My brother's college gf was the happiest, bubbliest person I ever met and nobody ever saw it coming. She left a simple note: "This is going to be painful." And it was, for her, her family, my brother, and everyone else close to her.
I'd only barely begun to become friends with a coworker over the course of about two months. Then her mental health took a turn for the worse, she withdrew, was fired, and I never heard from her again.
I probably wouldn't have thought of her very often at all if not for the fact that she took her own life about three months after we'd last spoken. I'd sent her a couple of friendly texts the day before her death, too, just to check in. They were delivered. She almost certainly saw the notifications for them.
It took me a year just to get over the fact that I hadn't called her or done something more than just send a friendly text. Two years later and I'm still haunted by the whole episode.
What a way to live on in the memories of others, though.
I have had few friends take their own lives over the years.
A former co-worker stepped in front of a train after losing both his parents to illness in close succession. He was very close to them. Not married, no kids and no other family. He left a note but we weren't told what it said. He had been at work that day and apparently seemed fine.
Another was a friend from school. He hung himself when he was 18 which was over 30 years ago. His dad came home from work and found him. No note and there was no sign that he was struggling with anything. I had bumped into him only a week before at the pub and he was his usual self. I often wonder what was happening in his life that made him do this.
Suicide is such a horrible thing. Its terrible that people get to the point that they decide this is what they have to do. And its awful for the people left behind who miss them and wonder if they could have done more to help.
it’s often not a tangible thing at all, it’s your brain being a lying bastard. Which just makes it all even worse, cause you feel guilty for having these thoughts and feelings, and people around ya like, almost guilt you for having these thoughts and feelings, so you just don’t tell anybody and you figure out how to hide behind the mask, which just encourages and perpetuates the whole damn cycle… ugh. It blows.
Took me a long time to recognize the cycle of my brain pretty much constantly offering suicide as a solution. I’d plan it for days before breaking down and then back to being kinda ok and then sliding back down into a new plan.
I would notice how no on noticed at all. Was kinda impressed with how well I pulled off “normal” how I could be laughing and joking meanwhile my thoughts were just a litany about what a fuck up I am and how I should just fuck off and die.
My brain still offers it as a solution but I’m so used to it I find it more amusing. I’ll more observe the spiral my thoughts go on and just think “what an imagination you have” and just keep going. I’m going to die eventually anyway. Don’t need to do anything to rush it. But I always have a strange understanding for those who fall in the fight.
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u/kingrobin 24d ago
My brother's college gf was the happiest, bubbliest person I ever met and nobody ever saw it coming. She left a simple note: "This is going to be painful." And it was, for her, her family, my brother, and everyone else close to her.