Content warning: this entry talks about suicide.

Thursday, April 19, 1990

Only the brave kill themselves.

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That is the shortest entry in my diary. To me its meaning is crystal clear, but others may need it explained.

There is a common myth that suicide is the “cowards way out” and only fearful, weak people kill themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Fear is what prevents people from killing themselves. Fear of death, or fear of the physical pain that would come from a suicide attempt. Fear of failing to die and waking up seriously injured later on, maybe with a permanent disability that makes life even harder. The only people who actually succeed in killing themselves are those who overcome that fear. They are the brave. Only the brave kill themselves.

Consider again, my first suicide attempt at age 13, which I wrote about previously. I had a note written and pinned to my clothes. I had a rope ready to make a noose. I was standing outside under the tree in the middle of the night with no one to stop me. But I did stop, because I was afraid to die. The fear of the pain, or the fear of ending up alive but in a coma, is what stopped me from acting. So I went back inside and cried myself to sleep.

My second suicide attempt came some time in 1997. I had legally changed my name and socially transitioned at that point. My employer even supported me in this and I didn’t have to find a new job. By all rights everything was going smoothly. But the CPTSD and depression from years of repressing myself was still strongly in control of my mind and suicidal thoughts were pretty common for me in that era.

One day, as usual, I drove in to work, and headed for the top level of the parking garage where there was an entrance to the building just one floor below the one I worked on. I parked and got out, but instead of going on in, I decided to walk to the highest point in the garage. There, I found a concrete beam going across the topmost opening of the parking aisles, and it led out to the edge of the building. Curiousity took hold of me, and I climbed up on the beam and walked it like a tightrope to the edge.

From the edge I could look down towards the ground, about 80-100 feet below me. I stood there calmly, thinking to myself that all I had to do was dive off head first, like you would into a swimming pool. My head would impact the ground first and break my neck, killing me instantly. It would be a quick and painless death. It seemed like the perfect idea. I was not afraid. I could do it and end all of my sorrows.

But something in the back of my mind kept nagging at me until I remembered: I was afraid of heights. Just walking across the beam would normally have had me frightened and shaking pretty violently, but I walked it just like walking down the sidewalk beside a quiet street. Being actually on the ledge, an inch away from a large fall should have had my heart pounding and me desperately trying to get away. But there I was just quietly looking straight down without a care in the world. I was not afraid, but I should have been.

This made me realize that something wasn’t right in my brain. My normal survival instinct was turned off somehow. My rational mind recognized this meant that I was not in a mental state to trust myself to make such a momentous decision as one to end my life. So, I turned around, walked back the way I came, got down and went inside to work.

A couple of years after that I had my third serious suicidal incident. That week had been a terrible week for me. I had been fired from the most enjoyable job I’d ever had, my mother told me she had an incurable liver disease (an exaggeration by her to get sympathy, but I didn’t know it at the time), and I had also been diagnosed as Bipolar 2 and started taking lithium just a month earlier. I came home from a restaurant feeling very miserable and wanting to kill myself.

So I went into my bedroom, opened up my desk drawer, pulled out a loaded revolver, cocked it, and started raising it to my head. But my hand was being jerky and I pulled the trigger too soon, firing the gun harmlessly into the wall. The loud retort frightened me and brought me back to my senses. In fear of what I might do, I gave the gun to my housemate and left the house to walk around the block while I tried to calm down. That actually led to me being evicted, and my boyfriend at the time took the gun for safekeeping. I never bothered to get it back.

The point of these stories is to illustrate the point I made at the beginning. In the first and third incidents, fear is what ultimately stopped me. In the second incident, the lack of fear is what almost led me to go through with killing myself, and only the coldly rational part of my mind turned me aside by recognizing that I was not in a normal state of mind.

If I had been able to overcome my fear the first or third times, I might have actually died. If had actually experienced fear the second time, I would never have been on the ledge in the first place.

Only the brave kill themselves.