A word about #suicide: #RIPChesterBennington

Whenever I am wont to have a difficult evening, I have something like this in the morning, to remind myself that there are some things suffering existence for. Writing, art, books, cats, chocolate, games-- these are the little joys that push me forward when I consider less appealing alternatives.
When I was in my early twenties, I considered and even attempted suicide several times. I was working three jobs I absolutely hated just to pay for an education I desperately needed. I worked in the mornings, attended classes in the afternoons, returned to work in the evenings, and worked on weekends to shore up the attenuated cash flow. I came home at night to an empty one-room apartment, to charm my mattress and my broken laptop with stories of how horrid my day was, and scramble into writing another few lines of a chapter when I could. It was five long years of bitter lamentations and the paltry comfort of packaged ramen before I felt some reprieve, and during that time I considered ending it all several times. I had suffered a torturous adolescence only to be flung into the throes of an excruciating life. All I wanted to do was to be allowed to write and to die on my own accord; those were the only two things I had control over at the time, and now not much has changed: I still work long hours, I am still dreadfully poor, I am often unwell, but I finished my schooling as I set out to do and have garnered a small support system by the way.

I have no reason to lie: there are times when I do consider leaving this place, and I do not say this for pity; I have really done with the unfounded gapes of sympathy. I say this because many do not understand what suicidal thoughts really feel like: they are relief, they are exquisite palliation, they are a release from the daily agony that merely wanting to live a life of peace affords. Do not be alarmed: I have no intention of doing myself in. I learned long ago that I am far too much of a coward to do the honours. It is a something like intrepidity to say 'no more'. Those who do not understand this believe that suicide is a selfish and cowardly act; the selfishness side of the business is forcing us to stay and sit silent with perfunctory smiles, pretending that everything is daisies and sunshine when it is really unconscionable misery. We stay for you when we would much rather go and be liberated. Understanding or accepting is really past the point: our death is not about your ideas of happiness; it is about going to a place of no emotional noise, all the raucous and hideous humbuggery of life buried under the aegis of another realm where no ideas of high wrought constancy can point the finger at our backs. We will be gone, and nothing anyone can say or do can impact us ever again.

It is an attractive thought, the delicious idea of never having to be in the same room as a screaming child ever again. Heaven is the gingham of green fields, dotted with kittens and books, embraced by the mellifluous sounds of strings whining out their delicate melodies, and whenever it is I choose to go, I will sit on my throne of chocolate pies and ice shards and laugh at all those left behind. The feeling invincibility is what makes this picture so inviting. This is the glory and exhilaration of The End, so I want to hear no more about the selfishness and cowardice of suicide. You might think twice about the business if a fields of kittens and the soft sussurations of full grown wheat and rye awaited you.

Farewell, Chester Bennington, and may the Gods grant you the peace life could not promise you. May you at last find serenity in the unconscious pattern of verdant pastures or wherever your soul now resides.