Firefilm said:
DISCLAIMER: This may be disturbing to read at times, but this is the story of my struggle with depression and has never been shared the completely before. Typing this has been hard, but also cathartic. By sharing this, I hope that at least one other person can find themselves sharing my thoughts and struggles and know that they are not alone, and that I survived it, so maybe they can too.
I remember the first time I thought about killing myself. It was in the third grade, which in retrospect seems tragically young, but I'm not entirely sure about anybody else's personal timeline in dealing with depression. The beginning of my problems came at such a young age that I can't even identify it, but before starting school even, with my parent's using me as a tool in their back and forth battle with each other. I was made to spy, I was made to lie and eventually choose. Anxiety, guilt, sadness... I was too young to understand any of it, but my mind was being bombarded by these feelings for as long as my memory goes back. But that was simply the foundation that would later become my full on depression and lead to my first suicidal thoughts.
In third grade I was a quiet, geeky kid. I kept mostly to myself in school and had no friends. I was actually content in this state, but kids being what they are, I wasn't able to blend in forever. I still remember the name of the first kid who bullied me, Adam DeLuca, he was a popular kid, played basketball if I remember correctly, and presumably saw me as an easy target. As he began to pick on me, it became more and more accepted to the point where all the kids would do it because it was the cool thing to do, it was how they got accepted. Soon, it lead to me avoiding recess altogether, forcing myself to throw up to go to the nurse's office everyday. These day's, that would raise a flag, but back then, nothing was done.
My mom, who had spent the majority of her life also battling depression, recognized the symptoms and to her credit, did a lot to try and help. I was soon involved in any activity that might help me socialize, I played tuba, I was in school plays, choir, my mom chaperoned field trips... Looking back, understanding how kids work and what makes you "cool" I now realize that all of those things were only making it worse. But at the time I didn't understand it, I didn't know what was so wrong with me that I was an outcast. In my mind, I went through everything, searching for what made me different, what made me a target. I was a nice kid, smart, kept to myself mostly. It didn't make sense. I hadn't done anything wrong... And they didn't even care that they were hurting me. but I would make them care, I thought. If they saw me kill myself, they would know what they had done, they would regret having hurt someone who did nothing to them. At this moment, suicide was simply a solution, an answer to a problem, something to fantasize about that would make them stop being the people they were. This fantasy was only further romanticized by my involvement in the church. I remember feeling like Jesus dying to save the sinners was the most noble thing a person could do, and thought that my dying to change their minds was just as noble. But again, suicide was just an answer to a problem, and the following year when my mother moved to Wyoming, I moved in with my father, in a new school with new people. It changed the equation, i didn't have to fantasize about killing myself anymore, because I had a new opportunity. But what I couldn't have realized is that the damage was already done.
The biggest change in the new school was that I was now going to school with my step-brother, who was everything I was not. He was skinny and athletic, moderately popular and had even had girlfriends before. I thought that this would somehow elevate my own social standing in this new place, but as I said, the damages were already done. My standing wouldn't change because I was already that quiet, awkward, overweight kid. I didn't get picked on this time around, but I wasn't liked or even noticed. Where before, I was content to blend into the background, just blending in no longer made me feel content. I think that my expectations of change and the subsequent let down of those expectations led me further down into depression and once again, i began having thoughts of suicide. but this time was different. I wasn't fantasizing about righting wrongs, changing minds, or making a statement. I just wanted to let go. I didn't want to feel anything anymore, because even anything that made me happy was poisoned by the overwhelming depression. This continued until the 8th grade, when things finally made a "positive" turn.
7th grade was a nondescript year, except for the fact that I lived in Wyoming for that year with my mom, which was the year Columbine happened. As that story came out, I empathized with those kids. I didn't idolize Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, I was a nice kid, I wouldn't MURDER anybody, but i knew what they went through and understood how they felt. I personally felt what it's like to be physically and mentally and emotionally tortured while the adults in charge did nothing at best and at worst suggested it might be my fault for not fitting in. Maybe as a result of that, subconsciously, outward violence became a proven solution, because the following year, 8th grade I finally got the respect (or fear) that I'd wanted when I threw a desk, chased a kid through homeroom, knocked the teacher over and had the kid cornered until the principal came in and pinned me against a wall. They saw that I couldn't be picked on anymore, and that lead to some kind of acceptance. For the first time, things were looking up, but I didn't FEEL any better. They only tolerated me because they feared me. But i still wasn't LIKED, and that distinction matters. I saw the most simple and mindless kids being the most popular, and couldn't comprehend. (what i didn't realize it that, even today, that's the way of the world. don't believe me? watch MTV for any length of time...) It made me bitter and frustrated with not only myself for not being "good" enough for the mindless majority, but at the state of the world itself for being so shallow and unfair. Having never left, my suicidal tendencies now wore a different mask. I was above this world, I would never lower myself to their standards, and would rather die than be a part of it. I stayed stuck in this for the following two years. Until 10th grade, when my life took another hard restart.
I discovered two things in 10th grade: drugs and punk rock. Both made my place in the world more tolerable, and I started to think more positively about the who I was, and my role on earth. Punk rock showed me that the frustration I was facing with the state of the world wasn't just mine. There was entire movement of people who saw the world for the shallow, damaged place it was. We didn't have a solution, but we had identified the problem, and that was a relief beyond anything I've felt since. As for Marijuana (the only drug I had tried at that time), it was an instant relief. I no longer cared about... anything. the things i liked got that much better, the things I didn't like no longer mattered. It was perfect. Until I was no longer high. Again, what I couldn't have known at the time was that the temporary patch of drugs only served to make my sober-time extremes that much worse. When I was sober, I was now more depressed in my down-cycles than before. Whether this was chemicals or the frustration of knowing there was a solution that i didn't currently possess, I'm still not entirely sure. So the solution became simple enough: stay high. And I did. For most of high-school in fact. This would have unforeseen consequences once I got grounded in reality years later, but it didn't matter then.
This is getting exceptionally wordy, so lets fast-forward to the end of high-school. As a punk, i had given up on society and what it expected of me. The teachers who knew me saw the unlimited potential, the strong mind and the will to change the world. The ones who didn't saw only a lazy, pissed off kid going nowhere. I dropped out of school, knowing that world was so fucked that their piece of paper stating that I met their minimum standards of intelligence meant nothing to me and wouldn't change the world. I was proud and defiant as I went to each teacher and had them sign the withdrawal form. Then I turned it into my guidance counselor, a man who I had talked to over the past 4 years about nearly everything. he was intelligent, non-judgemental, and was honestly rooting for me the whole time. but when i turned in the slip, i saw the look in his eyes. I had let him down. He had given up on me. I walked out of his office and went into a one-person bathroom, locked the door and cried. It was the first time that the real world had caught up to me in years. what had i done? I was smarter than most people in my school, and i threw it away. The solutions I had held onto for years had become problems of their own. I should have graduated, should have had great grades, should have done anything. Instead, my ongoing battle with depression was at the forefront of every action I took. But I still had a small piece of hope. By the end of highschool, i had the most amazing girlfriend, someone who understood me at nearly every level, or would go well out of her way to understand. She truly loved me. And I loved her, but depression would claim that relationship as well.
Amber was a hard working girl, went to college a year early, worked full time as a server, and always had time for me and her family, nobody left wanting. she seemingly effortless glided through any obstacle in front of her, and from the beginning i knew somebody like me did not deserve a girl that amazing. By this point, my depression had again taken on a different mask. As an intellectual punk rocker, I found myself raging about social injustices, and it was through that filter that my depression justified itself and my self-loathing. I couldn't be happy, why should I be? I'm a semi-privileged first-worlder that had everything going for him and threw it all away. Why do I deserve comfort and happiness when there are better people out there who would do whatever it took to have a fraction of the opportunity I did? And furthermore, allowing myself to be content in a broken world is consent by inaction. If I was happy, I had no motive to change anything. So that's why I wasn't happy. Again, it had justified itself.
Three and a half years later, in the midst of an anxiety attack fueled by my own insecurities, I lost that relationship. The one anchor that had kept me relatively sane while fighting off demons. In one moment, in one utterance, I changed the entire trajectory of my life. An action that to this day is the most prevalent thought when I'm dealing with a wave of depression. This is the first time I've been honest about what happened that day. But the truth of it was that, while battling a fairly serious anxiety attack (something she had unknowingly helped me through many times before), I threatened her. Not her directly, I threatened to attack her car. I still don't know what that was, it was so far beyond anything that I had ever done or thought, and instantly regretted it. That wasn't me in that moment, and if demonic possession were a real thing, that's honestly as close to an explanation as I can relate to. That moment lead to the hardest, darkest years of my life, and eventually, some sort of contentment.
That breakup changed my life forever. At first, I fell into a dangerously nihilistic suicidal depression. There were no more masks or justifications. I wanted to die because of who i was. I wanted to die because of who I could have been. I wanted to die because of those that I had hurt. I was working for my father at that time for the family business as a mechanic. After the breakup, more and more I quit showing up to work or showed up hours late. Even when I did show up, I spent so little time working that eventually my own father had no choice but to fire me, further feeding my depression. It was at this time I was introduced to Oxycontin 80mg. An old friend of mine had been snorting them for some time and my roommates wanted me to get them some, so i did. At this point I was drinking a half gallon of vodka every 1-3 days, depending on what else was going on. When my friend suggested i try the Oxy out, i could think of no reason not to, and found a new kind of numb. I wasn't happy, but i wasn't anything else either. Then the reality of that drug and my lifestyle and my where i had landed all came into focus. I had a plan. I was going to overdose on oxycontin.
I had been searching for a blameless way to kill myself for years. right around 8th grade when suicide was no longer a statement, but an escape, my fantasies became more about being killed by a passing car, or murdered, or any number of things that let me die without placing the blame on myself. I went to school with kids who died of overdoses, and invariably, there was a bit of blame on the deceased, but ultimately, the blame was placed on the drug, the dealers, the peers, the depression that may have lead them to drugs in the first place. It seemed the perfect answer. I prepared everything, even went as far as to finish the suicide note i had begun writing shortly after the breakup. Then when the day came, I got two for myself, instead of the usual one. I was already halfway through a half gallon of White Tavern (cheap vodka around here) and snorted both of the pills at once, sure that it was enough to do the job. And maybe it was. But i survived.
I remember thinking "i am dying. in minutes, i will be dead." Physically, my body had quit breathing on it's own. I had to purposely think of breathing. It had to be the action I was doing out of volition, not instinct. But my mind was so distant and numbed that even thinking about breathing became a difficult and labored task. But I was doing it. I wanted to die, and could have, and would have, but I was actively resisting it. Why? Even today, I'm still not sure. That was the only actual attempt I have ever made, though after that, there were a few times where I repeated that same cycle. I didn't care if I lived or died, but while I was conscious and able to make the decision, I chose life.
One of the last serious crises i had was 2 years ago after a whole lot of my life had again fallen apart around me. On a whim i dialed 1-800-SUICIDE to discover it was exactly what I hoped it was, the suicide prevention hotline. But this experience quickly became a terrible mistake that nearly lead me down that path for the final time. When I called, I was obviously upset, and the lady on the other end said something to the effect of "what's bothering you?" and which point I said I wanted to talk about something else, and asked her how she was doing. She again insisted i tell her what's wrong and i plead back "i don't wanna talk about it right now, tell me how your day has been." at which point she said "i think you have the wrong number." and hung up on me. I was furious, immediately called back and got a different operator. I explained to her what had just happened and she said "you sound like you're upset ." Everything I said to her, she would just parrot back to me in the form of a question, providing no real help or depth, or anything at all of value. I lied and said to her "you know what, I'm feeling better now." and hung up, completely frustrated with the experience. Like they said in this video, it can be so frustrating when you finally do try to reach out and they don't get you on the most fundamental of levels. You're told that opening up helps, but how can it when they have only second-hand knowledge of what you're going through? They might as well not even be the same species. It can exasperate an already critical situation.
I just hit a serious wall where I intended to wrap this up with a nice summary of my experience fighting and sometimes winning against depression. I guess I'll end with sharing two things with you, two pieces I wrote during that extremely dark point in my life after the breakup that changed everything. Two pieces that might help you get into the mind of a person on the brink of self-destruction, a mind desperately fighting to cling to life and purpose amidst the collapse.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/james-murphy/broken-mirrors/71244797074
https://www.facebook.com/notes/james-murphy/untitled-the-poet/71245632074
and also, a thought that i meant to weave somewhere into this post, but never found a home, but is relevant regardless... one of the hardest parts of battling depression and suicidal thoughts is knowing that it comes from within. your own body doesn't have the survival instinct that is a natural mechanism of human life, and i felt betrayed by that realization. why isn't my body doing what it's meant to do and fight for survival? i must be damaged, i must be a defect of humanity, so maybe my suicidal feelings are actually quite rational. it's a hard thought to get past, and at times, one i still struggle with.
I want to thank No Right Answer (was gonna abbreviate it NRA but... yeah.) for doing this video and giving me the opportunity to share. I also want to thank the entire crew behind the movie Silver Linings Playbook. Too often the media portrays mental illness as dangerous, further alienating those of us who suffer from it. But Silver Linings Playbook was one of the most honest portrayals I've ever seen lacking both negative and positive bias, brought to life by amazing actors. Anyone who hasn't seen it, I would strongly recommend doing so.
Thank you.
