Contradicting Thoughts

I found an old note while digging through my grandad's attic after his funeral. The words I read are what changed my life. I was in a dark time and needed to hear them. It was as if he knew and guided me there all along. That’s what I chose to believe anyway. I still have the note stashed away with some of my other papers so that nobody can find it. I worry about it getting thrown out one day so now seems like the best time to make a digital copy. I type the words and relive the past. The memories come rushing back as if they had been trapped behind a weakening dam for the last twenty years.

“I’ve lived for everyone else. Always. My entire life has been about others. My mother. My friends. My children. Nobody was there for me at the end of it all. I guess this is the burden of empathy; walking around in everyone else's shoes never leaves for a path of your own. Now that I’m alone… I feel lost. My knowledge was never enough. My work was never enough. My friendship was never enough. I was never enough. Truth is I am a pawn. A pawn in my job. A pawn in my love life. A pawn in the world. A tug of war rope; being stretched and pulled by everyone else. It’s hard to give light in a world that continuously searches to snuff it out. I could stay and continue to fight. I could stay and be strong and listen to everyone tell me it gets better; I know they’re just saying that to try and help. The truth is I’ve done it and the truth is it doesn’t get better. The world is brutal and I’m not going to apologize. This is the one thing I’m doing for me… for once… it’s not about everyone else. Just me. I feel like everyone tries to impart some wisdom before they go but who really needs to take advice from a suicidal depressed guy. Let’s be honest about it; the suicide notes are for us. Everything we felt but could never explain. Love and hate. Rage. Peace. Anger and Pain. Tranquility that has now gone away. Lives keep going. The world keeps turning. In ten years I’ll be just a memory. A whisper in the breeze. I tried my best but it’s time to go. I’m suffering. My brain is full of pain. I feel constant paradoxes working against me; laughing as they play a game of checkers on my brain. I’m stuck in the middle of greed and agony. Congrats system you’ve defeated me. I want nothing more to do with your petty lies and false promises. You’re broken… just like me. Goodbye to the broken. Goodbye to the world. Thank you for the wonderful times I was able to partake in when my mind wasn’t sabotaging the good things in my life. It’s time to go now. Goodbye.”

I leaned back in my chair and paused for a moment. The weight these words carried was heavy. The weight of my memories even heavier. I felt a tear run down my cheek as I revisited the darkness I used to exist within. I could feel it clawing and wanting to drag me down like it had before. I turned the page quickly and drank in the elixir of relief. Below the original letter, scratched in purple was another message; shorter but even stronger than the first. When I read it for the first time I had been thinking about ending everything. Instead, my grandad saved my life with his final message.

“This is an excerpt I found while searching through one of my notebooks. It must’ve been written some years ago. It’s raw and it is the real depiction of what mental illness looks like. For those of us who know these dark voices, you know exactly what the battle these words are depicting feels like. For those who don’t know, consider yourself lucky. For anybody who needs it, seek the help you are hoping the universe will send you. Don’t wait. It’s okay to not do it on your own. Not all of us can. Hopefully the words above can transmute darkness into light and they can shine instead; being a reminder that those of you out there who have these thoughts and feelings are not alone. Seek help or deal with it on your own. Whatever the course, you must deal with it or it will deal with you. I don’t want you dead and neither do the ones who love you most. Love yourself the way you love everyone else and you will see how your life changes. Until then, keep walking through that darkness because there is always a light. Once you reach it, you’ll understand why you had to go through so much. Please don’t give up. You are needed and you are loved.”

I finished typing and signed off. I spent the rest of my evening enjoying time with my beautiful family. Grateful to be alive.