13. That was the first time I wrote a suicide note. The young age of 13 was the age in which I first thought of death by my own accord. I don’t remember which came first, the self-harm or the notes. Both I still hold with me. The scars on my forearms and thighs; the notes hidden away somewhere (don’t ask me where most are, I just know that I’ve never thrown one out). I’ve always been pretty interested in writing letters- starting when my one neighborhood friend moved away, I’ve written letters on different trips to myself to be mailed at a later date to remind myself of my adventures, I’ve written to a couple different boyfriends throughout my life when one of us went away for a time. Those letters I loved sending. Those letters didn’t tear my heart. I started writing suicide notes when I was 13, the most recent one was a couple months after I turned 19. I’m one of those people who writes a letter to each individual person who played an important role in my life. There are a couple reasons why I write. One of the reasons is it helps me get my thoughts together and tries to separate them from the OCD (more on that in next week’s article). I’m also an anxious filled wreck, and so it helps to remind me that there are people in my life that care about me even when I feel like I have no one. The last reason is, because no matter how much therapy I get, or how much medication I’m on, I never really know when this breakdown is going to be the last one, past the point of being able to cope.

Writing has always been my escape. I constantly frustrate people because it becomes physically painful for me to open up about emotions verbally. Thorns in my throat level pain. 15 was when I turned to DeviantArt to write poetry (http://gingerschabs.deviantart.com/ and http://ververginger.deviantart.com/). Writing suicide notes is something recognized as people doing, but I don’t think those who have never written one can understand the true implications of it. It is an acceptance that you may never want to take another breath, that you know the pain that you’re about to put all of your loved ones through and in your last act you want to reassure them, to protect them, to try and prevent them from feeling guilt that there was anything they could have done. That’s the strange thing about depression: you’re so wrapped up in your own black fog that it suffocates you, but often your biggest worry is trying to keep that fog entirely to yourself, to try so hard from letting the tendrils from touching the hearts of others and feeling like a hopeless failure knowing that it’s an impossible task when there are people that care. You begin to isolate yourself to try and further protect them and there is this sense that you’re the only one that can handle the darkness, whether or not you actually can (and generally we can’t, hard as we try). It’s almost as if you’re a sacrifice for society, “sure my life sucks and I want to die every second of every day, but at least it’s me feeling it and not somebody else, someone who can’t handle the despair, I’ll endure it for the sake of others”. We just have to be okay. Living a life scared of what you may one day do to yourself, what I am constantly compelled to try to do, is no life at all. I live each day hoping that there will be more than just coping methods for OCD, that I can be free from the obsessive thoughts of suicide and the compulsions to hurt myself. I have this wish that no one will ever have to read the notes I’ve written for them. Not until I’m safe enough with myself and them that I will be able to show them myself. The notes contain stories, memories, things I love about the person it’s for, and how they impacted my life in a positive way. Things I’m normally too anxious to open up about. There’s only ever been one person who has seen any of them. This was at my lowest point and I just had a notebook of them as well as a couple pages about why I wanted to die.

It’s a strange thing- being so young and having a collection of “wills” and goodbye letters. Sometimes they’re not even written in times that I’m breaking, cutting, or attempting suicide. Sometimes I write them simply just in case; even in times when I’m confident about my maintaining my safety. Sometimes it’s as if I’m writing just a normal letter to a friend. There are a lot of people I’ve amassed letters for: parents, siblings, friends, exes, family members I’m especially close to, and even a couple teachers of mine. I can occasionally find comfort in the ability of accepting that this is how my life is, potentially forever. They say misery loves company, and what better company than that of something that can’t leave you?

And so I write.