suicide

Depression

    I remember staring down at the ground from my balcony. I remember thinking how it would feel as my body is hurled towards that ground, crashing, breaking into pieces, becoming a pulp of mess. But how everything would end after that. I was only 7 and had just been reprimanded by my mother. Of course, thinking back now with more wisdom and logic, I would’ve probably only suffered a broken arm or leg, but nevertheless, I had always been plagued by these thoughts. Whenever the going got tough, to me, the tough never felt like it would ever go. I would be stuck in my own limbo of depression, going through the hurting scenes over and over again. And each time I did, I only felt worse. So much that I could only beg for it all to end. And it was this ending that was all I ever cared about in limbo. All that I could see.

Throughout my schooling days, I contemplated swallowing poison, slitting my own wrists, jumping from the balcony again (but that point is moot as it’s only the 2nd floor). Everytime I would wonder if anyone would ever miss me. But in limbo, it only ever seems as though they’d be happy that their problems, ie. me, would disappear forever. So I would be doing them a favour. Limbo distorts all facts and leaves me with the bleakest of bleak thoughts.

When my parents made me do things against my own wishes, supposedly for my own good, even after I begged them to let me have my own way, I crept into limbo. Once, I gritted my teeth and banged my head against the wall, literally. The more I knocked, the better it felt. Because the pain numbed every other feeling I had.

When I found out that I had lost love back in college, I stood once more at the edges of my balcony. This time, 12 storeys up, I was convinced that my body would end up in a pulp. But limbo lost its hold on me that time. Even with one leg up, I suddenly realized that dying over love wasn’t really worth it. At least that love wasn’t.

When I got into a heated argument with my sister, all the feelings that were going on inside me sent me into limbo again. This time limbo was overwhelming. I held my breath under water for what seemed like ages. Until my lungs felt like they were about to burst. But limbo lost again as my father knocked on the bathroom door.

When the exam stress threatened to consume me at long last, limbo pulled me back and told me that the people around me didn’t really care. Nobody was there to help. I had nowhere to go…but in limbo, I knew that I had a choice to end everything. And so I swallowed pill after pill after pill. Maybe I didn’t have enough. Because I’m still here.

Everytime I go to limbo, all I see is the end. But I am too weak to reach out for that ending. So weak that each time I’m there, I get so tired that I have to rest. And when I do, the hurt starts to ease and I slowly step out of limbo. But will I ever go there again? I really don’t know. Because as much as I’m too weak to reach for the ending, I’m not strong enough to face my feelings head on. Perhaps limbo is the safest place for me to be when I’m blinded and deafened to everything but the pain. But the day after limbo is always the sorriest, because it is the day when I realize that there are people who love me, who would be sorry that I succumbed to my weakness, who would miss me if I were gone.

If and when you go to your own limbo, it is the time to stay weak. Don’t ever let limbo win. Don’t ever let limbo rob you of the rest of your life.