or that they could get them if they TRIED HARD ENOUGH. Well, news flash, I've tried and it HASNT FUCKING WORKED. I've done therapy, anti-depressants, etc. and things haven't "gotten better" like they're supposed to do. What's weird is that the anxiety and overwhelming depression is gone—or I've learned how to deal them better—and I can be in, or at least fake being in, a decent mood. Bit the older I get, the more it feels like the rewards I get from life don't come close to equaling the effort I've put in. And the rather ironic side effect of not being anxious anymore is that I'm able to picture killing myself in much more realistic, graphic detail than when I was anxious, and I don't feel much remorse or shame about it anymore. For better or worse, my self-destructive tendencies have become uninhibited.

That's what's led me to writing this. I'll admit, I'm not going to actually kill myself tomorrow or anytime soon. This isn't an immediate emergency. But when I hear my parents advise me on retirement funds (by the way, I don't blame them for my life, they did the best they could), the thought that keeps recurring in my head is that I don't plan on making it to retirement. Perhaps this makes me an awful person or a sinner, I don't know (and I don't believe in organized religion, so I don't really give a shit. Go ahead and judge me if it makes you feel better). I just know that if I keep going on the path I'm on, if life doesn't get exponentially better soon, I'm not gonna make it to my fifties. Honestly, I don't think I'll make it five more years. And I don't know how else to tell anyone about this, so I figured I'd give this a shot. That brings us back to the beginning, this being the hardest thing I've had to write. Maybe it'll help. I kinda hope so. I don't want to give up quite yet.

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