Early last week I was penning a suicide letter. It was absolute rubbish; a rambling, nonsensical bleating of the same malformed emotional beats from someone so blinded by sadness, guilt, rage, frustration, and self-loathing to realize that none of it made a lick of sense. Was I serious about killing myself? Absolutely. I just felt like I owed people more of an explanation.

Cut to now, one week later. I’m not quite sure if this is a suicide note or not. It could be. If it is, I’m sorry. I’m legitimately out of strength. The amount of energy it takes to keep getting up every morning to fight the good fight has passed and isn’t coming back. I haven’t had any good news to report since roughly the summertime. I put on a good face for as long as I could. Problems and pressures became insurmountable. I tried measured to fix things, but the problems were so longstanding that it was like one of those cartoons where a little boy finds a cracked levy and he attempts to plug one of the holes with a finger while seven or eight others begin to appear. Then I started lying. Badly. Horribly. I hurt people deeply. I betrayed the trust of some. Some betrayed my trust. It’s not my place anymore to differentiate. I have a lot of blame. Others have their share. I tried to make things right again, this time without attempting any short term plugs. Then the levy broke.

It’s funny. Drinking actually stopped the writing of that suicide note over a week ago (still sitting on the desktop of this computer, labelled “suicide note”). I don’t drink to forget. I drink to celebrate or to calm. It was the only time I had ever purposely taken alcohol somewhat medicinally. I sat on a couch at a friend’s house drinking rum out of an oddly shaped mickey and staring at the night sky out the window.

“This is fucking stupid.” I thought. “You have to die, but this letter is stupid.”

It was a bizarrely dark moment of quality control. I had two swigs of hooch and put the bottle back in its proper place.

I tossed and turned. I haven’t slept for more than an hour at a time in weeks. Nothing works anymore. Nothing brings me joy. Everything I look at or think about only brings more pain. I’ve tried killing myself so many times, I’m ashamed to say that I’ve lost count. Some people have seen these letters I have written before. You guys will never see the best one I ever wrote. It was written on sleeping pills and was sadly lost when the hospital I was brought to lost my pants and shoes. (Note: They said I came in naked. I know for a fact that never happened. There were witnesses for this. I was drowsy, not tripping balls. The pants weren’t a loss, but in hindsight that note was pretty great. I also really liked those shoes. I never went back to that hospital ever again.)

I have such doubt in myself that I doubt I can even pull off a proper suicide. I look back on my past attempts and reasons, and I doubt I’ve felt as worn out as I do now. I have ruined a lot of things. There are so many things in life that are beyond repair that it will take decades to fix them, if they get fixed at all. I’m not that young anymore. I feel at least twice my actual age. I feel like every day I live will just take another six months off my life at this rate.

It’s not that I don’t want to try to fix things. It’s that I need help fixing them. I need encouragement, and that’s something that I can’t get right now. There are things that I can’t admit to myself. I need to hit a complete reset button. I need to tear it all down, but I don’t know if I can build it back up.

I believe in myself. I know I can be a good person. I know I can’t do this on my own. I’m a pretty social person, but I feel alone all the time when it comes to finding people I can be honest with and talk about things that are bothering me. If I had something like that on a more consistent basis for the past two decades, things might have been different.

I’ve been clinically depressed since the late 90s. That’s a long time to live with a constant lack of self-esteem. I’m also bipolar, which means I go through various peaks and valleys when it comes to giving a shit. Already broken down by that and for that length of time – and with only spotty moments of help at my disposal without seeming needy, another thing I hate, but which I am constantly fucking up – I don’t know if turning things around is even worth it at this point.

I think I can do it. I want to do it. But at the moment I am extremely fragile. The next piece of soul crushing news and that’s it. I’m the frayed rope that’s down to the very last thread. That thread goes, I will choose death over trying anymore. There will be no degree of reconsideration. That will be it. That will be the end of the discussion.

That’s why I haven’t been online the past week. Reminders of past issues stare me in the face, filling me with anger and loathing within and without. On top of that, social media thrives so heavily on negativity these days that even topics that don’t involve me started bringing me down. I have been so paranoid about receiving more bad news that I have a panic attack every time the notification light on my phone starts blinking.

That’s no way to live life. That’s why I didn’t directly post any link to this on social media. I don’t want a follow-up on this. I don’t want to see the discussion. Everything that has to be done, only I can do. This will get out on its own. Someone will share it. This was a timed post. I wasn’t around a computer to hit send.

But I don’t know if I can. So I don’t know if this is a suicide letter. This is definitely a “goodbye for now,” but I sincerely hope not a “goodbye forever.” I hate letting people down, so if I do kill myself and that lets you down, trust me that it was not my intention to make anything worse. Me not being in anyone’s life will probably be for the best.

But I feel like I have something left to give or offer; somewhere deep down inside. If I can get it out, you’ll see me come back. If not, just know that if I ever showed you kindness – regardless of what kind of terms we parted on – that kindness was genuine. You might not believe me, but it was. I’m a contradiction in a lot of ways. I sometimes have horrible ways of showing people that I care or appreciate them. Again, problems that have gone on for too long will do that.

So I’ll be gone. For a long time, I think. The only way I’ll feel embarrassed is if I’m gone for a short period of time. Hopefully by that point if that happens I’ll be happy enough to deal with that embarrassment. I just can’t keep going on like this. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

So we’ll see how this goes. Hopefully this message finds you all well and in no great pain or anguish. Life will go on for you. It might not go on for me, but I am open to options. Let’s see how much lower I have to go. If you don’t hear I’m dead, then take that as a sign you’ll hear from me some day down the road. If you never hear from me again, it might have been for the best.

I love all of those who gave me a chance to do what I love for so long. Being a film writer nearly killed me, but it was the greatest job I ever had. Thanks for letting me entertain you and for making me part of the discussion. Thanks to each and every person who took the time to sit down and talk to me and give me the time of day. It was a wild job that I would love to come back to some day. It would have been nothing, though, without all of you. Just know I tried to be good for you guys. I really did try.

On that note, I must be going. My one last request is for all of you to be good to each other.

Goodbye and hopefully we meet again.

Edit:

This was scheduled originally to go up at 10pm tonight. Things did get worse in the period between when I drafted this (last night) and the point I am at now. I hate myself worse than I have ever hated myself. I’ve been trying to stop myself from slitting my wrists or wrapping my entire head in a plastic bag with duct tape around it for the past three hours. I’m fighting so very hard right now. I am going to attempt to get help right now. If I can’t, then I will have a last meal and the pain will be over once and for all. Every ounce of my being wants to die right now. Every part of my brain is screaming for me to stop the pain I am causing to myself and to others.

The only thing keeping me here right now is the guilt I feel that someone might actually miss me or that my death will make someone cry. That makes it worse.

I hope this is not goodbye.

P.S. I don’t want to go.

Andrew