A Letter To My Suicidal Friend

Dear friend,

Suicide is crazy. And I say that with all the rights, privileges, and diagnoses required for use of the word “crazy.” Suicide. Is. crazy.

I’ve been crazy. I shut my eyes on that highway. I contemplated those pills. I traipsed the tactile paving near an oncoming train and dared the wind to blow the wrong way. Nothing would ever get better and I would always be tortured, sad, and silent. I needed it to end. 

Sometimes you just desire to do damage. You want to do something drastic. You want to do make a move with enough force to heave the thousand pounds of pressure sitting two days too long on your chest. Pop this balloon, your heart says, roll this boulder, set me free. Before you jump, though– before you swallow, slice, or submerge– consider the words of Rizzo the Great: There are worse things [you] could do.

Nothing is more final than death (unless, of course, you’re, like, Jesus). But some things can be more drastic. Some things can do more damage. After all– and you may not know this yet– it’s your situation that you want to destroy, not yourself. It is your circumstance that you want to slaughter, not yourself. It is despair that you want to demolish. Not. Your. Self.

Quit your job if that’s the ticket. Walk into your boss’ office. Tell her where to shove it and why (eloquently, of course). Make that phone call. Sell your house. Write your heaviest thoughts on lightweight paper. Tell someone everything. Initiate that breakup. Say those three words. Move across the country. Quit your university. Reach out for an impossible opportunity. Join that church. Leave that church. Start all the way over. Show up on my doorstep with everything you own and say, “I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

I’m no doctor. And this isn’t the be all and end all advice for suicide. If it were, we wouldn’t need World Suicide Prevention Day or the suicide hotline. It’s just something to consider: there are worse things you can do to your pain than ending your life. Do something crazy, something radical and extreme, something drastic. Do something cathartic and liberating. Eradicate your pain. Set yourself free. Change your life. Just do me a favor: in your destruction, opt to end the chapter and not the book. There are worse things you could do. Promise me you’ll think about it.