My only plan for Monday was to head to a surf sale, pack my bags and go to bed early. Of course doing only these things isn’t a full day’s work so I had a bit of time in between. So I thought “Hey why don’t I head down to the shops, get the paper and then clean out the rat cage?”. Awesome. It took about 15 minutes.
After I had done that I started to feel depressed. Housemate A had the day off and was running around the house doing her washing and cleaning up the house, and I didn’t want to mope around making a nuisance of myself. I went for a walk to the park and had a little cry. It was then I decided that I was going to kill myself. Naturally I didn’t think to take my noose with me when I went for a walk, so I went back to my house grabbed the noose from under my bed and walked back down to the park. My housemate was folding some sheets in her room but I avoided eye contact.
I headed straight for the tree that I had picked out earlier. I also had a backup location in case I couldn’t find the tree (it was pretty dark when I chose it). It was about a 10 minute walk to the tree and along the way I was hoping something would jump up and save me. But halfway there I realised that it wasn’t worth worrying about. It was pretty hard to screw up a hanging anyway – the noose looked very nice. So as I walked I started thinking about a suicide note. I always wanted to leave a hand written suicide note. If it’s your last message to your friends and family then it should be a little bit personal don’t you think?
However I didn’t have a paper and pen so I had to look at other options. Luckily for me I had recently bought a shiny new phone since my old phone had passed away. I didn’t want to send a text message because that would cause people to worry, I could however write a memo in my phone and set it on a timer. So when they found my body in a couple of hours (more like half an hour in the location I had chosen) my phone would ring and bam, there’s my suicide note.
When I finally reached my tree I was a little worried. It was bigger during the day than it looked at night. It might sound a little soft to say this but I was concerned that I would have trouble climbing the tree. Anyway I plonked myself down next to the ground and started work my memo. It began,
“I had originally intended to leave a hand written note, but I no longer see the val”
Predictive text didn’t want me to use the word value? What a load of crap! It was brand new phone and predictive text didn’t work properly! However after I bit of fiddling I realised that it wasn’t predictive text that was the problem, rather that the phone didn’t allow for very long memos. Unfortunately that was the longest memo I could write on the phone and it just wasn’t going to cut it. So despite my earlier hesitation I was forced to write a text message. It wasn’t my first option but there was no other way to write my suicide note. My final words read like this,
“I had originally intended to leave a hand written note, but I no longer see the value in that. I’m not strong enough for this. I never was. I’m just a shell. I can’t keep living this lie. I told myself a few months ago that the only reason I would kill myself is to spite my father. It’s a cop out, but I don’t have any reason for killing myself except my own weakness. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Make sure somebody looks after the girls.”
A couple of points about that note. Firstly I did still see the value in a hand written note but it doesn’t make a good suicide note if you just say “I forgot to write one so I’m sending a text instead”. Secondly the girls I am referring to are Lady Nelson and General Slocum (my two pet rats – they are so cute).
I sent the message to sister 1, housemate A and housemate B and then I took a breather. It’s very draining to write a suicide note. If somebody asks me a question I can look them in the eye and lie straight to their face. But if that same person wants me to write the answer down then I can’t do it. There’s something about writing that leaves you exposed, and I don’t consider myself a liar.
While I’m regaining my strength my phone rings. It’s housemate B but I let it go through to voice mail. A few seconds later I received the following text message from her.
“Matt don’t do this please me call i’ve been where you are it can get better please call me”
I don’t do anything for a few minutes and then my phone rings again. This time it’s housemate A and again I let it go through to voice mail. Another text message.
“Don’t! Please call me”
The phone rings a few more times from various people. Then I get another text message from housemate B.
“Matt i’m living proof that it does get better six years ago i tried to overdose. please call me. Life won’t stay like this. We can get you in to the Nuthouse PC where you can have a rest from life and we can get you some real help. I stayed there for 2 weeks. Don’t make any decisions when you feel like this”
