Part of moving toward my date is making ever greater peace with dying. Not just death (no longer being here), but dying itself - that hurdle between living and death that I must also encounter en route. I think the 'dying' is where most people get hung up, understandably, with fear. I feel that the psychological process of making peace with things is a big part of what enables people to initiate and endure the dying part.
I'd like to share some ways of thinking about death and dying that have been helping me to make my peace. They are personal to my mind and life context, yes, but perhaps some of them will resonate with others, too. If they lend support or comfort to anyone, then the sharing is worthwhile.
For context, I am 31/F.
For info, I am not seeking advice here, and certainly no pro-life commentary (maybe there's hope for you, etc).
(1) Whether death comes by suicide or naturally, nearly every person needs to come to terms with death in their lifetime. This process is not just for those who want to catch the bus. If I were 75 and dying of cancer, I would still feel my heart wringing in my chest listening to my favorite choral music, feeling its beauty and the pending loss of it at the same time, aware of its inability to save me: either from death, or depression. I would still need to make my peace with leaving behind the things that feel good or beautiful in life, like old buildings and mountain vistas, and endure the sense of tragedy that I must cease to experience the good things anymore (minute as they've become in my reality).
(2) Death is scary for nearly everyone, and often painful. This isn't unique to the suicidal. I've watched 3 movies lately (all of which I recommend), which involve health problems and the protagonist dying prematurely: Me Before You, Breathe, and You're Not You. All of them (especially Breathe & You're Not You) face hospitalizations and death scares and physical pain, and a huge amount of uncertainty over how death will come about, and how it will feel. Will your lungs fill with fluid and you'll drown? Will you be gasping for air, asphyxiated? Will you be suffering in pain? Will it drag out for hours? And will you be suffering for years beforehand with age-related decline, eg with dementia or a motor disease?
Everyone wants to die in their sleep. This is why a lot of old people, eg through Exit International, want to take the end of their lives into their own hands. They've had the fortitude to make it to old age (unlike many of us), but even at that stage of life, there is plenty of fear about what a natural end will be like. Since natural death (the apparent panacea that we're meant to hold out for) is often scary and painful, and highly uncertain, suicide can provide a quicker, less painful death when a person is ready. I feel it can help to recognize that even many older people are facing many of the logistical end-of-life questions that young suicidal people face, and all the fear surrounding them. We could live to old age, and still end up at this point.
(3) I think a lot of the emotion I've experienced, as I've edged toward suicide over the past 15 months, is really just pure grief: grief over losing the good things I had before. I could have lived till 65 successfully, beautifully, and then everything could have fallen apart then: financially, with my health, etc. And I would be thrown into the reality of grieving what I had lost, at 65 instead of 31: the change for the worse in my circumstances, and the reality that I could never recover what I (or my life) had previously been. Would it be so much easier, just because I was 65? Probably not. It's a hard road to walk either way.
There is a good article here on grieving when you develop a chronic illness or injury, but I think it applies to any change for the worse in circumstances, when you cannot recover your old life; and when you don't know how to live your new one, or whether you can:
https://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/070714p18.shtml
(4) Related to (3), I think much of what I've been grieving is actually just getting older. It started out as grieving the me I had lost to mental illness last year: my brilliant brain, my career, and so on. But by now there are too many things that have changed, mentally and physically, that aren't due to mental illness, but just to getting older. They overwhelm me; they are just, quite literally, too much to bear. This is aging? Get me out of here.
For one, I experience grief over losing my unusual beauty. (I am only 31, it is not all gone, but it has taken an enormous hit - especially with severe hair loss.) People who are physically beautiful may understand the unique joy of being beautiful in life, even without being really aware of it, how it shapes your outlook and interactions with the world. Losing that, you lose much of who you have always been. Life becomes dreary and mundane. Without beauty, what is it all for? I don't judge other people's physicality, but it feels that way for myself.
And I experience grief over leaving behind other things I can never recover: my Oxford education, being full of promise and possibility in life, the easy nature of my warm, youthful friendships and relationships, being comfortable in my skin, my physical body (it does just change for the worse with age, no matter what you do), the experience and possibility of romantic love. I spent most of my 20s in education, and yet it's clear that that was just one phase of my life. I thrived there completely, but it was just a time. It is incredibly hard to move into a new phase of life where something that was your identity does not feature. (And nor could I do anymore what I did then; my brain was in a uniquely receptive space, which it isn't anymore. I was just rereading some old papers I wrote, and it was just a special time).
Like, who is Harry Potter when Hogwarts is done with, and the world is calm? I've lost my Hogwarts, and myself.
It's like there's this whole package of being a certain age, having certain qualities of mind and body; and when those things fall away over time, there is just this great emptiness in its place. Just about everything I've loved and have lived for is no longer present. Again, what is left? Just - nothing. Not enough to sustain a life, certainly.
I honestly don't know how people go on through their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond. How do they bear getting older? (I also think my life was so good from 19-30, that there is a veritable chasm between its content then and today; and the contrast has knocked me out flat.)
(5) A further part of grief, for me, is the grief that life cannot be truly beautiful. I always thought that it could - I anticipated a great future, replete with a lovely historic home, a fascinating career, etc. But then, I was in my 20s, and there was that 'whole life package' going on in that decade. Remove the lovely pieces, and there is no lovely life. This realization has come as a shock to my system.
Anyhow, to sum up my thoughts regarding grief, I think it is all rather part of the human experience. It is not unique to me, nor to the suicidal per se. Many people are miraculously able to live with such grief - as many who read the 'grieving chronic illness/injury' article will inevitably do. I, myself, cannot. For me it is a chronic grief, unrelenting, and it makes life unliveable to me.
It makes me feel more peaceful to realize that a big part of my suicidality is actually grief over the human condition, in this sense, and my inability to accept it and live on in the midst of that pain.
(6) I think the most important thing, when choosing a method, is to choose one that (a) is reliable, and (b) you can bring yourself to do. It doesn't matter how flawless it is, if you cannot bring yourself to do it. And be as gentle with yourself as you can around it. I'm not going to wake up early to do it anymore, and give myself an alarm to dread; I'll do it at my own pace, get everything ordered, not rush myself. Ease into it. Just whatever makes it feel doable, and as comfortable as possible. I wish I could stuff chocolates into my mouth after I have drunk it, the way people are allowed to do with Nembutal. Hey, maybe I will allow myself just one. I like that.
(7) As far as what comes after death, I think that what provides the most courage to carry out the act is just letting yourself believe whatever feels most comforting. A perfect reality? Non-existence? Reuniting with loved ones? I technically believe we are biological accidents, and non-existence is our ultimate end. But for now, I'm allowing myself to believe in a perfect world of my making, populated by all my favorite people. No doubt I will draw on this 'in the moment' to make me feel stronger.
Perhaps I'll add in some personal mythology about catching the Knight Bus from Harry Potter there. Why not?
(8) Someone has compiled a lot of thoughtful ideas on the (painful) nature of human existence, titled Reality Is Negative. It is about the tragedy of life. I am finding it helpful. It is here:
(9) I have a running Word doc going that is my suicide note. I've been amending it a bit every day. It's helping me feel better about responding to people's emotions, and setting my affairs in order. I recommend this approach - it's very settling. I will print it just before, after I have taken my anti-emetics, to give me something to do.
One of my favorite songs:
EDIT: I added point 7 and fixed the numbering : )
