Suicidal Ideation Doesn't Mean You Want To Die
Sometimes a part of you has to die, so other parts can live
I remember I was waiting for the train at the 16th and Mission BART station in San Francisco. I was going to Orinda to meet up with my girlfriend at the time and I felt horrible. I had that strange sensation you get behind your eyes where you want to cry, but can’t — a physical manifestation of emotional pressure building inside of you. I took a deep breath and smelled barbecue, stale piss and dust particle-rich tunnel air.
As I tried to identify the source my of sadness, I heard the screeching sound of a BART train approaching. A powerful gust of wind hit me as the train raced through the tunnel. Suddenly, I had an intrusive thought of jumping in front of the train. I was watching it outside of myself in third person.
Upon impact, I saw my limbs separating from my body, splatters of blood flying in every direction. Bits of blood-coated fat, muscle and bone spraying onto unsuspecting commuters who happened to be unlucky enough to be sitting beside me.
But I didn’t jump, I just stood there as the train approached, and I got on.
Suicidal ideation wasn’t new to me, albeit, they tended to occur for reasons unbeknownst to me. While I was depressed upon boarding the train in San Francisco, there were other times where I felt fine and my mind decided to make me watch my own death.
I thought it was because on a subconscious level I wanted to die, but then something happened that made reevaluate these visions of my demise: I was diagnosed with a spinal tumor, and idea of my death became less abstract and more rooted in reality.
The tumor was removed and luckily I’m still alive. And even better, I realized I didn’t want to die, and I started to examine what these suicidal ideations meant.
I noticed that the suicidal ideations would occur at times in my life where something needed to change. There was something I needed to do, but I wasn’t doing it.
The first time I remember these visions vividly was when I was in high school. I was a pretty nerdy kid, but I lived in section 8 housing and most of the kids around me were wannabe drug dealers. At school, I tended to click more with the anime kids. We would talk about video games and Adult Swim, and I made some long lasting friendships due to my association with that group. But sometimes, the people that I hung out with in the apartment complex crossed paths with the people I hung out with at school. When this happened, I envisioned myself dying. I felt an overwhelming urge to no longer exist.
I now know it was because I was living in a lie. I thought the drug dealer kids were fucking morons. But I tried to mirror them. I was empathetic to the situation because my mom was like theirs — an addict, but I was confused at their inability to understand that they were willingly putting themselves into the same situation that transformed otherwise decent people into mindless meth heads.
Another time was when I wrote a paper for a rich kid, and that paper happened to get that rich kid into a good school. I had already dropped out of high school at that point, and when he happily told me my paper was the “best $100 he ever spent,” I pictured myself pulling a revolver out my pocket, putting the barrel to my head and pulling the trigger.
And then there’s this — the biggest wasted opportunity of my entire life. I took a sociology class at Diablo Valley College, the professor was a man who was teaching the class because he bored. His name was Dr. Schutz and he was well-connected at UC Berkeley. He was so impressed with my paper that he wanted me to go to Cal and in several phone conversations, he spoke about how talented I was, and how much promise I had as a student.
I was intimidated. I sucked at math and didn’t think I would pass the algebra class required to transfer, so I dropped out of community college not long after promising Dr. Schutz that I would stay in touch. I began working at a warehouse in Richmond instead. On my commute to work, I’d often see the UC Berkeley clocktower in the distance. I noticed whenever I thought about Dr. Schutz or my opportunity to go from a kid with an illiterate mom to a Cal alumnus, the suicidal ideations weren’t far behind.
But I think my days of suicidal ideations are over. I think I finally figured them out.
This article isn’t dark, it’s subtly hopeful. If you have these intrusive thoughts, don’t let them trick you. You probably don’t want to die, you just need to change.
And I hope you do.
Thank you for this.