No One Knows I Tried to Kill Myself

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A year ago, I attempted to kill myself and never told a soul. Even typing it now seems wrong; like it’s a secret so dark it’s never meant to be shared. Suicide was something I thought about every day. Feeling suicidal can be different for everyone — personally, I could never really relate to other stories I had heard or seen in movies. I described my condition as a “self-diagnosed terminal case.” In other words, I thought death was the only solution to my problems. Whereas others may have often considered suicide but possibly still found slight slivers of hope in their lives, I found — or refused to find — any such slivers.

I used to fantasize about different ways I could die in order to relieve the anxiety that built up in me from my ultimate self-loathing. Thoughts of mistakes I had made in the past would pierce through my brain and somehow repeating “I hate myself” over and over again was the only thing that could make those moments of absolute self-disgust fade away. For months I ignored family and friends and my reasons for this were twofold: the first being that I did not want them to realize I was overflowing with hopelessness and, second, if our relationships weakened, I thought, they might not miss me as much when I am gone.

A day was eventually set for my self-termination. When the day came it felt strange because I was happy. This part will always stand out to me, that I was joyous — excited, even. I’ve always assumed that a person would be tremendously sad, panicked and in tears during his or her last moments on Earth. But not me — I was in a daze of jubilation. I had my final meal planned, and then I watched a movie and took my prearranged pills. I thought I had contrived it completely and perfectly: First I would take an entire box of over-the-counter nighttime allergy pills and then about fifty aspirins. I figured I would be knocked out from the allergy medicine and then be killed by the aspirins. I truly thought that would be enough. but after I took my then-assumed death capsules I just kind of waited around, anxious, as nothing really happened. Eventually I started puking. I puked for quite some time. Then I passed out.

I woke up at 3:30 pm the next day. My ears had a non-stop ringing in them. Most of my body had a tingling, numb sensation that matched my numb brain. I had work at 5:00 pm. I went to work, never thought about it and never told a soul. To this day, no one has any idea of what happened.

People can be incredibly different from how their appearances let on, and some may not realize the serious repercussions their actions can have. Just understand that people have a lot of layers, and you may not ever see their bottom one.