How to Want to Die

I don't have a catchy subtitle for you, sorry.

CW: Death; Suicidal Ideation

Photo by César Abner Martínez Aguilar on Unsplash

I was at a dinner last weekend with a group of, okay…sure, let’s call them friends. It was a dinner I organized for us and friends of my husband now that I am back in Cape Town on summer break. Conversation with this group never seems to flow as easy as the wine does, so for reasons I can’t remember, I found myself talking about the way I would like to die, that is on the table, having a pointless cosmetic surgery, in my 90’s.

“Count back from 10 for me,” the OR nurse will say.

“Ten, nine, eiiigh,” and snooze. With any luck, lights out for me forever.

My dear husband, worried about the effects of me running my mouth, typed into his phone telling me to stop talking about death. The dad of one of the people at the table was back in the hospital. I didn’t know.

Fast forward a few days. We are at another dinner. Still friends of my husband. Very different people. The topic of religion comes up. We talk about philosophy and debate about whether or not a universal morality exists (spoiler alert: I taught the Sociology of Deviance so my position is a hard NO on that one). The debate is fierce and fun as I am going back and forth with the husband of our hosts.

My dear husband, worried about the effects of me running my mouth, tells me to calm down as we move from the dining room to the living room with our wine to enjoy the fire. But there was no need to calm down. Pete and I were having a fantastic conversation. I’m not just projecting my own experience onto him. He said as much. For me, at the core of our conversation that night, especially about religion, was one simple truth:

Most people can’t handle the idea of their own mortality.

But the (current) Big “T” objective truth (that might change in the future due to technology) is: You are going to die.

Now here is my truth: I think about death every day.

I think about my death, my mother’s death, my daughter’s death, and now my husband’s death. I think about the death of someone I spend 18 years in a situationship with. I think about my best friend’s death. See, Dear Reader, I am not afraid of dying per se. I am afraid of the pain the comes with death - both my own physical pain and the tremendous pain and grief when losing a beloved. So I think about death - mine and all of theirs - so that I can be prepared.

Now, here is a darker truth (and these days it’s more and more rare, but it still happens): Sometimes, I dream of death.

I don’t mean dream as in I fall fast to sleep and Mr. Sandman comes and sprinkles death dream dust over my unsuspecting head. No. I mean, I wish for death. I long for death. I just want the pain of this world to stop.

Every now and again, I suffer from bouts of depression. I’m currently in one of those bouts, and when I am in those bouts, *see darker truth above.

To add another log to the depression fire: Ironically, I am having surgery today. So, if you’ve been paying attention….

How to want to die is easy. First, you take all the pain you bottle up inside. That pain can be from anywhere or anything. Just make sure you’ve got a good amount stored up. Add some triggering stimuli that activates the pain. It’s best if you add small amounts of “pain activator” repeatedly so that the pain begins to bubble, but doesn’t overflow…yet. Last, add one final amount of pain activator and let that bitch erupt. Release all of the pain and hurt and despair and desperation that you’ve kept bottled for months and years and weeks and days. Get to your lowest point where you wish and beg and pray and bargain for death just to make the pain go away. THAT, Dear Reader, is how to want to die.

Now that you’ve made a mess all over the floor, like I did recently, what next? What next is how to want to live. As I am in a current bout of depression, maybe I am not the best person to offer up this advice, but I’ll try.

First, you recognize that, more than likely, you’ve been here before. It’s probably not the first time you’ve been in this room. It may not be the last. Maybe for you, it is very fucking familiar. Maybe it’s not. Maybe, this is the first time you’ve entered this place, and if that’s you, just hang on. I’ll get to you in a second. Assuming that you have been here before, recognize just that. Remember the last time you visited. Verbalize it. Say, out loud, “I know what this is. I have experienced these feelings before.” Now what comes next is critically important for getting the fuck out of that room. You need to turn your ass around and open the door. How do you do that? Simple. Next you say, out loud, “I’ve been here before. I know what this is, AND I know I’ve come out of it. I know what I am feeling right now will pass.” And, it will. Maybe not that minute. Maybe not even that day or week. But it will pass. Accepting where you are at the present moment (the pain you’re feeling) and acknowledging that, unless you’ve found yourself at Hotel California, you can actually leave (realizing you’ve overcome that pain in the past), is how you walk out of that room.

Now let’s say it is your first time in that room. First, congratulations for being such a young reader. I can’t possibly imagine anyone over the age of 11 never having felt like they wanted death to end their pain. I’m sort of joking, but not really. Look, if this is the first time you are struggling with a weight of the pain of the world and you don’t feel like you have options, stop reading immediately, and call a hotline for help in whatever country you are reading from: HERE. CLICK HERE NOW!

But I am here to tell you, actual no shit physical end is not the answer. When you find yourself in that unfamiliar room, study it. Study the yellow wallpaper until you have each and every pattern memorized. Remember the furniture. Sear the terrible muzak cover of Berlin’s Take my Breath Away into your brain. Do all this so when you find yourself here again, and you will, you’ll remember. Next, do whatever it takes to get out of that room - aka: to feel better. The first time you are there, it will feel like you’re in one of those (in)escape rooms, but if you can, find something, anything to be grateful for in that moment. For me, I think about Taylor Swift (insert groan and eye roll, I know). I think about her documentary Miss Americana. I think about all the things she went through when nobody physically saw her for a year. I think about how she made it through without offing herself. I think about how she drinks now - a lot and how maybe that’s her crutch. I think that if she can do it, so can I. Taylor shows me the way out.

Close your eyes right now and think: What’s my Taylor Swift? That’s how you get out of that room.

How to want to live is not easy, and I don’t have a guide for you, but what I can say…what I know is true for me, thinking about death makes me value life that much more.

Why are we afraid of mortality? If you are a person of faith, you have a narrative that help ease you into the idea of death. Maybe it’s frocking in the clouds with all your deceased loved ones, maybe it’s 72 virgins in the heavens, maybe you’ll populate your own planet. Maybe, you’ve racked up enough good karma in this life not to come back as a rock in the next one. If you’re not a person of faith, aka my hard atheists out there, then you’ll close your eyes forever and never be the wiser.

Thing is, we don’t know what will happen when we die, and THAT’S what we are really afraid of - the unknown. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather dance with the devil I know. So I stay in this life, even when I don’t want to because it hurts so much. Life is the best option we’ve got. Would you like to know why? Two reasons:

1. There is no guarantee that what comes next is better. That’s why it’s called faith.

2. There is no guarantee that what comes next is nothing. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

So my best advice to you and myself is to strap a pillow on, buckle in, and ride this life out. What comes with death might be better, or it might be worse. We don’t know. What we do know, though, is that the sun will shine after the rain.