Deece in Illinois

[00:00:00] The future still feels uncertain from time to time. And that gets me down. And unfortunately, the thing about depression is that it doesn't just go away. It is a chronic illness and it

[00:00:09] will pop up from time to time. And most recently, I was just really feeling it. And I reached out. Hey there, my name is Sean and this is Suicide Noted. On this podcast, I talk with suicide

[00:00:42] attempt survivors so that we can hear their stories. Every year around the world, millions of people try to take their own lives. We almost never talk about it. We certainly don't talk about

[00:00:52] it enough. And when we do talk about it, many of us, including me, we're not very good at it. So one of my goals with this podcast is to have more conversations and hopefully better conversations

[00:01:02] with attempt survivors. Now, if you are a suicide attempt survivor and you'd like to talk, please reach out. Hello at suicidenoted.com on Facebook or Twitter at Suicide Noted. You can learn more about the podcasts in the show notes, including our membership. And a huge thanks to

[00:01:21] Jen, who joined our membership this week. Thank you, Jen. And of course, if you rate and review Suicide Noted on Apple or Spotify, it helps people find the podcast. And of course we want that

[00:01:32] because these conversations are in large part to help more people in more places feel a little less shitty and a little less alone. We're doing the best we can. Finally, we're talking about

[00:01:43] suicide on this podcast. We don't hold back. So take that into account before you listen or as you listen. But I do hope you listen because there's so much to learn. Today, I am talking

[00:01:54] with Dease. Dease lives in Illinois and they are a suicide attempt survivor. Hey Dease, what's going on? Um, nothing much. I'm just chilling in my room. I'm a little nervous about this. Me too.

[00:02:12] Where are you Dease? I am in the suburban land of Chicago, Illinois, which is only one of two states as far as I know that have an S at the end that you don't say. Right next to Arkansas. Dude,

[00:02:24] Dease is on fire. Did I even say thanks for joining me? I did just then. Not yet, but it was implied. I just did it. You hadn't been going through a particularly difficult time the past

[00:02:35] weeks, months. Would you have reached out? So I think the impetus for even finding the podcast was because I was going through a hard time. It's not that anything significant had happened in my

[00:02:46] life. It was just kind of like a bunch of very small things. Debt by a thousand cuts type style. I was driving to school and I just needed something that wasn't my I'm feeling this

[00:02:58] playlist and not my I'm going to the gym to work out and I need to get pumped up music. And so I put on a podcast and I was like, well, I wonder if there's a podcast about,

[00:03:09] you know, stories about people like me who have gone through some of the things I've gone through and lo and behold, how old are you by the way? 22. Do you live at home or you live on your own?

[00:03:19] I live in my own apartment with my roommate, suburban Chicago. And you said you're in school were are in school. I am currently studying. This is my last semester before I achieved my associates

[00:03:31] in sciences. I have plans to transfer to the other community college over the way because they have the cybersecurity program that I'm interested in that my college does not. Cybersecurity. Wow, interesting. So you're in the car, you go to school, you find the podcast and what happens then?

[00:03:51] I just kind of start scrolling through it at first because it's all these different people from all these different places, which is awesome upon reflection, but at the time, not what I was

[00:04:03] looking for. And I find one that is from someone who is from Illinois. And so I pop that on and at first it's not quite gelling with me. I don't know, maybe it was like the way the

[00:04:14] speaker was or maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it. And so I turn that off and I kind of forget about podcasts a little bit until after class I'm driving home and I decide to put it back

[00:04:25] on and I just put on the most recent episode. That episode I gelled with a lot more. The things that were being spoken about, the way that the speaker was talking about them. It just felt a lot more

[00:04:38] in tune with some of the things I had experienced. Well good, I'm glad you found it and I'm glad we're here. Now you have attempted suicide, yes? I have tried two in my life and recently the

[00:04:51] thoughts keep surfacing but there has been no real impetus as of recent. But in the past it was a lot, lot worse. There were new attempts. How long ago was that car ride back from college,

[00:05:07] back from school where you were binging? Or actually you said it was where you were working. Two, three weeks ago. Do you remember more or less when you first started thinking about ending your life for the first time? How young or old were you? Fourth, fifth grade? Somewhere

[00:05:21] around there, yeah. The first time I actually got put into a counseling session because I had told my mom that I wanted to die was in fifth grade. Okay, you told your mom? Well who else am I supposed

[00:05:32] to tell at that point? I don't know. I was really, really angry and sad and then also very angry at myself. And so it just came out, the thoughts that I had been thinking for a while. And my mom's like

[00:05:44] you're going to a counseling session. I specifically remember telling my mom in rebuttal, I said fine I'll go but when it's my turn to talk I'm not going to say anything. Did you say anything?

[00:05:56] When we weren't directly talking about me, I chipped in. When you're 10 years old, that's what fifth grade is, 11, whatever it is. So what's going on in fifth grade that you want to kill yourself or

[00:06:05] thinking about it? So I've actually processed this a lot on my own and also with my therapist. Back then in my childhood I was taught two fundamental but conflicting things by my parents,

[00:06:20] by each parent respectively. Through my mom, she was kind of OCD, would always freak out if anything was a mess and then would ask me to clean things up obviously. And so when I would

[00:06:32] clean things up or if I tried to clean things up in advance to avoid the conflict, whenever I tried to clean something I was always doing it half-assed or I didn't do it enough or I didn't do it at all

[00:06:44] even though I did actually put real effort into my attempt. And so my mom taught me that I can't really do anything right or if I do something I'm not going to be able to do it all the way.

[00:06:57] My father taught me that the only way I can achieve love is through my value to others, like what I can do for others. So when you combine the idea you can't do anything right

[00:07:11] and you can only get love by doing something for others, you're just not going to get any love. And that message internalized itself. I would always beat myself up super hard for my failures

[00:07:22] and I would never recognize my achievements because I'd always say well that's not a real achievement, I actually failed in these other places. But you don't try at 10 years old?

[00:07:33] No, no, no, no, no, no. The one attempt that I had in mind when I first emailed you happened almost exactly five years ago, the 25th of October 2018. I'm 17 at the time.

[00:07:47] Between 10 or 11 when you first say that to your mom and you go to therapy and you don't talk much? Well, I didn't go to therapy. I went to a school counseling session where there were

[00:07:57] five other people in the room, three of them were there for anger issues and only one other person was there because of things that they probably shouldn't have said to their parents. I did not go to a single therapy session until after that attempt five years ago.

[00:08:13] Safe to say that the 11 through 17 were rough years? It was rough from that point forwards because once I had pinpointed the thoughts and emotions that were kind of aimlessly floating through my head, and all this anger and sadness I felt,

[00:08:29] because before it was just this amorphous blob of an idea that I was angry and I was sad at something. I didn't know what it was. Then once I said those words out loud, it solidified in my

[00:08:40] mind as kind of like a, oh, I don't want to live. I was angry because I was alive. I was sad because I was alive and I did not want to live anymore. As soon as I said those words, it became concrete

[00:08:52] in my mind, an embossed plaque. Everything else going forward just kind of fed into that. When you first said that out loud, do you think at that point it's just a matter of time?

[00:09:04] I feel like it's one of those things where it's like when I had that plaque, the cement is still wet. The sidewalk is still wet cement and somebody can walk up and put their

[00:09:14] little handprint in it and draw their initials or whatever. But it was the fact that things kept reinforcing it and nothing was being done to remove it. Those things combined led to the ultimate solidifying of this idea.

[00:09:32] How do you know all this? Where's the awareness coming from? Do you document it? Do you journal it? How do you know? My therapist has said I'm a very introspective person. I tend to agree with

[00:09:43] that. I can pinpoint for you that in seventh grade was when I hit my highest peak. Then high school kept getting worse and worse and worse and worse until senior year hit, and then we had our 10,

[00:09:57] which is what my therapist referred to as that time before, during and after the 10. Getting up to the 10 when you're 17, what stops you from doing it when life sucks your junior year? Why that day in October of 2018? Largely the reason why I survived in my mind was because

[00:10:23] I always had this idea of the things that were keeping me tethered to this world. There weren't many of them. My friend group was a large, large portion of that. I mean, they're the people that

[00:10:36] I spent most of my time with. And they were the only people who actually listened to me and spent time with me. They were my siblings. I love my siblings very, very much. I'm the oldest of four.

[00:10:48] There's technically a fifth that's older than me, but she disowned our family. So but I've got three younger siblings, and there's eight years between me and the oldest of them. And I'm imagining they,

[00:10:59] like a lot of people, don't talk about suicide. Suicide is a very prominent thing that I think a lot of people think about but don't talk about. These are important things that need to get talked

[00:11:10] about. I hate the societal norms of suppressing and repressing things that should generally be talked about, including but not limited to suicide and childhood. Like imagination, like that can get stamped out early. And I hate that I need that because you talk to a child and their

[00:11:28] world is so different from our own, because they fill the gaps with things that are way more fun. And I love that idea. Right? On my first dates, or when I'm first starting to get involved with

[00:11:41] someone, I always mentioned the fact that I have a major depressive disorder, because it is a very important thing to me. Because I will suddenly with no warning, absolutely just become completely withdrawn, very, very down, not providing any energy to like the conversations or to our hangout.

[00:12:03] And I want to make sure that the person I'm going to be spending time with knows that. Makes sense. 17, you actually attempt to take your life. What was that day like? So there was actually one more attempt earlier that year. There's two attempts when you're 17?

[00:12:17] There's two attempts. I would call the earlier one kind of like a half attempt that I, the suicidal ideation was real. And it was just kind of like constantly like mulling over in my

[00:12:29] mind whenever I had a spare moment where I wasn't listening to music or actively playing a game, then I was just thinking about ways to kill myself. And I was like, trying to like scale them

[00:12:42] on like feasibility and then also on like the scale of like, I don't like pain. I really don't the thought to not live anymore is not to kill myself, but it is to stop living. It is if I could

[00:12:56] hit a button and just disappear from existence, then that would have been an instant a heartbeat decision. You would have done it? Yes. If you had done that, and then I had found you today, five years later, and I somehow found

[00:13:09] you on a parallel universe, whatever, you know, kids imagination here, or maybe it's real. And I said, do you regret doing that today as we talk? Would you regret doing that and hitting that button at 17? Yes. All right. Interesting. Interesting. Okay.

[00:13:22] And around this time, I was really starting to browse the internet a little bit more than your casual browser. By that, of course, I mean going on the dark web. And I'm searching these forums and I come across this one marketplace that's selling these illegal PDFs.

[00:13:38] You're saying you can basically make your own poison and it will kill you painlessly at home. That's what the PDF said. I had done more research and it turns out the kitchen version that

[00:13:48] you're making is extremely impure. So you need a lot more of the poison than the actual poison in order to approach lethal doses. And it is also not a painless. And I know this firsthand

[00:14:01] because I had made some and I had it kept in like a little like pen cap capsule thing. In your parents kitchen? No, not in my parents kitchen, but in my in my bedroom in my parents house. And then also in

[00:14:15] the bathroom really late at night once everyone was asleep. And this was like a two week long process, not including shipping time for all the chemicals I had to order. Then I have like

[00:14:26] a tiny little capsule, like maybe think of like a thimble full of dust and swipe dust. And one particular day, the suicidal ideations were really, really strong. And I just like I couldn't handle

[00:14:40] it anymore. I didn't want to be alive. I didn't want to go to home. And it was lunch period. And so my plan was I went to the cafeteria, got a ramen cup, and I made myself some ramen. I also

[00:14:52] got myself a cookie because your last meal. Yeah, it's a cookie, right? Come on. Yeah, I'm gonna get myself a cookie and a soda and some ramen made the ramen. And I was waiting

[00:15:03] for it to like finish like cooking because you gotta like what the water sit for a little while. And also it's really hot. You're not going to drink boiling hot ramen. And then I emptied the capsule

[00:15:12] into the ramen and I stirred it up in the cafeteria. I talked to a teacher who had a room right next to the cafeteria that I was allowed to chill in during lunch. It was just a much quieter place

[00:15:24] to chill and hang out with less people, less attention, and just more to myself rather than in this big loud cafeteria where somebody might come up and decide to fuck with me because I was

[00:15:36] a weak little lad in a room with only one other person in that room who was another student, but they were kind of like around the corner a little bit. And so it was just kind of like

[00:15:47] they weren't watching me. I emptied the capsule stirred it up and then waited for the ramen to cool. You're just chilling. You're like, I'm ready. Hearts pounding a little bit because

[00:15:56] you're nervous. But it's like it's a slow process where it's like I have to go to the cafeteria. I have to fill it with water. I have to purchase it. I have to bring it back to the room without

[00:16:05] spilling it, open it up, empty the capsule, stir it, wait for it to cool. So it was very much a deliberate, slow thing. But like you're nervous the whole time. And then it comes to the time

[00:16:18] and I'm starting to have like doubts. And I'm starting to have like things and then all of a sudden this like coldness enters my body. Like literally like a chill. Like I could not feel my

[00:16:29] fingertips or toes type of cold. And it was it was like warm in the room. I was wearing good clothes, but like my body felt cold and it was like steel. And then I just like went to town on the ramen.

[00:16:41] And I just like ate it all up. And I made sure I drank all the broth. And I did not stop until it was gone. And then I sat there and it was kind of like, Oh God, what have I done? And then nothing

[00:16:51] happens for a little while. And then I kind of come to terms with it. And I'm like, well, this was a shady thing I found on the internet. So maybe not. And then all of a sudden I had the impulse to

[00:17:03] vomit very much. And so I got out of the classroom and I ran down the hall to the bathroom. And then I start puking. And then I'm like, well, I guess maybe inhaling ramen is not the greatest for your

[00:17:15] stomach. And then I start puking and puking and puking to the point where I cannot stop. Yeah, I am just barely gasping for air. I'm trying to find air between the vomit. And like vomit is

[00:17:28] getting into my lungs is how much I'm vomiting. You could have died from that. Yes. And easily. While I was vomiting, I was like, Alright, so I'm going to vomit so much. I'm going to asphyxiate on

[00:17:39] my own vomit. Right? All right, great. But eventually, I find like this like little pause in between. And I get on my phone, and I dial the number for the CDC. I had heard somewhere that the

[00:17:53] CDC is like responsible for like poisoning. And so I hop on the phone. And I wait for someone to answer while it's dialing I vomit more. And then someone picks up and then they're like, Hello, CDC.

[00:18:05] And then I was like, I think I've been poisoned. And then they're like, All right, you need to hang up and call 911 right now. And I was like, Okay, and then I hung up and did not call 911. Because

[00:18:14] I did not want the police. I'm going to die. I just want to die. I don't want to be rushed to a hospital. You frame this first one as a quote, half attempt. I want to share something with you.

[00:18:23] There's nothing about that. That feels half to me. Well, that's why when I was talking about I was like, I had two attempts, because it didn't feel like a for sure I'm going to die. I was

[00:18:38] actively seeking people to help me out of it. Like I called the CDC. At a certain point, I called my friend to come help me. Oh, I see what you're saying. If it was a full attempt, you would never

[00:18:49] have made those calls. You would have done everything you can to die. Exactly. All right. That's the distinction in my mind, at least. Yeah. Also, like, there are more surefire ways to ensure that you are going to die.

[00:19:01] And like, I had reasons to doubt it because I found I read about how impure it was and how much more you needed to achieve a lethal dose. At that time, it was more of the desire to disappear

[00:19:16] than it was to die. How does that day end? You walk out of the bathroom and just go on with things and no one knows that vomited in the stall. Correct. Finished vomiting. I wipe my face

[00:19:27] with toilet paper. I flush the toilet, give myself a little splash of water. Because I was crying. I went back to the room. I finished my lunch and I went on with my day. Just kind of like in this

[00:19:40] really low stupor of being so exhaustingly disappointed with myself, because this was just another failure. And so you don't go to a hospital, police don't find out, mom doesn't find out, nobody finds out. Nope. How many people know to this day about that day? You and maybe one

[00:19:57] other person I may have told. I don't even think I've told my partner. I told my partner about the other attempt. How many months or weeks go by between this one and the other? At most a year.

[00:20:09] At least a month. It is indeed easy, yes. And it definitely didn't happen in the summer. Bring it, tell me. We're in my senior year and I had finally gotten over this obsession I had with this one girl. A complete unhealthy stalker-like obsession. Okay. And I'm ashamed to

[00:20:30] admit it, but I was that Scott Pilgrim nice guy energy. But it was definitely that sort of obsession. It's beside the point. Did you get the girl? No. I accepted that as another ultimate failure.

[00:20:47] And I was like, oh, well, I couldn't make it work with this girl, so I'll never have love in my life. I had finally come to the cusp. I had finally gotten over the obsession I had with this girl

[00:20:57] by realizing that I can never get with her. I had finally realized in my life that the lie I had been leading about my future was unreal and unlivable. And so it was like my future was nothing in my

[00:21:14] mind. I was going nowhere. I had no plans. I had not applied to any colleges. I did not know what I wanted to do. I knew that what everyone thought about me was a very well-crafted lie that I made

[00:21:27] everyone believe. However much I can make other people believe a lie, that lie is still not the truth. My concept of what I was capable of was very, very low. And at the time, I was still

[00:21:42] very, very untreatedly depressed. And then it got to the point where I just couldn't stop thinking about it and thinking about it and thinking about it. And one day, the suicidal ideation got so good that are so bad, I should say. A little slip there. Okay.

[00:21:58] So good that it happened. I stopped at a Walmart at one point, and I got myself I was just like picking up some like snacks or something. But like I the ideation was going through my mind and I

[00:22:10] stopped by the hardware section and I got rope that was rated enough to carry or to hold 130 pounds, which is what I was at the time. And then I just kind of stashed it in my bag. And then I forgot

[00:22:25] about it moved on. And then a few weeks go by and it gets even worse. October 24. I type up a suicide letter, which I still have in my Google Drive somewhere. And then I printed out go through

[00:22:43] the entire school day, I submit the printed suicide letter into my English professor, he had a dropbox outside of his door where students would submit their essays. I made sure my essay was submitted behind other people's essays. So nobody can see the suicide letter right on the front.

[00:23:00] It wouldn't be until the professor had taken out the papers, because I wanted people to know that I had died so they could find my body. But I didn't want them to know until after I had died.

[00:23:09] Because if you tell someone before you die this cry for help, and I didn't want help. I just wanted people to find my body. So it wasn't picked over by maggots and crows. I stuffed it in the

[00:23:19] back of the box after hours after I knew the professor had left for the day. I was staying after for club. And the story I told my parents was because it was a Thursday, I was a part of

[00:23:32] the chess team. And on Thursdays, the chess team goes and has a meet. So I was away with the chess team at a meet, supposedly, actually, I was at school waiting until after hours and I knew the

[00:23:43] professor had gone home and he would not see it until tomorrow, drop the letter in there. And then I leave the school. It's still kind of bright out. And I went to a forest preserve that's nearby

[00:23:53] found some random part of the trail and I just kind of walked off into the woods. And I just started looking for a downed log or an easily climbable tree. I found a downed log that was

[00:24:05] pretty large, hopped on the log, boss the rope over a high branch, tied myself in news, which at this point I knew how to do by muscle memory. And then I made sure it was tied tight, it wasn't gonna like

[00:24:17] fall or slip or anything like that. Thanks to the Boy Scouts for teaching me knots. I set all of my things in my bag, which is down next to the stone, including my shoes and socks. Don't know why but

[00:24:30] it was really important to me that I died without my shoes and socks on. And then I stepped into the news. There was a long quiet moment, just listening to the wind and the trees and feeling the cold on

[00:24:42] my skin, just kind of like on my tiptoes right at the edge of this log. And once again, that chill entered my body. And I just stepped off the log. Now this log was high enough in the air that it

[00:24:54] easily I would have not been able to touch the ground or anything I for a good while I hung there. Immediately as soon as I stepped off that log, things begin to flash into my head of things that

[00:25:06] I had not yet done, and things that I wished I could do. And all of the things that I would not have been able to do. And all of the people's lives that I would not be able to touch. All of a sudden

[00:25:18] the impetus to live entered my body for the first time in what felt like a while that chill rush out of me. And even the cold of the October air was no longer kissing my skin. I wasn't sway I was

[00:25:35] swaying a little bit, but suddenly I kicked my legs the night before it had rained. And the rain had made the limbs of the tree that I tied it to bendy more bendy than usual. And so I was lower

[00:25:48] than I thought I was going to be low enough that when I swung myself back enough, I was able to catch the log with the tip of my toes and pull myself back onto the log very, very, very slight.

[00:26:02] Imagine like a Bugs Bunny cartoon where he runs off a cliff and then grabs like the dining board with his toes. And that's the difference of maybe life and death right there. Truly. If I had not

[00:26:13] been able to grab that log in that moment, I would have slipped off and that would have been it. I like this rush of adrenaline and endorphins is running through my mind. I take the noose off. Now

[00:26:24] something I had done before I jumped and it's now just entering my mind is I had called 911 and I had told them that I had saw a person hanging from some trees in the forest preserve.

[00:26:38] They started asking me more questions, asked me to stay on the line, you know, I was pretending just to be like a casual runner through the woods and I saw someone hanging.

[00:26:46] Sure. And I hung up the phone, toss it my bag, and then did the thing. And then I got on the log. And immediately I felt this adrenaline. And it was like, Alright, if I don't get out of here right

[00:26:57] now, the police are going to come. I'm going to tell my parents and I'm thought take off the noose. I put on my shoes. I don't even put on my socks. I grabbed my bag and I book it for the

[00:27:06] trail. I get on the trail and I'm just walking back to my car and I see a police cruiser rolling. They were like, Hey, what are you doing? And then I'm like, um, I'm going my car. I finished my run

[00:27:16] and then they're like, Alright, have you seen anything? And I was like, No, why? What happened? And then they're like, All right, and carry on or whatever. And then I got in my car and I drove

[00:27:26] away. But I didn't go home. Because this was yet another failure. And then I entered another stupor of this like down once the adrenaline and run off. And it was like, obviously, having moments

[00:27:39] before I die is not going to be enough. It's got to be an impulse. So I drive to a nearby mall, and I go to the top of the parking garage. And I'm just chilling there. Obviously, the idea is

[00:27:51] to jump off the top of the parking garage. Remember those thoughts you had? And it clearly took almost dying to have these thoughts. You couldn't do it an hour or a day or a month before

[00:28:00] of what lies you in your poetic way of saying it, you know, who what lives Am I going to touch? That doesn't last? No. Once the adrenaline wears off, then it's just this immense tiredness again,

[00:28:12] I bet that you don't jump off. I'm not paralyzed. And I'm here telling you the story. So this is why I'm doing the podcast. I'm the one because I can put these things together like

[00:28:22] did you almost jump? No, I sat in my car. Okay. And I was listening to my I'm feeling these emotions playlist, which has been with me for like ever at this moment. The snacks I bought

[00:28:34] at Walmart were cosmic brownies. And I have the cosmic brownies in my glove box. And I'm sitting there and I'm just thinking and I'm just thinking about what just happened. And I'm processing those

[00:28:44] emotions. And the thought is like, well, they're going to discover the note and that note is going to get reported to my parents and possibly the police. Living past this moment is going to be

[00:28:55] very difficult, right? So the thought is, if I cannot bear to stand those emotions and feelings, then I would jump off the parking garage and that would be it. And I'm just sitting there thinking

[00:29:08] about those flashes. And I'm thinking about what what are those things that I want to do? Who are those people that I want to touch? And what am I touching them about? Obviously not like physically

[00:29:18] touching them? Well, kind of maybe I didn't have a serious partner until that time. So like maybe a little bit of physical touch stuff. But it was just kind of like this moment of just sitting in my car.

[00:29:28] It's running. I've got the heat going because it's fucking cold out. The sun has gone down by now. And I'm just sitting there and I've got cosmic brownie in my hand. And suddenly I hear a knock

[00:29:38] on the window. Sure enough, it's the like security and they're like doing their laps and they see a stalled car just running at the top of parking garage. So they go to check it out. And they're

[00:29:50] like, Hey, you doing all right? I'm freaked out because I'm like, I already had a run in with the police today and I barely got out of that. And then I'm like, but no way they connect me to that.

[00:30:00] Because there's no connection. Right? And so they're just checking on and they see a suspicious view. Yeah, I'm just sitting here. I had plans with a friend, but they canceled on me. We're

[00:30:10] gonna go play some magic. And then he was like, All right, you got anything in the car I need to know about? And then I'm like, not some magic cards in my glove box. And I've got some cosmic

[00:30:19] brownies. Do you want one? And then he's like, No, I'm good. And I'm like, All right, I show him like the cosmic brownie box and then they leave. And then that's like the confirmation of like,

[00:30:29] all right, well, I can't do it here. There's too many people I'm being watched and whatnot. And I already gave them the excuse that I got canceled and I'm going to go home. So at that

[00:30:39] point, I pack it up meaning put the cosmic brownies back in the glove box. And then I go home. What I didn't know is that there's this giant red ring right around my neck from where

[00:30:50] the rope was. But in the darkness of the car, they couldn't see that. But when I go home, I'm going to my room, or actually I'm going to the bathroom because there was always this one

[00:31:01] sanctuary where I could go whenever I was feeling really, really down. And I needed to just process these emotions just enough to get through it. I could take a shower, you don't know what about

[00:31:13] the shower, but just being enveloped in the hot water just makes my brain hit overdrive. And I just work through things way quicker than I do when I'm just standing. So I'm going to take a

[00:31:24] shower. As I'm going to the shower, my mom stops me, she notices the ring around my neck. And I don't remember the conversation, but I just kind of play it off. And then I come up with some

[00:31:37] excuse. I was really good at doing that. If you can't tell at this point, I went and took a shower, went to bed and tried to forget it, it even happened. Next day at school, go through all

[00:31:47] my first period. And then it's starting to feel like a normal day. And then I go to my second period. And it's about halfway through my second period when one of counselors from the counselor

[00:31:58] office come down. I was like, Hey, your counselor wants to talk to you upstairs. Can you come with me? And then I was like, Yeah, sure. And then I knew immediately what this was about. And I just

[00:32:11] wanted to know how much they knew and what had been done about it. That information gathering stage, I go up to the counselor's office. And sure enough, the counselor sitting there, she talks

[00:32:22] about it. She's like, this note was submitted to your English professor, he forwarded it to me. She shows me the funniest piece of paper I've ever seen in my life. She slides across the desk,

[00:32:32] what is very clearly a suicide letter. And about halfway down the pages are just red marks. My English professor had grammatically created my fucking suicide note. Fucking hysterical. Halfway through those marks stop. Talk about failure, niece. You can't even be grammatically correct in your fucking suicide

[00:32:51] note? Come on, man. There were a lot of things happening in that moment. And shame was one of them. But they were really obvious grammatical errors too. And you can tell someone did not put a lot

[00:33:03] of thought and just type out the words. Oh my gosh, I'm like... So like in the moment when you said you're actually going to kill yourself, there was some dangling participle or misplaced modifier and your teacher just had to point it out.

[00:33:15] Well, I'm certain this teacher gets a stack of papers submitted to them pretty constantly. Of course. They have a stack of papers, they put it on their desk and then they pop a wine,

[00:33:26] pop like a bottle of sherry. And then they pour themselves a glass. Start going through, mark, mark, mark, mark, here's your grade, done. Mark, mark, mark, mark, here's your grade, comment, done. Mark, mark, mark, oh my God, it's me after class, done. Get to the next one.

[00:33:40] Mark, mark, mark, mark. I need to talk to someone about this. Yeah. What'd you say though? So how did the counselor's conversation end? It ended with them telling me that they had contacted my mom.

[00:33:53] And they asked me about the red ring on my neck and I made up a halfway bullshit story. During this whole time, I was very suicidal. I learned how to tie a noose by muscle memory.

[00:34:05] And sometimes I would go to sleep with the noose on with the thought that at some point it might strangle me in my sleep. They don't find out about the actual attempt, but it's still from probably parents' point of view, school's point of view, a problem.

[00:34:23] When you say you're suicidal, what do they do then? Do they send you somewhere? Yeah. They keep me in the counselor's, in that office specifically until my parents arrive. And then they take me to a behavioral health clinic where they diagnose you. I get dropped

[00:34:42] there. And you got to keep you think this is like second period at a school at a high school where classes start at eight. So this is like maybe like 1011 ish. I get there, put me in a

[00:34:52] room pretty much by myself. And I'm just waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. And this room is very clearly like designated for children that are younger than me. Yeah, there's like

[00:35:04] this little like screen on the wall, like a little touchscreen thing that's got like some games on it was like some little like puzzle things. There's this foreboding room that's just a desk and three

[00:35:14] chairs. And then there's like the door out which has been closed. One of my parents is watching over me pretty consistently. At first it's my mom for a little bit. And then she switches over with my dad.

[00:35:27] That's my dad for a lot of it. I'm there for 12 hours, asked me some questions, including about the ring. I gave him the same bullshit story about sleeping with a new son, which happened

[00:35:38] sometime in the past, but not that night. And that's not how I got the mark, obviously. And then they have a talk two hours later with my parent, my dad at the time, another couple hours

[00:35:48] go by. And then they talked to me and my parents a couple more hours go by and I'm told that I have I have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. And that thing me and suicidal ideations.

[00:36:01] And because of that, I am going to be sent to a behavioral health inpatient program from the face from the perspective of the other people in my life. I just disappeared. There was I did not

[00:36:14] have any way to contact people. I did not have any sort of anything. I didn't show up to school, no last words, no letter, no discord message, nothing for about a week. And I was in the same

[00:36:26] inpatient program. And I was just kind of going through like, this big numbness of like, I'm going to tell people what they want to hear so that then I can be done with this and I can move on. I go

[00:36:42] through that week of inpatient, completely removed from all normalcy, and surrounded by people who are similarly my age, and going through supposedly similar things. But having this like, big kind of like, the air felt thick. And it was like these other people, and the it's like really weird

[00:37:06] people that are like trying to be nice to you, but are also like trying to grill you for information at the same time. And this whole time you're giving them the bare minimum and nothing more.

[00:37:17] Just kind of like feeling checking the boxes. And then a week goes by and I'm released. They sign me up for an outpatient program, which I then go to for the next month of my life. Instead of going

[00:37:30] to school, I'm going to outpatient. Okay, same thing there. Just kind of like the bare minimum. At certain point, it literally just becomes the same thing as school something you show up to

[00:37:40] because you were told. Yeah. At one point, it kind of became a game. Yeah, I realized that I could like, they do this like person check before you go into like tricky for stuff. In case you don't

[00:37:51] have like so you don't have any like razors or other contraband on you. It became a game on like, what can I smuggle into this place? At first, I had this like jacket that had like a little zipper

[00:38:01] thing. And I had gotten like some dumb dumbs, like the little lollipops inside. And then I was like, Oh, I wonder what else I could get near because obviously these weren't found. And then

[00:38:12] I got a can of Campbell soup, three pairs of shoes. And then my piece that is this, I got a whole watermelon in there. Trying to think of the title of the memoir here.

[00:38:24] I've got a lot of options. I'm not settled on a title and I may not be but before we finish, but I do know this somewhere in the title, perhaps more likely in the subtitle, it will be grammatically incorrect. At some point you get out of outpatient. Yeah,

[00:38:39] I get out of outpatient. And I'm just kind of like dropped back into normal world into like the normal real world. Yeah, and that's fucking weird. Now, it was really weird, the family dynamic that happened at home, because obviously things weren't the greatest.

[00:38:54] And while I was inpatient, they made me talk to my parents, which was terrifying. And I had to request things that would make me feel secure going back home. And this whole time I'm like,

[00:39:06] I don't know. And so I just made some bullshit up. And they actually followed those requests of mine for about a week and a half. And then it was right back to business as usual. And then I'm

[00:39:19] dropped back into real life. And all of my friends and the people who are close to me and my classmates were like, Where'd you go? The hospital, I guess that was that was weird. But I go through the

[00:39:30] rest of high school with this like sense of optimism that I didn't have before. And the sense that like, there are things I want to do. And I'm going through a really hard time. But I am

[00:39:42] going through it. Obviously, some forces beyond my control are pushing the strings in slight ways, like the tree was a little bit more bendy than usual, I was able to grab onto that log, which

[00:39:56] was kind of like an almost impossible task. But it all happened. And so this like kind of like weird mysticism and optimism filled me. And I go to my community college that I'm at right now,

[00:40:09] because they had rolling admission at the time. And it was a cheap place I could go like pay for it. And I actually go through my life pretty normally. Now I am still very depressed at this

[00:40:19] time, but not nearly as much as I was nice. And I'm still very emotionally immature, because I had not done a lot of growing in this time, just a lot of self pity, really. I mean, it's hard to grow when you're depressed.

[00:40:32] It was just kind of like that. And then the next kind of like eras of my life will just skip right through it because they can be characterized by the person I was dating at

[00:40:41] the time. Oh, so right out of the hospital, I was dating this girl named, we'll just do initials for now. Sure. This girl named Kay. And I met her in hospital. Obviously, I know how to pick them.

[00:40:54] It was just kind of like this idea of a relationship, something I had failed to obtain in high school. And rather than the actual relationship itself with this person. So it

[00:41:05] didn't pan out. They were really nice, though. And then I went to my college years. And I met this another person named Jay. Jay. And they were really cool and way more mature than I was.

[00:41:19] I was still very emotionally mature, not ready for a relationship. And they broke up with me because of that. Shortly after that relationship, I got in a relationship with a a. And that was the

[00:41:29] most terrifying toxic relationship of my entire life. At one point, she had convinced me to move away from my parents and my siblings in with her into her grandmother's basement with her dog who shouldn't test everyone. That relationship ended because she cheated on me with my best friend.

[00:41:46] Oh, another thing I got to mention about a a convinced me to do substance for the first time. I say convinced it was more of a manipulation. I was hard and fast throughout my entire childhood

[00:41:57] up to that point, that I was not going to do any substance. At that point, I even demonized people who did substance, including like some of the people in my life that were really important.

[00:42:06] She came in manipulated me into doing stuff. And then all of a sudden, all that was broken apart, which was great, because I actually wanted to break connecting with some of the people in my life,

[00:42:14] but not great because now I did substance, mostly just weed and alcohol. And this is like height of COVID. And so now I'm in Chicago, and I'm just trying to like get my bearings and figure things

[00:42:27] out. And then I start dating this girl named LL. And that would characterize the next two ish years of my life. But the relationship with L was the most loved I had ever felt in my entire

[00:42:40] life. And then about halfway through those two years after right around the one year mark, it became very problematic. Turns out that once you get to know someone so much, their true side starts to show after a little while and my true side was showing as well as

[00:42:55] their true side. And turns out our true sides not compatible. Wow. We're trying to make it work though. Not really. You're dating all these women. And it's getting progressively better as I start

[00:43:06] to as I'm dating this woman, it's increases in my self respect. And I'm learning big lessons from each relationship, like the relationship with K, I learned I did desire love. But I also learned

[00:43:21] the type of person that I was interested in. And my relationship with J, I learned that I still had more emotional growing to do when my with my relationship with a I'm really learned self confidence and self respect. entering that relationship by no self respect, which is why

[00:43:38] I got pushed around and manipulated a lot. And then out of that relationship, I had the self confidence enough to leave that relationship. And I learned self confidence and I learned self reliance to after my relationship with L, I realized a lot more like the inner complexities

[00:43:54] of my depression, and of my what I deserved in life. Now, just to be clear, are you intentionally dating women who only have? Can you repeat letters? If you meet another a will you date

[00:44:07] them? Or it's just no chance? No, I can repeat letter. Well, you have a current partner. What's the first letter there? The first letter of their name is a All right, well, there you go. Two ways.

[00:44:18] So you've been learning things and going through ups and downs, you're still depressed. And then not that long ago, full circle, you are driving to and from school, listening to a podcast called

[00:44:31] suicide noted, some of the some of the episodes don't connect some do. And you contact me because after my relationship with L, I moved back in with my parents for a little while,

[00:44:44] they find out that I am taking hormone replacement therapy. Why, as I mentioned in the email to you, I prefer myself to be androgynous. I'm like kind of straddling that line between male and female.

[00:44:57] So I had been taking feminizing hormones for about a year at that point, the whole plan was to start the hormones when I went off to college. And then not tell anyone until I got finished

[00:45:07] with college. So there was nothing they could do about it except decide whether or not they wanted to accept me as I am because I never really felt comfortable in this body, which was in

[00:45:16] retrospect, a big issue with my depression is that I never felt attracted to myself at all. I felt disgusted by myself to the point where I would even like subconsciously avoid mirrors,

[00:45:26] like I could take an entire shower and be in the bathroom without ever once looking in the mirror. They issue this ultimatum to me, and my mom was dropping me off at school,

[00:45:38] and I could tell something was wrong. And so I grilled it for information. And she let it slip this ultimatum that I either stop doing that shit that's fucking you up, referring to the hormones,

[00:45:48] immediately stopped talking to those assholes who put the shit in your head referring to my friends who were my support group at the time and hospitalized myself. Because of these hormones, I wasn't even living in their house. I was living in my grandmother's house. She lived next door.

[00:46:03] And they were going to convince my grandmother to kick me out. My grandmother's old school, so I didn't think that she would be on the level of like understanding that. But it turns out that

[00:46:13] day when I went back home and packed up all my shit, she came home, asked me why I was packing, I told her, and she was actually way more accepting than I thought she was. Well, grandma,

[00:46:24] when I got finished explaining it, she's like, Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, like, I see you growing up and I see your brother growing up and you guys are very different. I felt more seen in my entire life. Amazing, amazing. Love my grandmother so much. I visit

[00:46:36] her once a week. I try to at least. However, my parents have raided the room, taken my hormone therapy meds in addition to some of my other things. And it was a clear message that as long

[00:46:49] as I stayed there, I was not safe to be myself. I was going to be consistently and constantly under their rule and their control. I was not ready to give up the things that were giving me happiness,

[00:47:02] my friends, the hormone replacement therapy, the changes I was making in my life. And so I kind of crash landed in my friend's basement. Fortunately, I had a wide net of friends to catch

[00:47:14] me and everyone was lending their support. My parents had taken my phone so the only way I could contact people was through email and discord off of my laptop, which was all whole fucking experience

[00:47:26] when you're only able to connect with people when you have Wi Fi is weird man. All of a sudden, you're trying to like connect with people but the only connection you have to the society around you

[00:47:37] is like time. You don't even have a way to keep track of time because I don't have a phone. So I got like some shitty little pocket watch out of a dollar store. And I use that to keep track of time

[00:47:47] and I had to like spring it up every day. Luckily, I was employed at Costco at this time. So being able to work and then also having that net of friends, but I was homeless going couch to couch

[00:47:58] for two months. And during this time, I became insane, literally insane. At this time, I was literally starting to see and hear things that were not real. I was starting to have delusions, uh huh, starting to have hallucinations. I was starting to have irregular sleep patterns. Turns

[00:48:19] out when you lose a lot of that stability in your life, a lot of it goes. Isn't that interesting? After I got finished being homeless, as soon as I got that apartment, I got a therapist. And I

[00:48:32] started talking to a therapist, the therapist I'm currently talking to today. And they updated my diagnosis from major depressive disorder to major depressive disorder with psychotic symptoms. And then I, the rest is kind of history. Do you live with your partner now in that place?

[00:48:47] No, no, no, no, no. I live with my coworker who's my roommate, but I met my partner and they were a very big reason on why I stayed in Illinois. My education is here. My job is here. Family that

[00:49:00] I do care about is here. My friends are here, the limited amount of them that remain. So I just I had a lot of reasons to stay. Yeah. Despite having made what my therapist calls a full recovery from

[00:49:12] being completely psychotic and having suicidal ideations years ago to today, where I am actually looking forward to tomorrow, and loving and enjoying life. I have a bunch of things that I want to do projects that I've started. I have a lot of hobbies that I'm really interested in.

[00:49:31] I have a very, very loving and caring relationship with this wonderful, awesome person. Life is feeling a lot more complete and doable. The future still feels uncertain from time to time. And that gets me down. And unfortunately, the thing about depression is that it doesn't just go away.

[00:49:48] It is a chronic illness, and it will pop up from time to time. And most recently, I was just really feeling it. And I reached out, even though I was at a point in my life, psychotic. And even though

[00:50:00] at a point in my life, I was literally hanging from a tree, that perseverance and that drive to keep going. And to strive into the unknown has opened doors that I never thought I would ever see

[00:50:14] has gifted me an appreciation for the life and beauty that surrounds me not only in nature, but also in the people that I just didn't have before. Wow. You might even call that a success story. Yeah, I would say so. That's what is implied by a full recovery.

[00:50:34] Right. How many people know that we're talking? You, me, my therapist. How many people know about the full attempt, the tree? Quite a few. It's not a secret I try to keep. All my close friends, my partner, my therapist, pretty much anyone who wants to know.

[00:50:49] Why are you not on social media? I hate the mainstream. And also, I just keep hearing these awful stories about social media and people falling into these holes. I'm able to connect with people well enough. I mean,

[00:51:01] I've got a phone number you can text me. That's good enough. Hell, I'll even call you up time to time. I'm old school that way. I think I know the answer to this next question. But how many people do you have in your life

[00:51:10] that you can have a difficult conversation with about hard things you're going through? So many, easily over 20. I got a pretty wide circle of people that are very close and dear to me. That's awesome. Where are you with your transition?

[00:51:23] I am exactly where I want to be. I have a feminine, but also not exceptionally feminine body to the point where I can be easily mistaken for a woman or a man. I get manned and served all day long at Costco.

[00:51:38] Do you ever wish, let's say in the last, this calendar year, have you ever thought, I wish that day at the tree turned out differently? No. When you're feeling shitty, what helps? Zowers, this playlist that doesn't bring me deeper into my sadness, but just lets me work

[00:51:55] through it. Immediately after I start, I feel that isolation period start to wear off, reaching out to the people around me, my friends, to my partner, just going to hang out with them and maybe talking

[00:52:09] about what I went through, but not necessarily to talk about what I went through, but just to get that social contact. You want to study cybersecurity? Yes. Ideally, I would become a penetration tester. What does that mean?

[00:52:22] Essentially, in our cyber world, the best way to make sure you're secure is to have someone try to break in. Then luckily they're on your payroll, so they tell you how they did it. Awesome. You get paid to break shit.

[00:52:34] What are the odds that you're going to make it to 30 years old? I would say pretty high, but we never know what tomorrow brings. That's why I'm eager to get my story out there.

[00:52:45] Yeah, so true. Yeah, that's kind of cool about podcasts is they're not going to be forever, but they're going to be around for a while. If this gets published to Spotify, then this interview will remain for as long as the Spotify platform does.

[00:52:58] My last question question is, what are any major myths you want to dispel? It's more accepted among the people that you love to talk about it than maybe you think. I know I

[00:53:12] definitely thought that I was going to be alien, like dropped off the face of the earth and ignored if I talked about it to anyone. You may not feel comfortable talking about it,

[00:53:23] and that's perfectly fine. But people are willing to talk about the things that are troubling you, and that's what makes them your close circle. There will always be somebody out there who is willing to listen. I hope so. I hope that's true. Yeah.

[00:53:36] Give them my contact info. I'll listen. Here you go. Do you talk to your parents? Or do they talk to you? Sparingly. More my mother than my father. It turns out in more recent months, my father has taken a turn for the more asshole-ish, we'll say.

[00:53:52] I said it was my last one, but this is my last one. Do you think you will listen to this podcast when it comes out and or share it with people in your life?

[00:53:59] Yes, I definitely will be listening to it. And then after I've listened to it, I'm going to send it to my therapist, to my partner, and maybe a few other people who are curious about this period of my life. Very cool.

[00:54:09] Right at the end, if I may, can I just read the entry page to Quintessence Companion? Definitely. Yeah. History will repeat itself. Of this we are certain. But have you learned from when it does?

[00:54:21] Or perhaps you have naively determined the past to stay with its ghosts and burned histories. You have already lived. What have you changed from last time? Thanks for sharing that. And Quintessence Companion, aka QC, was the book that you kept

[00:54:38] with graphic images and words and ideas when you're going through a tough time. Just wanted to let the audience know that. Now, anything else you'd like to share? I feel like I definitely said all of the important parts. Deacin Illinois, thank you very much.

[00:54:56] Thank you for listening and providing a platform for people like myself and others like me to talk about these things. I really appreciate it. My pleasure. Enjoy your day. Take care. Thanks again. Bye.

[00:55:14] As always, thanks so much for listening and all of your support. Special thanks to Deacin Illinois. Thank you, Deacin. And thank you again to Jen, our most recent member. If you want to learn more

[00:55:26] about that and a bunch of other things, check the show notes and of course rate and review this podcast Suicide Noted on Apple or Spotify. It really helps people find it. Thanks so much for

[00:55:35] that. And that is all for episode number 192, Happy-ish Holidays. Stay strong. Do the best you can. I'll talk to you soon.