If you are struggling with mental health problems, don’t be afraid of social stigma. You are not a coward, you are not weak. You are just normal. And you are not alone.
After years of struggling with depression, I contemplated suicide 10 years ago and almost went ahead with it after my best friend’s suicide. I didn’t.
I am not ashamed of that. Despite it being highly personal, I shared about my depression and suicidal attempt many times on Facebook for one single reason: I know for a fact that it helps. Friends reached out to me to talk, since they felt safer and less vulnerable.
Since the start of 2021, I have been chatting and getting in touch with many friends who struggle with mental issues and can’t find help. I noticed that it happens much more frequently this year.
Below is a small story of the day I didn’t die. I usually share it privately with friends. It is not professional advice. I don’t think it has any advice or moral story there.
It is nothing but my attempt to show that mental problems are normal, and you have no reason to be afraid. I said it above, and I want to repeat here: You are not a coward, you are not weak. You are just normal. And you are not alone.
I usually joke that coming out with my suicidal attempt and depression was harder than coming out as bisexual. It is more of a fact though. It is just harder, and it is sad how hard it still is.
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I met with President Obama some time ago. It was a brief 10 minutes, and I was just presenting some random shits about Saigon. I didn’t have the opportunity to tell him I’d prefer to meet his wife, or, he was part of the reason I didn’t die.
No, no. It’s not that he directly helped me. Or inspired me somehow. Or whatever. He was just a random factor.
Years ago, I had one of the worst episodes of depression in my life. A good friend committed suicide a few weeks back. I was the last person he talked to via a phone call. I thought he was joking about dying, until I realized he wasn’t.
Days later, I came to a realization that I was sad, but it was the kind of sadness that would fade with time. So if dying was better than living, and the pain inflicted on your beloved would fade eventually, there wasn’t much of a reason to keep on. Plus, I had been planning my death for years, ever since I first read the novel “The Shadowless Light”. I graduated from school soon too, so it could have been two ends with one move. Sounded perfect.
I booked a flight to my chosen final destination. I had what I needed to die painlessly. I made utmost preparations to make sure there would be as little aftermath to clean up for anyone as possible.
A few hours before I boarded my plane, to kill time, I randomly browsed around the web and saw some articles about the US re-election. I wasn’t much about politics and didn’t care much about Mr Obama. However, Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2008 DNC was my third favorite English speech. So I read more about him, and then the re-election. I specifically remembered a video of Mitt Romney being asked by a young girl at a restaurant about LGQBT rights.
Before I knew it, I missed the flight. I procrastinated. I wanted to see the result of the re-election. I wanted to know if Obama would be a one-term president.
For a few years after, I missed dying many more times. Once, it was to wait for the manga Naruto to end. Another time, it was a TV show I loved coming to the final season. There was also that day when I hooked up with a really cute guy right before the flight. So many close calls.
I didn’t think much of that these days. Not that there were fewer reasons to. I just gave up. Life is charming and full of things waiting to happen. I was but a simple life addict. Like Mark Twain once said, “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.”
I didn’t try as hard to quit life as him to quit smoking, so I would have to paraphrase him quite a bit, “Giving up life is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I have almost done it thousands of times.”