The chickenshit way out

You know, it really bothers me when people think that suicide is the "easy way out." It isn't. If you fear Hell, guilt, pain or the unknown, taking a handful of pills, eatinng a bullet or sitting in your garage with your car engine running is definitely not easy.

Let's assume for one second that the desire to kill yourself isn't based on a one time, quick decision. No one is happy as Larry for 40 years, gets their Verizon bill, sees $200 in overages and blows their head off with a shotgun. Me mate Mark's uncle killed himself last week after 20 years of physical pain and mental anguish strapped into a wheelchair. Does that sound fucking easy? The guy thought about killing himself for two fucking decades. He talked about gassing himself, but ended up using a gun. That surprised a few people, but not me. No one wants to hurt themselves, but no one wants to fuck it up either. I'm sure he thought it would be painless to sit in his car with his radio on, maybe a favorite tape. He'd have that door closed, maybe a pipe going from the tailpipe in through his window. He'd fall asleep gently and never be in pain again ... unless he fucked up or someone found him. Then he might be retarded in addition to stuck in a God damn wheelchair.

I stuck a gun in my mouth once about 10 years ago. I really wanted to pull that trigger, man, but I was so fucking scared that the caliber wasn't big enough to the do the job that I'd just end up with a profound lisp and severe brain damage. But what really fucking scared me was the idea that maybe all those fucking Christians were right and there is a Hell and the only surefire way to get into it is suice. That is something to fear. God will forgive you for murder, rape, theft, being a Republican, but I thought, what if I kill myself and wake up in someplace where I am not only NOT dead and at peace but suffering the tortures of the damned? What if my punishment is just to keep on feeling the way I did at that moment forever?

I'm not saying anyone should kill themselves, but those shiny, happy motherfuckers who run around poo-pooing anyone who's offed themselves as a chickenshit coward have no idea what kind of shit people with suicidal ideation put themselves through or what kind of shit their brains foist on them.

I recently had a solid month of panic attacks. And I can tell you, I wasn't fearing Hell any more. I know for damn sure that if I'd had a gun, I wouldn't have hesitated to kill myself because this wasn't just the hard-core depression of 10 years past. This was full blown axiety attacks day in and day out. No loving deity could possibly hold you responsible for ending that kind of human suffering. But I used every fucking trick in my bag to keep going this time. That bag was full of decades worth of mental gymnastics. Some worked, some didn't. Eventually, the attacks subsided, but I live in fear every day that they will come back as unexpectedly as they started and I might have the means to finish the job.