Suicide Plan

Sometimes random thoughts pop up, like what if I drove off this cliff right now? or I wonder if I really would explode if I finished this cake? You're not supposed to worry about them if they flicker and disappear. The thought is gone, you don't want to die, all is well, your mind was just being a jerk. It's when you know how you'd kill yourself that things get iffy.

I didn't sit down and think up a suicide plan, but it's kind of fallen into place. When I found out that some antidepressants can not only cause suicidal thoughts, but also kill you, I opted not to look up any of my medications online, and just assume that they'd make me puke or something. That left me with nothing, because I can't handle the thought of a bleedy, painful death.

At some point I read an article online about how unglamorous suicide is. Not that I thought it was glamorous, but there were some harsh realities—like the fact that most people can't afford a cleaning service to clear out corpse mess—that really got to me. Somehow, being dead seemed fine, but my sister or my father having to clean my bodily fluids out of a bathtub, car, or bed was just gross. I take that as a sign that I've still got some sanity left.

Simple solution to that one, though; do it at a hospital, or in the parking lot in front of the hospital. Whatever it is.

At some point I was researching medications for a personal writing project and came across a definitely-deadly antidepressant. I was reading along, minding my own business, when I got to the list of generic versions of the drug. Oh look, I've been taking it all along.

Suicide plan: accidentally complete.

I don't know, would I really drive all the way across town and walk into the hospital? That seems like an awful lot of prep work for someone who's decided that life is so horrible that even an eternity of hell is better (or at least no different). Plus, there's a chance of being saved. Then there's also the likelihood of being dragged into their "stress unit."

Eh, I really don't feel like planning this out, so I guess I'll just have to keep living a while longer.

One time, at the cheese factory, they wouldn't hire me back because I quit over a decade ago. I guess I should have let them fire me.

P.S. Don't kill yourself. Note: I am currently taking my own advice.

Suicide Prevention Lifeline

If you or someone you know is in a crisis

Things to do instead of killing yourself

Basket Hats and Groceries

You know what's funny? My daughter putting a holiday basket upside-down on her head and modeling it as a hat to cheer me up, without even knowing what was wrong.

You know what's not quite as funny? Leaving $100 worth of food and groceries at the store because your card won't work. I spent an hour and a half picking through things to find the best deals on what I needed, and added on about thirty dollars worth of cat items, because part of my sister's resentment at me living here is that her cats' behavior problems got worse when I moved into the cat room.

Yes, the cats already had problems. However, after overhearing my sister earlier, I decided that I would resolve her cats' problems, in the hopes of ticking her off slightly less with my existence, and perhaps keeping her from being so desperate to get rid of these cats, which she's had for about 8 years now.

Fast-forward again to the checkout line. I used my card. Incorrect pin. Okay, maybe I made a mistake and used my pin from the wrong card. Incorrect pin. I dug out my list of pins, looked to be certain I had the right card to begin with, and made sure to find the correct pin. Because if you get it wrong three times, your card locks, and you're screwed.

Incorrect pin.

I don't know how I got it wrong three times. The cashier and the manager both looked horribly sorry for me, and did their best to offer other solutions. At this point, however, I just wanted to go home. I was, I will admit, near tears to begin with from my sister. I had then gone a little obsessive over choosing just the right everything so that I could solve a problem, feed my daughter, and have enough left over for gas to get me to the doctor on Thursday, and then I had to walk away from it.

I still have some Bisquick and a couple eggs left, so I can make pancakes for dinner tonight, but we won't be having milk with them. Yes, I intend to figure out what the problem with my card is as soon as possible, but I'm not going back to the store tonight.

So this one time, at the grocery store, I saw someone I worked with at the cheese factory, and she said Merry Christmas, because she recognizes me a decade later. That and my daughter's basket-hats have been the highlights of my day.

One Thousand Dollars

It turns out that panhandling in the nearest city is illegal. Here I thought I'd finally come up with a way to scrape up some money—just the thousand dollars I need to get into low-income housing—and already my dream of standing terrified on a street corner hating myself for a day has been dashed, because I went online to find out if it was even possible.

Of course, apparently I'd be lucky to make seven dollars a day in this part of the country, but begging being illegal is more of a deterrent to me than it not being lucrative.

Why, you may ask, did I decide to look up panhandling?

The answer is: I'm highly discouraged by my continued unemployment, and today I overheard my sister telling my dad that she wants me and my daughter out of her house. Ouch.

My sister is a great person, really. She can't stand kids, though. She doesn't understand them, and thinks that being patient with them is a waste of time when you could just yell at them, tell them how horrible they are, and send them to their rooms. Because our mom doing that to us didn't have any long-term effects. *sarcasm*

Anyhow, it's a good thing she has dogs, and not human children. She's amazing with dogs. Hers are well-trained, and don't mind if she cusses at them when they bark at inopportune moments. But I digress.

All that's keeping me from moving into cheap housing is approximately $1,000. I owe a couple hundred on an old electricity bill, I need five hundred as a down-payment, and I need some to get all the utilities turned on. No clue how I'd keep the utilities on once I was there, but I can cross that bridge when I come to it. Right?

As much as I disliked my grandmother's house, I'm tempted to ask if I can move back in. They're getting ready to sell it, but I have to live somewhere, and that's the only place where there aren't other people to be annoyed at having an eleven year old girl around being moody and dramatic. Because, let's face it: eleven year old girls are moody and dramatic.

I get this. I don't know how all my family who raised kids, or who were kids, can honestly believe that a child of any age can behave perfectly at all times. Or maybe they're why I'm so hard on myself. I was expected to be perfect, and I did not succeed. I did not succeed pretty hard, in the long run.

The holiday season approaches, and so does the return of the choice I've faced too many times over the past years; where am I going to live? How can I keep a roof over my daughter's head with no money and apparently no marketable skills?

Unless you want to pay me for blogging.