My Suicide Letter
Frankly speaking, I feel vulnerable talking about this and most of the time I try to avoid opening up this matter but with the recent incident, I think it is better to speak about it.
At least it could be a lesson for some, motivation for those who are still fighting, and maybe this matter could bring a change in someone’s life.
As we all know suicide is a common thing, we hear the news and we know people who might die because of suicide.
I have attempted suicide and had thoughts about ending my life when I was young. Precisely at the age of 14. The age where everyone hits puberty and there, I am thinking about ending my life.
My world is very small back then, it was mainly my family and friends. My family was of great support for me, they fulfill all my basic needs from food to education. I had a good life and great friends. We don’t talk bad words and until the age of 12, we consider “stupid” as one of the vulgar words that we can use.
Then I shift to a new school and a new environment, many types of students from many different backgrounds. Fast forward to 14 years old, I was awarded the best personality or best characteristics student of all Form 2. My parents were proud of me, especially my mother.
The thought for suicide
A few weeks after that, an incident happened. I was really bad in Tamil back then, so the words I use in Tamil are kind of grammatically wrong but still understandable. I had Moral Class ( which is a join class) and I sat beside my close friend.
As I recall, I was stressed about something else and I was telling my feelings of frustration to my close friend. Right behind me, there was an argument between a female prefect and a student about firecrackers. In my frustration, I told my close friend in Tamil ( what you are about to read is a direct translation from Tamil to English) “Take the firecrackers and put it in there”.
I was annoyed by the prefect and in my mind what I meant was “Ask her to shut up and walk away” but the people around me thought it in a double meaning way.
They thought I was referring to her private part and started celebrating me for saying such a bold thing. I was clueless about what was going on and the female prefect felt offended with the scenario and left the room.
I clarified with my close friend and told him about my real intention. He told me that it was nothing and what happened had happened.
A few hours later, another prefect came to my class and called me. He stated that there was someone who wants to see me. The prefect guided me towards the school entrance where a group of familiar faces was gathering.
As I reached nearer to the group, I noticed my mother was there. It seems after the incident in the Moral Class, the female prefect went to the office and get my mother’s number from the school PIBG Records ( that was what she claimed). I was cornered and I saw the disappointment on her face.
I try to explain but she didn’t listen to my explanation and just said sorry to the prefect for whatever wrongdoing I had done.
Since that incident my mother didn’t talk to me for a few weeks, my father ( who was a discipline master) interrogated me as I have turn into someone bad, my brother playfully teased me for what had happened.
Frankly speaking, that was the first time I felt my whole world was close up. I was accused of something that I didn’t mean to do or to say. I had no one trustworthy to speak up to. My mother didn’t want to talk to me no matter how many times I begged her to. The only person I had to turn to every time I have a problem is not there to listen or care back.
With all the frustration and negative emotion building up in me, the only thought I had as a naive boy was to end the misery. I tried drowning myself in the bathroom water tank, every time I see the fan in my room, I had the thought of hanging myself.
Every time I tried to end my life, I will just sit and cry. If you know me during this period, I will appear normal to you, even my family didn’t know what was going on with me. I still had mixed emotions even after everything was back to usual.
That incident had left a permanent scar in my life.
The reason for me writing this
See the reason I am writing about my experience is not for you to sympathize with what had happened to me. The reason I am writing this is that whenever I heard about a suicide issue, the people around me, the media are always trying to point out someone or somebody for the cause of that suicide issue.
Take my story as an example, who would you blame if I had taken my life away. My mother for not talking to me at the most crucial moment, or my friends for glorying the double meaning thought when I meant something else, or the girl who overreacted towards the situation that just happened or my brother who keeps teasing me for something that I didn’t do, or me, myself for being so naive and taking my life so early.
Suicide is a domino effect of continuous negative incidents that happen in someone’s life.
No one wants to end their life. It is the continuous rejection, expectation, believing other people’s opinions, attachment, that often lead us to such a decision.
Blaming the society, the negative people around us, or in social media is not going to solve this issue but if you are having suicidal thoughts, let me tell you something.
Something that I have learned throughout my life to overcome such thoughts.
First, sit down and cry. Yes, cry. If life hits you so hard, it is okay to cry. For those people who think crying is for weak people; man, don’t cry. Trust me, man does cry and those who cry are powerful.
Being vulnerable is never a sign of weakness. My greatest motivation comes after I cry. Let it out, relax. Your mind right now is having so many emotions, just cry and let them out. You can’t think clearly when these emotions cloud your mind.
Often time these are the emotions that lead you to suicidal thoughts. You can sit alone ( which I would recommend) and cry or you can call someone you trust and pour out your feelings. For those receiving such calls, please just listen and if possible, give some encouragement.
Don’t advise them.
Give them support and motivation but please don’t think of advising them. They just need somebody to hear their feelings. Once you are done pouring out your feelings, get on your bed, and sleep.
Take a night of good sleep and shut the whole system down to rest yourself.
Once you are awake, start the day with something that you like, if you love taking a long shower, take it; if you love to start your morning with dancing, bring those skills out; Start the day with something that you love doing.
For the first few hours after you are awake, just focus on the things that make you happy than thinking about the problems and negative thoughts that hunt you the day before.
When you are calm and emotionally happier, then face the problem and negative thoughts. You are now looking at this problem and negative thoughts with a fresh and clear mind, this makes you think more rationally and the decision you take will be more reasonable.
Throughout my life, I have always noticed that the decision we take emotionally is never the right one. That’s what happens in most suicide cases, they were emotionally affected and they make a decision without thinking clearly.
This process might take a long time. For me back then it took me about 8 months to get myself to a clear state. Every day I will wake up and take a long shower ( because that relaxes me) and when I feel I am confident to face the problem of negative thoughts, it will just bring me into a roller coaster ride of emotions.
During this period, I continued with the process of crying and letting out those emotions and as time pass ( exactly 8 months), I was able to face these problems and negative thoughts. We will not forget the thing that happens to us but we can build positive thoughts to overcome it.
That brings me to my next important point that we all should understand and implement.
Don’t try to change society, change the way you see it.
There is always going to be a bad mouth in society. We often see and get negative comments, criticism, so call advises in social media or society.
We are teased and judged by our looks, colors, characters, and many other things. Frankly speaking, we can’t change that but our perspective towards it.
I have many flaws; for example, I can’t tell the letter ‘R’ and people make fun of it. They always tease me to tell words like ‘Rabbit’, ‘Racket’, and other words that have the letter ‘R’. When I was young, I use to get frustrated with this but as I get older, I appreciate having this problem.
I can make someone happy for a moment of their life. You can call this mature thinking but I just change my perspective in viewing this problem. I smile when they make fun of me.
Something that used to be frustrating, now makes me feel happier. You see people judge us for so many reasons but we know ourselves better than them.
Sometimes trying to prove that we are right to the wrong person is like throwing a stone into the mud, the dirt will still splash on you.
Cyberbullying, criticisms, rejection, judgmental people are still going to be there, even if you plan to end your life.
Don’t waste your life trying to prove those people wrong, live life the way you want, and ignore what other people are telling about you.
Empty vessels make the most noise and you have a life worth living. Live it, don’t kill it.
I bet there are people out there who had suicidal thoughts and are still fighting with it, for those people I bow down and beg you to keep fighting because there is a life worth living.
No matter how hard life hits you, there is light and the end of the tunnel.
Keep loving yourself and live a life that gives motivation for others to live theirs. Some people are looking up to you and if you plan to end your life, you might end theirs too.
Originally published at https://dharmamy.com on June 24, 2020.
