Hello Sir
I guess you’re pretty serious about committing suicide if you’re searching for it on the internet. There’s a hell of a lot of information out there but I wanted to tell you ten things you should know before you kill yourself.
First of all, I know you are probably a guy. That’s because 78% of people who take their own lives are male. There are lots of reasons for that, but the main one is that you keep everything bottled up inside you because you’re trying to ‘be there’ for everyone else. You don’t have to you know. Talking about how you’re feeling is the bravest thing a man can ever do. But that’s not why I’m here.
I’m here to tell you what happens next after you decide to end your pain.
One (1) :
The person who finds your body is probably your wife or one of your kids. You will have chosen a method that is violent and the image of your dead body with the noose, the gun or the plastic bag will be forever etched on the mind of that person who finds you. It will be the last thing she sees before she goes to sleep and the first image she sees upon waking. It will flash into her mind at random moments and leave her completely traumatised. She will forever associate colours, smells, shapes, and noises with that moment when her life was fractured into pieces.
Two (2) :
When the police arrive, they will treat your wife as a suspect. Your death will be deemed as ‘suspicious’ and the house will be cordoned off as a crime scene. Ambulances, fire-engines and police cars will line the street. People will crane their necks to see what is going on. Your private decision will become the subject of public speculation. The room where you died will never be able to be used again. There will be stains on the chair, on the carpet, on the walls. Most likely, your family will have to move.
Three (3) :
Your private life will be raked over by the police who will go through your wallet, your phone and your computer looking for someone to blame for your death. All the while, your wife will be unable to eat or sleep and her tears will make her beautiful eyes haunted and lost.
Four (4) :
There will be an autopsy to determine how you died. There will be questions about your relationship, your job, your finances, your health and your drug and alcohol consumption. If you’ve managed to destroy your body in your final act, your wife will have to formally identify you. She will no longer remember you as alive and breathing, she will only remember you lying still, battered and violated on the cold slab of a mortuary.
And all the time, the voice in her head will scream “Why?” That voice never stops.
Five (5) :
Your wife won’t be able to work for a long while and the money will run out. It will take months, maybe even years for her to get any sort of payout. And if you haven’t left a will, she will have to prove to the courts that she is entitled to your money. Lawyers will ask if there was another woman, other children, another life. She will have to prove that she was your wife over and over again.
Six (6) :
Your friends and family will find it difficult to believe that you did this without provocation. They will search for someone to blame. And that person will be your wife. They will whisper that she drove you to it. They will find it hard to be around her. She will have to survive this thing on her own.
Seven (7) :
Your wife will blame herself. No matter what the circumstances, she will know that she didn’t love you enough or support you enough to keep you alive. Her sense of failure will overwhelm her. She will relive the last days and hours before your death searching for the moment when she could have made a difference.
Eight (8) :
If they report your death in the papers, the journalist will be deliberately vague. You will join the long list of men who have been “found dead”. They will never print the word suicide, but everyone will know what happened.
Bubba Smith, the American football star who found fame on screen playing Hightower in the Police Academy movies, has died at the age of 66. Smith was found dead at his home in Los Angeles. The cause of death has not been confirmed, but police have said it did not appear to be suspicious. ~ BBC News
Even your wife and children will rarely mention the word suicide when telling your story. They will fabricate a lie to cover their shame and hurt. Saying you died of a heart attack is the usual thing.
Nine (9) :
Your son won’t have you around to teach him how to drive. Your daughter will have no-one to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day. Your wife won’t have a safe place to go when her own pain needs soothing. You will miss out on their lives.
Ten (10) :
This pain of losing you doesn’t heal. It eventually gets numbed by the challenge of getting on with life with a part missing, but the thought of you is always just below the surface.
When you take your life, you take the life of your wife, your kids, your parents, your siblings and your friends. There is no choice for them. They have to live with this burden for the rest of their lives. No matter what you’ve done, no matter who you are, no-one will be better off without you.
I’m not here to tell you what to do with your life. It’s up to you. All I want to do is tell you what really happens to those of us left behind.
Sleep on it. Wait until tomorrow. Call someone. Talk.
Stay alive. We need you. We love you more than you’ll ever know.
If you or someone you know may be at risk of suicide contact
beyondblue 1300 22 46 36, Lifeline 13 11 14 or Salvo Care Line 1300 36 36 22.
If you’re still not convinced, I can help you out with this post ~ Why You Should End Your Life
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This is the most amazing and powerful thing I’ve read on the internet all year.
Thank you Lisa.
My late husband is one of those who are among the statistics of suicide. It happened in 1995 while my son was 3 1/2 and he did it while he was babysitting our son and I found my husband and it still haunts me to this day. No one really knows how it can affect other people and no one talks about it it is just like a taboo thing.. Thank you Katie this was incredible…
I’m so sorry for your loss Monica. I’m glad it helped in some way.
*Goosebumps*
Thanks Shelley.
What an amazing way to put it out there….love your work, Katie, and the bravery you show.
I appreciate your support darling Cilla.
thank you so much, it’s all of it too true.
Sadly, yes. I wish that no-one has to go through it.
Survivors of a Suicide
We’re called Survivors of Suicide, but I don’t see how,
Because what we are feeling seems hardly living now.
It’s more like putting that one foot in front of another,
As we struggle with the loss of spouse, a child, or brother,
Survivors all, left with the void of a beloved, missing face,
A now-stilled voice, a hug, and at table an empty place,
Defining us as this kind of group we surely didn’t choose,
A group that shares the pain because of those we lose.
Their troubled minds drove them to unthinkable acts,
And left us with shock and disbelief at the stunning facts.
They’re gone! A moment of anguish and lethal compulsion,
Led each of them down the path of passionate destruction.
Guilt, Anger, Pain, Denial rush in, like many poisoned darts,
The pulsing flow of love gushes from our moaning hearts,
And, here we stand, reeling in the darkest valley of our grief,
But no one’s there to receive our offering. We feel no relief.
No car crash, childbirth, poverty, or war can cause this shock,
Or wounds like no others, seeping, weeping at each tick-tock.
We mourn with each breath’s intake, and sigh as each goes out,
The world goes by in steady fashion as we bravely stagger on,
We cling to faith, friends and family. Still it’s true. They’re gone!
With hope for healing hearts,
Gail Collins 7/8/11
Beautiful poem Gail. Let’s heal together.
Nice post, though it’s a little biased towards those with family and friends. I have neither, and that’s probably the reason for which i’m killing myself in the first place.
Best wishes.
Dear Jack
I hope it’s not true that there isn’t one single person that would miss you if you were no longer in this world.
I don’t even know you, but I would be sad if you were gone. You are here for a reason — your life has meaning — what if tomorrow was the day that you discovered someone loved you more than you ever imagined?
Why does the website assume the person even has a family? Maybe there is no wife or kids. Furthermore this assumes the person is male. What if it’s the wife and not the husband who is considering the suicide? Why so sexist as to assume the reader is necessarily male?
You should have said the gender neutral “spouse” not “wife”.
Thank you for your comment … I wrote the piece from my perspective as a suicide widow and from first hand experience of what happens when a man kills himself (as I mentioned 78% of successful suicide attempts are men).
If it doesn’t resonate with you, then you are not who I was writing to. Thank you though for taking the time to leave a comment.
I only wish my mother had read this before killing herself 5 weeks ago.
I’ve read thru those steps one by one only to realize all the pain and grief I’ve been holding back. My father will forever be tortured after finding her slumped over with a gunshot to her heart. Even though they were together 42 years, those happy thoughts and memories will be replaced by that horrific night she was discovered.
After going thru all of this and cleaning the mess she left behind, it’s surreal to even think about that night. I understand everyone has these same thoughts and situations to deal with when family and freinds start asking questions. It’s comforting to know everything we are dealing with is “common” feelings. We aren’t the only ones suffering this way.
Thanks for the article Katie, it brought some calm to an otherwise scattered mind.
Thank you Katie
Dear Brent
The words ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ seem inadequate at a time like this especially when I know the difficult time you’re going through. But I am sorry and I’m sending love and light to you in the darkness. xx
The words you write are probably true, but it doesn’t change anything. I am looking not so much for a reason not to kill myself, but for a magic bromide that will change everything. The bromides aren’t there and the pain is. The loss of my wife to leukemia, 7 years of bad decisions including another marriage that didn’t end well, a business that went through the windshield at 100 MPH, 5 heart attacks including a bad one a couple weeks ago and of course, homelessness. No home to go to. As I write this a creditor just called. And, my doctor has me scheduled for a stress/echo tomorrow. It will cost everything I have in the bank and will not tell me what I don’t already know. I can loosen my clothing, do a 1/4 mile run and drop like a stone. That is what I have been considering for a few days now.
Yes, I know people love me. My five kids. But they aren’t me. They don’t have my pain. It’s not a matter of selfishness. It’s matter of threshold, and I think I have reached mine. I know I am in a major depression. Maybe I need to be in one to make a crazy decision like this.
I long for the old days when all I had to worry about was a 2 week long patrol in the Marine Corps.
Dear Tim
Please talk to someone about this. I don’t know you, and I can’t think of anything to say that will change how you feel but you are too important to lose.
K x
No wife… No kids…. No friends… No one to miss me. Why not?
Because you are the only person who can be you in this world and you never know what joy tomorrow will bring. Besides, there is nothing wrong will being alone — you can still live a rich, full and meaningful life.
There is everything wrong with being alone. Especially when you want the wife you want the kids. These are things that I can’t ever have.
You have not convinced me.
Maybe not, but I hope you can talk to someone and give it one more day … K x
Im 23. Male. Lost everything and all hope. I am not married. Lost my girlfriend and our son. There is more that cause this misery to much to list. But as moving as your post is I still want to die. I wish I had someone to talk to. I wish I had people who cared.
Please call someone on whatever hotline you have in your country. If you can’t find someone, call the emergency services. They will help you — they care –there is always someone who cares (including me).