Almost There: Suicide

The moment I awoke from my alcohol and Valium induced nap, my mind began its assault. "You need to get out. It will never get better. There's nothing left to say. There's nothing left to do. This is all there is." And it was right.

Once again I found myself gainfully unemployed with no hope on the horizon. Whatever money I had to hold me over between jobs was cooked up, drawn into a needle and pushed into whatever veins I had left. While I had recently kicked heroin, I was no better off. I simply drank more. I was going down, not in flames, and refused to pay attention. At or around 2 p.m. on August 4th, 2008, I was forced to.

For about a year I stockpiled my suicide pills. I'd done the research, I knew what would put me down for good in relative painlessness. It was imperative that I knew, if I had to, I could get out. The trap door in a doomed flight. I was never sure when or how that occasion might arise, when I would need to take that final step back into God.

Any day was as good as another. Every day was exactly the same. As I drank, life subsided. When I didn't, it came roaring back. The walls moaned. The carpet was unhappy. Laundry piled up, indifferent. Showering and shaving were more than a chore so I stopped bothering. Everything was coming to a grinding halt.

My past suicide attempts had been well-planned, well-organized, like a mission. Though failure was the one thing they all had in common, my attention to detail was impressive. That afternoon, in its infinite gray suffocation, it was a matter of perverted survival. I needed to go, today. I was suffering from severe constriction.