When you create art, sometimes; you might struggle with scary, intrusive thoughts. I write about Scott Hutchison, music, and the power of connection and how we have to keep fighting even in the midst of our dark periods. Cw/tw: suicide, self harm.
— — —
Sometimes it feels like you’re trying to catch smoke.
It’s sand pouring through your fingers, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Sometimes — there’s no sand at all and it’s just the rushing feeling of matter slipping through the cracks. You’re helpless.
Not worthless, per se, but you’ll definitely fucking feel like it.
You won’t have the energy to push back to fight; so you just let this feeling of failure and disappointment wash over you like the most lukewarm, unsatisfying shower you’ve ever had and you don’t have the patience or give to try to mediate the temperature.
Maybe you’ll start taking beers into the shower. Sneaking joints into your bedroom at night. Taking pills in dark clubs where no one can see you. Lines in bathroom stalls in shitty clubs that are blaring monotonous, hieroglyphic sounding beats.
This is how it feels to want to die, to cease to exist, to want to slam down the STOP button in the middle of an intense rollercoaster so that you halt to a stop and you’re left with whiplash, and left dangling in an incredibly uncomfortable spot.
You don’t kill yourself. You never do.
But why not?
Is it the idea that one day, the smoke will finally lift? You’ll be able to see clearly again? The cloud over your head will evaporate and the black dog in the corner will finally be put down?
Or is it the sparkle you see in your two-year-old niece’s eyes as she explores the planet and is beautifully naive to the fact that this world can be cruel?
Or is it the joy you feel that erupts inside you when you speak to a friend about a shared passion that makes you feel like; fuck, finally. Someone understands. Someone gets it.
Looking back on better days makes you hopeful for the future, even if they are few and far between now.
Depression, low mood, anxiety, irritability, anger, frustration, exhaustion — these are all things that can hold us back. They make us question our very existence. About what the point of anything else is; if there even is one at all?
If everything ends, what’s the point in even beginning?
— — —
My mind keeps casting back to Scott Hutchison; who died by suicide earlier this year. He went missing after some troubling tweets he posted, and I remember the extreme panic that went into trying to find him.
This is the last known time he used a public platform. These tweets were posted on a Tuesday evening. A body was found two days later, at the marina at Port Edgar, between the Forth Road Bridge and Queensferry Crossing, at about 8.30pm on Thursday. It was confirmed to be Scott Hutchison.
In my own dark periods since his death, I’ve been revisiting the song in which he seems to foretell his own fate, Floating In The Forth. It’s extremely detailed, which shows that it was calculated, at least 10 years before. The album that it was on, Midnight Organ Fight, was released in April 2008. Scott went missing on the 8th of May 2018. His body was found two days later.
“And I picture this corpse, on the M8 hearse.
And I have found a way to sleep.
On a rolled up coat, against the window
with the strobe of the sun and the life I’ve led.
Am I ready to leap?
Is there peace beneath the roar of the Forth Road Bridge?”
It’s in this same vein that I notice my own fantasies.
How would I do it? Would it be water, smoke, concrete or a blade that did it? Pills?
Would I feel myself slip away?
Would it be long, drawn out and painful or quick and painless — then nothing?
Would there be some kind of out-of-body experience in which I could see my own lifeless body underneath me as my soul would float away? Finally, I would have taken matters into my own hands — to end the suffering on my own terms.
— — —
I think sometimes, sickly, that If I was dead, people would care. Then the tributes would pour out, because no one can talk shit about you when you’re dead. Not that I’d be here to experience them, but in the hopes that there is such a thing as the afterlife, maybe I would be able to. Hang about like a lonely ghost and listen in on what they have to say.
I wonder what they’d make me wear for my funeral. I’d probably still look fat, no doubt. My clothes would be even more ill fitting if I was permanently horizontal. But fuck it, again, no one can say anything now.
Who wants to be the asshole who talks shit about a dead girl? Exactly.
Through chopping waves, as manic gulls scream “it’s okay.”
Take your life
Give it a shake
Gather up
All your loose change
I think I’ll save suicide for another year.-Scott Hutchison (Frightened Rabbit/Owl John)
The song: Floating In The Forth.
Would there be cuts on my arms? Would I finally work up the courage to draw blood?
There’s a scene in the Royal Tenenbaums, a film by Wes Anderson, in which the character Richie Tenenbaum looks at himself in the mirror, very calmly and slowly removes his armbands, shaves his beard; and then makes a deliberate move to his arms.
I’ve never been able to decipher why that scene in particular always seemed to make me catch my breath. It’s shocking, it’s extremely stark, and it is bleak.
But at the very least — this is the point of which a character has reached breaking point and feels as if they have no control, so they take control into their own hands; onto their own arms.
It’s not bravery. It’s not stupidity. It’s not selfish.
It’s when the smoke becomes too much for you to breathe and you choke.
It’s when the sand that piles up and suffocates you.
It’s when the shower beers, the weed, the pills, and the harder drugs are gone and all you’re left with is a running shower that’s threatening to overspill.
So you let it.
— — —
Some, like Scott, die as a result of all of this. Some, like Richie in this film, live on. What is ironic is that the fictional character gets another chance to try again.
I don’t know if I’m mentally ill. I’ve never been diagnosed, despite semi-frequent trips to the doctors over the years to discuss my mental health because I’ve never felt quite right.
My heart aches for every single person who felt that they no longer had enough give in them to carry on. My god, I’m so, so sorry. You deserved better. We all deserve better.
Is this self-indulgent? Yes. Of course it is. We all exist within our own heads and universes where we are the central figure.
For now, this is all reflection.
I think I’ll save suicide for another day.
If you need help and support — I would suggest Samaritans but in my experience, they were unable to help with the weight of my needs. If you are struggling with heavy thoughts like this — please contact your GP right away. Or phone a member of your family that loves you. People love you and you are worthy of being here. Please remember this.
I’d like to thank my friends, old and new — who have helped me through the bad times, whether they were aware they were doing it or not.
To my family — who have sustained me through two major losses and continue to help when sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve it.
Reality is — everyone is deserving of love, help and support.
Baby steps, but you’ll get there.
Promise.
