Memories of my attempted suicide

[captain jigglypuff]

When I reached that point my senior of high school, I actually tried to follow through an entire plan I had created in one week to kill myself in class in front of everyone. My plan was to go through with the suicide unless one person saw me and stopped me and told me that they cared about me and that I mattered and then listen to what I had to say and why I thought killing myself was the answer. All I ever heard in school whenever I tried to say anything was “Shut up! No one cares,” and those words have completely ruined my life and still echo every time I talk to anyone. It pure torture constantly hearing those words. Anyway I tried to do it but I couldn’t go through with it and I just stood there frozen in place for twenty minutes and I saw that literally no one had noticed what was happening to me or even tell the teacher that something was definitely wrong with me. I learned a horrible truth that day that still haunts me. I learned that my suspicion that no one at that school cared about was true. No one tried to help me. I was standing in a brightly lit area the entire time. I constantly have flashbacks to the moment I discovered that no one cared about me. It’s been very traumatic finding that out and I don’t think anyone could ever understand what that type of devastating knowledge can do to a person’s head. I literally tried to kill myself in a room full of people and no one noticed. I only started to talk about the suicide attempt six years ago and other than three therapists and two case workers and a couple of posts on a few other sites dealing with mental health issues, I’ve only told three other people the truth of how I tried to kill myself and how finding out that no one cared enough to try and stop me still haunts me twenty one years later. No one knows what I’m actually going through or just how awful it feels to know that no one would have stopped you from killing yourself. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I actually followed through?

 

[Movingforward10]

It's devastating to realise the lack of care people have.
Lots of us on here have experienced that in different ways.


I wonder how you can make peace with it?
How you reclaim the narrative?

I also wonder whether those around you knew of the significance of that event for you? I.e was there any outward visible expression of killing yourself that would be obvious to the untrained/child eye/brain? I wonder if that makes a difference? I.e if you had a noose around you neck and were stood on something about to do it, would be very different to holding a jar of pills in your hand etc. The impact and understanding of the others would be different. But the significance to you would be the same. If that makes any sense.

What helps me come to terms with past trauma is to shift narratives, understand my worth, and understand that other people's actions don't dictate my worth.

 

[Friday]

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I actually followed through?

Statistically?

- A few other kids would have also killed themselves, and then a ripple effect as more people in their lives killed themselves (other kids, siblings, parents, neighbors), another ripple as it’s reported (journalistic integrity USED TO include not publishing suicides, because a wave of a few hundred other suicides would follow over the next couple months… ALL traceable back to the first & published reports; it was investigative journalism that spotted that pattern, not law enforcement; report 1 & dozens follow, then dozens more out of the ripples in their lives. A single reported suicide means there will be a few hundred dead. All of those hundreds? Equals a wave of thousands of suicides. Despair is a smidge contagious. As is giving up.)

- A HIGHSCHOOL means there would have been a whooooooole helluva lotta narcissistic weeping & wailing & people you’ve never met claiming to be your best friend in the whole world… and other standard hormonal heights achieved (probably a few pregnancies) as teenage hormones are NO joke. No one on the planet is more passionate, or more extremist black & white, or TAKE ACTION NOW than teenagers. That’s why they’re recruited so heavily by gangs, terrorists, freedom fighters, & nations at war. Young adults? Are. Made. Of. FIRE. Asshole adults like to harness that fire and aim it at their enemies.

((You? We’re aiming that fire at yourself. And? Also fought back against yourself. Burning the candle at both ends, mon ami. Bet you were fawking EXHAUSTED. I’ll raise a glass to the fighter in you, winning. Even if you wanna cut their balls off, and spit on them, and hurl insults at them? The FIGHTER won. When the LAY DOWN AND DIE had every advantage. Including your own support. That ain’t shit to be ashamed of. The starved wolf won, against all odds. So you’ve got fighter IN you, down to your bones. Try feeding THAT wolf, maybe?))

- Everyone you personally know, is far more likely to die by suicide, or OD. It’s something like 800% more likely (rough remembering, from back when I was tested on this shit; there are stats you look up, make up, or remember the essence of) than someone who DOESNT know / care about someone who’s killed themselves.

Outside of stats? No freaking way to know what would have happened to any one individual. The math is easy. The ripples happen. Individuals? Always vary.

 

[captain jigglypuff]

It's devastating to realise the lack of care people have.
Lots of us on here have experienced that in different ways.


I wonder how you can make peace with it?
How you reclaim the narrative?

I also wonder whether those around you knew of the significance of that event for you? I.e was there any outward visible expression of killing yourself that would be obvious to the untrained/child eye/brain? I wonder if that makes a difference? I.e if you had a noose around you neck and were stood on something about to do it, would be very different to holding a jar of pills in your hand etc. The impact and understanding of the others would be different. But the significance to you would be the same. If that makes any sense.

What helps me come to terms with past trauma is to shift narratives, understand my worth, and understand that other people's actions don't dictate my worth.

I was in a cooking class holding a chef’s knife in my right hand. I drew a dotted line in the area where I thought that I just need to cut with a pen. I drew the line right before we started cooking. As soon as I heard that we were going to be using knives the Friday before, I knew that this was my one chance to kill myself. From Saturday through Thursday I strategized a plan and wrote it down in a notebook as to what I was going to do. I never wrote a suicide note because I figured it was pointless if no one really cared about me. I really really needed help and a way out of the help I was going through and this was the last resort for me as tell someone didn’t work and I couldn’t run away because my dad has connections all throughout my local area and a lot of people know us. I never told my family about the suicide attempt and not even my abuser knew and she knew practically everything about me. I stayed quiet for so long about how I tried to commit suicide but couldn’t do it and then finding out the horrible truth that no one actually cared about me as literally no one noticed that I was staring at a knife and hyper fixated on it with a dotted line drawn on my wrist and had I cut myself, they were all ready to let me bleed out. I still remember the lift reflecting off that blade as I stated at it for twenty minutes.

 

[Movingforward10]

I can imagine that no one would have known. Staring at a knife for 20 minutes, with a line drawn on a wrist (visible or not), is not going to enter the heads of children that you're thinking of killing yourself.

When we're in our trauma memories we can get tunnel vision. It very very very hard to see another way of looking at it.
Not saying that to deminish the situation, but to expand the picture.

That you were seeing was not what they were seeing.

The way to healing and moving on from this, might be in exploring that more.

 

[captain jigglypuff]

It was pretty clear that I was suicidal because I kept making comments like, “You know you’d be happy if I was dead,” and “No one would miss me when I’m gone.” I’d been speaking that way for at least a month, I found ways around the school’s internet blockers to research different ways to commit suicide, and even on a forum for teens with mental health issues I kept asking questions about suicide and what the different methods were. I left a lot of clues that I planned to kill myself. Sometimes I wonder if it was selfish of me hoping someone would try to stop me and listen to me for once?

 

[arfie]

suicide threats are a tradition in my family. the threats were carried through enough times that it was hard to take the threats lightly, but? ? ? how many times a week can i listen to this without going off the deep end? off the deep end i went, perhaps as part of that ripple effect @Friday mentioned. i tend to do more than i say, so my suicide attempts were never witnessed. if somebody did notice, i didn't want to talk about ^it^.

it took ALLOT of therapy to overcome my suicidal ideation. at 71, i am still not sure i'm over it, though the thoughts are far less compelling than they used to be.

dunno what i am reaching for. just sharing in hope of empathy and support.
steadying support while you sort your own.

 

[captain jigglypuff]

The good news is as soon as I escaped from that hellhole known as high school, I stopped being suicidal. The problem then became me having no self esteem left and having a lot of trauma that was left unaddressed or that I kept repressing inside my head.

 

[captain jigglypuff]

Was I selfish when I wanted someone to notice that something was wrong and just talk and listen to me for once? I often feel like I was and that need to be punished for it.

 

[Rose White]

I think that’s a normal human need— to be seen and heard. In typical child development the caregiver meets those needs and gradually releases the responsibility to the child as they learn to do it for themselves as the psyche matures.

Even though adults *can* do it, we still seek it out. But an adult with a stable sense of self would not expect other adults to meet those needs for them.

 

[captain jigglypuff]

I was actually 18 when it happened. But still no one ever gave me a chance to say a thing in high school. Because I kept hearing “Shut up! No one cares “ I just stopped talking all together unless it was required for me to talk. No one would even let me be an Indy with a different viewpoint. I was called stupid just because I said that I didn’t think forensic science was 100% accurate like everyone claimed it was and asked a very valid question of how could they tell if hair was planted at a crime scene by someone wearing rubber gloves and tweezers to two scientists. They never answered my questions and just claimed that no one would do that but twenty five years after I had asked that question, it turns that I was correct and my scenario has happened before. I wasn’t even allowed to be against the death penalty and called stupid just for thinking it’s both inhumane and also not the answer to crime as several innocent people get placed on death row and even executed despite proof that they were innocent. Turns out that I was right yet again in the long one but yeah no one let me be an individual with my own thoughts and opinions and no one ever wanted or cared about a single thing I had to say.

 

[captain jigglypuff]

I just did a Google search for suicide survivor support groups in my area because I remember seeing a local organization had a meeting a couple times a month and I found it is held the first and third Monday of every month for an hour in the evening. I know that I am able to attend. I’m going tomorrow because I really feel like I need to talk about my aborted suicide attempt with people who might have gone through the same thing and the horrible knowledge of seeing how no one cared enough to even try to talk to me and deescalate the situation and just talk to me. It’s just gotten to the point just talking about this to my therapist and caseworker and talking about it on mental health forums like this isn’t enough. I need more help and support and just move on with my life. For twenty years I’ve struggled silently with the flashbacks and memories of that day in class. I just can’t living like that. This is the only support group in my area that I seem to be able to find that deals with one of my trauma that I have where I definitely am able to go to the meetings as the time of the meeting doesn’t conflict with my schedule and I know exactly where it will be held. I just hope that it will help bring me some sort of closure or comfort with the attempt that at least lessens the flashbacks.