Suicide & Self Harm (Reflection)

Suicide and self-harm is a big part of my story too. The first direct attempt I made on my life was at about the age of twenty. Somedays I feel like I want to die and some days I don’t. I went through a phase of self-harm too but in recent times I haven’t cut myself. I don’t see the point in self-harming anymore, I would have a preference to just taking my life. It’s a horrible thing that just became an obsessive part of my journey. I don’t believe I ever tried to kill myself sober, I simply wouldn’t have the balls to do it. In recent years my ‘suicide attempts’ would be classed as risky behaviours. I could climb onto the Salmon Weir bridge and use it as a tightrope. I could jump into the river only to swim back out. In a lot of ways I became addicted to gambling with my life. I am heavily influenced too by Tuesdays with Morrie and the faithful & unfaithful departed. The moral I personally took from Tuesdays with Morrie is that everybody has to die, it’s the one thing guaranteed in life. A normal person would take the moral to this story as living everyday like it is your last. I have had a lot of friends, my ex boss, my Dad die from suicide. In my teens I saw it as a selfish way to die, in my twenties I began to have compassion for those who passed through life this way. Personally I’ve tried living and it hasn’t worked out, I would have no regrets taking my life in the morning. One of the main reasons I came to Cuan Mhuire is because I have no fear anymore. I don’t fear death nor do I fear addiction.  It has become part of my identity. Maybe I was lost coming here, I hope by giving myself time I find the will to live life in the present, to forget the past yet not shut the door on it and learn to look forward to the future without huge or little expectation. My suicidality is something I need to look at though. As I have mentioned before I’m like ‘the boy who cried wolf’ at this stage. I’ve become dependent on the adult acute mental health unit to bring me back to sanity. I often wonder too if I’m doing it for attention. I wonder if I am being selfish using up hours of doctors, guards, nurses and paramedics time.  One way or another it has to stop. Whether that’s through suicide or living sober, that is yet to be decided.