The Day I Killed Myself

The Day I Killed Myself

On the morning of the day I killed myself, I awoke as I usually did – late, tired, and wishing I could just stay in bed all day. With that all too familiar weight creeping onto my chest, I slowly began battling my subconscious thoughts that all screamed at me to keep my eyes shut and block out the beeping of my alarm (the third in the last fifteen minutes), the beginning of my stressful and emotional version of a morning routine. By the fifth alarm, I realize the time, somehow a shock each day, and bolt from the covers. By the sixth, the one set to remind me I should be leaving, I’m dressed in clothes I pulled out of several piles on my floor, each article selected based on smell rather than appearance. The seventh alarm goes off as I struggle to find a second sock and throw my unwashed hair into a semi-acceptable bun before the eighth and final alarm blares. It tells me I’m going to need to call work because I’ll be late, again. My brothers have left for school, indicating the severity of my lateness, but my dad is still in the kitchen. He calls a goodbye to me as I rush past him, teeth unbrushed and meds ignored, to the door and leave with nine minutes to get to my weekly therapy appointment before work, a good thirty minutes away.

On the morning of the day I killed myself, I had a therapy appointment. Ironic, isn’t it? What’s even more ironic, to me at least, is that I had actually gone to my session that day. I wasn’t notorious for attending my appointments with my counsellor, especially towards the end, even though I knew deep down that they could have helped. Maybe that’s why I went to that last one, as a subconscious last-ditch attempt at some sort of mental deliverance. My counsellor is surprised to see me, to say the least. Granted, it has been nearly a month since I kept a session, but she doesn’t reprimand me. I let her ask the usual questions, I let her try and read me and my mood, but I’ve become very good at pretending, and she doesn’t delve deep enough to trigger me today. And then I leave, still very, very late for work, booking another appointment that even at that moment I know I won’t keep, and let her door swing quietly shut behind me.

On the morning of the day I killed myself, I was late to work after my bullshitted therapy session. I rush through the door as fast as my aching body can physically drag me, murmur a totally disbelieving lie to excuse myself, and try to immerse myself in my work that I know I should be adoring but can’t bring myself to appreciate. I barely make it two hours before I’m at my boss’ office door, tears in my eyes, stating I don’t feel well enough to be at work. She’s patient and kind but I can see her frustration behind her sympathy, and hear the disappointment tucked under her tones of support. I can’t meet anyone’s eyes as I gather my things, profusely apologizing to my coworkers, who express their sympathy, but whose annoyance is evident.

On the morning of the day I killed myself, I took the backroads home. The colours of autumn vibrantly flash past me as I drive a little too quickly down the concession lanes that make up the community that I’ve lived in for nearly twenty years. I have a playlist from my phone plugged into the aux cord and it’s blasting through the speakers. It consists of twelve songs, eight from years ago; I haven’t had the energy to make the time to find new music, let alone download it. I mouth along to the familiar lyrics as I let the swell of the instruments pulse through me, almost loud enough for me to escape the thoughts that are dancing around the edges of my mind. They don’t come close enough for me to understand them yet, but they’re close enough for me to feel that I shouldn’t let them in.

On the morning of the day I killed myself, I arrived to an empty house; everyone else working or at school, contributing to and following their roles in society. I enter the house, pushing past the affections of my loving dogs, and am overcome with the burning need to take my meds, even though, as with attending therapy, I was notorious for nearly always forgetting my meds, or even purposefully not taking them. So I go to the cupboard, take out my blister package, and I swallow my daily dosages. But then that burning need takes over and festers, quickly turning into something, a feeling I don’t quite recognize but is somehow so easily comforting and familiar.

On the morning of the day I killed myself, I took my morning pills. And then I took my morning pills for the next two weeks; my anti-depressants, then my stabilizers, then my anti-psychotics, my stimulant, even my birth control. I watch, as if from out of my body, as I fall into a rhythm, popping the pills out of the foil and plastic packaging, then swallowing each pill one by one with lukewarm water. I don’t know how many I take before I realize I’ve run out of water and I’ve been swallowing them in multiples, dry. Then they’re gone. It’s done and I don’t even realize what it is that I’ve done.

On the morning of the day I killed myself, I shrunk in on myself and sank to the cracked linoleum flooring of my kitchen, right where the red tuck tape that was laid down in an attempt to keep the two cracking pieces together but where it continued to pull apart anyways; Dad always said it was the shifting of the house each season. That red tape is so foreboding and all I can think is that this is an oddly appropriate place to fade away. I sit there and I stare at the empty pack until it’s not the morning anymore; I sit on the cold linoleum until time doesn’t mean anything. I still haven’t registered the consequences of my actions. I think of my brothers and sister, and how they won’t understand. I think of my parents, and how they’ll blame themselves. I think of us at the cottage, when I was young, cuddled up in the bed. I think of the lake at my cottage, and how I used to chase the waves, let their ebb and flow wash over my sandy feet, and how the sun used to dance among them with me. I think of the sun and the way it lit up the pink walls of my childhood. I think of a lot of things until it’s hurting me to think anymore.

And so I stop thinking. And then, not much longer after that, everything else stops, too.