That one time I had suicidal thoughts... long ago
Many years ago when my parents were still very much in the throes of alcoholism I had one moment where I had suicidal thoughts. The reason this comes to mind is due to one of the images I shared in a post I wrote a few minutes ago about the Mad World.
EDIT: This all took place more than 30 years ago.
Do you see that big cliff in the background there?
My one suicidal thought moment I stood on top of that and contemplated stepping off of the edge.
The alcoholism of my parents had that kind of impact on me. I ended up walking there after arguing with my very dark and aggressive father. At the time he was drinking at least a 12 pack of beer per night, and that didn't include the various hard liquor types he would drink.
That was the first and last time I considered suicide.
No one was there to help me through it, but it does turn out one of my friends that witnessed the issue with my dad was walking around town looking for me, but going up there on that little ridge known as Hog's Back was not something he had considered.
It was standing there that I realized that suicide was taking the easy way out, it was giving up. For me that was enough of a motivation. It was enough of a realization that it gave me a bit of armor from such thoughts in the future. Later I would add to that as I realized life is like our own personal adventure. Most good adventure stories have good and bad. The greatest of moments usually come from surviving and overcoming the bad things. If I cannot push through the truly bad moments how can I expect to experience those greatest of moments in my own life? I have found this to be rather true for me.
Now I decided suicide was no "solution" at that moment up on that ridge. Yet, I still had alcoholic parents.
I still had a problem. I was fearless. I just got lucky. I was not suicidal, but I was absolutely 100% unafraid of anyone else putting me out of my misery.
This would mean if two cowboys walked up to me and started giving me shit about my long hair and saying they might kick my ass, I'd gesture them forward and say "let's go". This actually happened to me quite a few times. The final time actually was 5 (not exaggerating) drunk cowboys that piled out of a truck standing in front of me.
All or most of those cases I truly SHOULD have been messed up badly. Yet, they always backed down.
Perhaps the total obvious lack of fear in the face of the odds being overwhelmingly in their favor made them back down. No one truly wants to fight a mad man. They are unpredictable. Is that what they were thinking?
I even had one particularly muscular guy that was trying to start stuff with me, and he was known for being quite the wrestler come up to me the next day, shake my hand, and tell me he was sorry, it had been a bad day and he had had a fight with his girlfriend and that he truly admired how I stood up to him. That guy and his friends never gave me a hard time once after that, in fact we got along fine.
All of that ended when my first child was born. I finally had that missing element in my life. FEAR.
I never was really worried about fear for my sake, but once there were others that depended upon my well being that did introduce that fear. This was a good thing. It made me less reckless.
I will say that if people see me challenging people that it seems nuts to challenge here on steem, and why their name calling and belittling really is pointless and makes them seem really silly to me. This is why. They can impact my steemit experience, but my life will go on, and it will not endanger my family. So that old stand in front of something I shouldn't is still there. I guess you could say it is a shadow of my old madness.
Anyway, suicide is missing the good parts of the adventure that is still ahead. We must make it through the bad periods to find the good periods. The good after the wake of the bad can be some of the best feelings out there. Don't give up.
Definitely the best post I have read today. I guess it is kind of like guys in war who figure they are already dead so they lose the fear. I have never felt what it is like to be fearless other than for brief insignificant moments. But of course the moral here is you have to get through the really bad times to appreciate the really good times.
I truly lost a little of that fearlessness due to a car accident before my child was born. Yet, that was cars. I still was fearless in pretty much every other way.
Though my parents DID both stop drinking alcohol cold turkey when I was 17. Yet, by then my mind was already kind of programmed with the fearless quality.
I tell you for certain I lost it with the birth of my first child. That is a profound moment of change. People talk about it, but it is one of those things you have to experience to really understand.
Yes, I believe you. Having kids myself has changed my life bigtime. I am making sacrifices I would not make if it weren't for them.
Kind of curious now, do you know what caused your parents to quit alcohol cold turkey?
Well my mother wanted to quit for some time and tried a few times. When alcohol is around it makes it worse, so my father would not quit. I suspect it was a couple of things.
He locked himself in a trailer for 5 days and went through the torture of that. He said there were times it felt like spiders were crawling all over him.
They both still smoked Marijuana but ALL of our lives immediately improved. He found a love for making hand crafted furniture.
If you told anyone that knew him the last couple of decades of his life (he is gone due to cancer) that he was a violent and aggressive person they would look at you like you were nuts. At the time he was one of the least violent people that anyone knew and he was known for being very wise.
Alcoholism can make anyone a monster. Once it is gone it is much like receiving an exorcism. It didn't happen all the time. It was like gambling. Roll the dice and see if the monster would come out. Certain types of alcohol were more likely to cause it than others.
Wow, thanks for sharing that. He really turned his life around when he saw what he was about to lose.
Yes, he was a great guy. He truly loved us a lot. I am also his only son by adoption. They tried to have more, but could not.
Yet drinking the way they drank grabbed a hold and truly became like a demon riding his back.
I was extremely anti-alcohol for quite a few years. I hated it and everything about it.
These days I don't care as long as people are responsible.
A very moving story, thanks for sharing such an emotional time. Following a survivor
Very will written write up. Having children truly does change your perspective. I know that it just about completely changed everything about me. Back about 15 or so years ago I would find my mind drifting to the thought of suicide. It was nothing I came close to acting on but I often planned it out, down to the smallest details. Some of my plans involved disposal of the evidence after the fact so that it looked like a homicide. I was really depressed and I'm glad those days are over. In 2006 my father in law did commit suicide, he was a vet and used an IV with a heavy tranquilizer. It really messed with the family and I saw how selfish of an act it truly was.
My biological father (not the one in this story who raised me) did commit suicide a few months before the birth of my first child. So a few months before the birth of his first grandson. He was someone I spoke to off and on, though he didn't raise me. From the age of about 3.5 - 16 years of age I didn't know him. My first child was born when I was 24. I met this biological father when I was 16. Later he came around age 19-20 and spent some time with me and my roommates in college. Then sometime before that son of mine (On steemit as @eli-chanpu) was born he committed suicide.
It was also done for very selfish and stupid reasons.
It sounds like he missed out on some truly great things. As a detective I worked many suicides and a few were easy, scum that leached on society but most weren't. Nobody ever went off on the woods to do it either, it was always at home where family would find them and sometimes it was truly gruesome. I take it back, I did have one in the parking lot of a business where the guy worked. We raided his house for child pornography and the wife called him at work. He shot himself in the parking lot. Less than two weeks later the son shot himself in the backyard of the home and his mom found him.
Sorry to share gruesome details it just got me to thinking. Suicide is not the answer people!
That town where that cliff is I moved back to with my children. I trained to be an EMT there though stopped due to ambulance making me car sick. Though I worked at the medical center there when I was 18, and at a restaurant as my other job. I served a multi-millionaire his lunch one day before he went and shot himself in the head with a shotgun. (not my lunch that did it). I then ended up having to mop and clean the medical center after they brought him there. I didn't see him.
My wife I am married to now (she had 4 kids before me) I met when I was there raising my two sons as a single father. She was a deputy sheriff and had to deal with such things a few times. Her kids came to live with us when they were young and I raised them. This is how I have 6 kids, though 2 are biologically mine ( @gmarsh , @eli-chanpu, are the youngest and my biological kids, @jwinblood, @kellywin21, and @theanubisrider are three others and my oldest daughter Crystal is not on steemit).
Wow - cowboys or whales - Now I'm starting to get it, thanks for the real insight!
Thank you for having the courage to tell this story. I think most people have had times in their life where things looked so dark and incurable that it seemed there was no way out. But life is like a roller coaster with hills and valleys. You just have to keep moving forward to find the next hill. I'm glad you didn't go through with it and I'm sure others that know you are as well. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Also, I once dated someone that drank like your father and it was a nightmare. He was very emotionally abusive and destroyed my self confidence, which made it harder to dump him. Some alcoholics seems to enjoy trying to control people in their lives since they can't contorl their own life with respect to drinking. I was in my thirties and can't imagine a child having to deal with that.
So true. Kids! ALL of my fear in life revolve around them.
Thanks for sharing! Boy do we go through trouble in our lives, but with an attitude and self-knowledge like you have, it's usually better to stay alive than to end it.
I really liked reading this post. I to was reckless in my youth. Like not fear anything, until I became a father. Suddenly my priorities shifted dramatically. I have had depression a few times in my life and wanted to give up. But the moment I became a father everything changed, absolutely for the better in every way. I found my purpose through fatherhood. I am glad that it happened. When I look into his eyes and see the wonder and amazement he has for this world, I want to show him more. I have been going through some rough stuff lately while trying to fight for sole custody of my son, but it is worth it. I cannot wait to see the man he becomes but I also want him to stay young and innocent for as long as he can. Thank you for your post. It really made me feel better. Like there is someone else out there that sees the brighter side of life through the darkness that can sometimes encroach upon us. We have to take the good with the bad because thats what life is made up of. Experiences both good and bad are what make us who we are and show us what life has to offer.
I'm glad you made it through the experience too.
Stories like yours are the reason I end up spending so much time on Steemit. Reading about other people's problems, what they've been through, how they managed to overcome difficulties gives you perspective and makes you reconsider your own life.
I can relate to your story as I've dealt with suicidals tendencies when I was younger. And, yes, things did change after my first child was born. Suddenly, my life wasn't mine anymore to waste.
What an inspiring story! Congratulations to you for overcoming all your fears and facing the life boldly!
I have given a link to it at the bottom of my pot here. Hope you won't mind.