X in Estonia 🇪🇪

[00:00:00] I used to always go out and watch sunsets. I felt calm and warm and you felt how nice it was. But now I'm sitting there, my brain understands that it's nice. Now you should smile.

[00:00:11] The feeling inside is the same when you're sitting on a couch watching a wall. Hey there, my name is Sean and this is Suicide Noted. On this podcast, I talk with suicide attempt survivors so that we can hear their stories.

[00:00:46] Every year around the world, millions of people try to take their own lives and we almost never talk about it. We certainly don't talk about it enough and when we do talk about it, many of us, including me, not very good at it.

[00:00:57] So one of my goals with this podcast is to have more conversations, hopefully better conversations with attempt survivors in large part to hopefully help more people in more places feel a little less shitty and a little less alone.

[00:01:10] And however you have been a part of that, whether this is your first time listener or you were a regular listener or guest or supporter or all of the above or some of the above. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

[00:01:22] Now, if you are a suicide attempt survivor and you'd like to talk, please reach out hello at suicide noted.com on Facebook or x at suicide noted and you can check the show notes to learn more about the podcast, including our membership and some other cool stuff.

[00:01:37] So check that out if you'd like. And remember we are talking about suicide on this podcast and we don't hold back. So please take that into account before you listen or as you listen. But I do hope you listen because there is so much to learn.

[00:01:49] Today I am talking with X. X lives in Estonia and he is a suicide attempt survivor. Hey X, you're the first person I've spoken to for this podcast from Estonia. Any of the Baltics? Well, it's kind of a shameful subject in our country. Suicide is a shameful subject.

[00:02:13] I would think so. Yeah. I don't talk about it very much. Are we allowed to group the Baltic countries together? Obviously, you're unique Lithuania and Latvia. I'm just showing off that I know my geography. Yeah, I would say so. Yeah.

[00:02:27] I'm not sure though, but I think it's correct. A lot of people trying to end their lives. Some people want to talk about it. Some of them even reach out to me like you. None of them have ever been in Estonia ever.

[00:02:39] The beginnings of the conversation, which you've already kind of begun. Do X have attempted to take your life or come real close? I think come real close. I haven't attempted, but I have done some stupid stuff. Okay. Not my words, his words.

[00:02:57] Are you in the capital of Estonia? No, I'm in a mid-sized city. A mid-sized city. Got cool wallpaper behind you. We have three options here. One, we could do it in Russian, but that would be awful. Two, I wouldn't be able to.

[00:03:11] We could do this interview in Estonian, which actually might be really good so people didn't have to hear me blabbing so much. That would be fascinating. But I think before we got on, we decided we're going to go with English. Yeah.

[00:03:23] I mean, if my English is okay, then I'm comfortable speaking it. Yeah. And my Estonian is a little rusty. You know Estonian? No, I don't know a word. You'll teach me a word or two. Let's start off with that word. What's the word for suicide in Estonian? Enesetap.

[00:03:40] Enesetap? Yeah. No, I know. My pronunciation is going to be awful. And that is a word that people don't like saying much in Estonia. You said there's a lot of shame around suicide. Yeah, I would say so.

[00:03:52] I don't know if it's a shame, but I mean the topic has risen in the past few years more. Yeah, there's like posters for kids and hotlines. Don't kill yourself. Yeah. Like a few weeks ago, there was a TV show and they were talking about it.

[00:04:11] And they said they get one to two calls every day from teens. From teens in particular that's focused on some more youth. Yeah, for teens. Now I know you're like a young adult. Did you ever call that number? No, no.

[00:04:25] My, let's say ideation started like a year ago. Okay, it's a good starting point here. So up until that point, you had never thought about suicide, not for yourself. No, never. What I actually wanted to start with was, I didn't believe in like depression also.

[00:04:42] And I kind of looked down on the people who were depressed. I thought they were just sad and lazy. I was that person. So you looked down on people who, whatever they were going through, depression or sadness, whatever, you thought they were sad and lazy. Yeah.

[00:04:58] I really respect the fact that you're owning up to that. You're admitting that because a lot of people wouldn't. I heard from another podcast that suicide is a coward's way out. And I was definitely one of those. And then something happens. Yeah, how to turn tables.

[00:05:15] I kind of fucked up not my life, but my goals and stuff. I thought like, now it's over. I have to start all over again. I'm back at square zero after a few years of high school.

[00:05:28] So I'm back at square zero and I thought I would already be somewhere. I mean, first I thought I was just sad, like sad and depression. I mean, those are different things. I think basically I failed some of the stuff I did.

[00:05:43] Natural reaction is that you're sad about it, of course. But after like half a year, I started ideating about suicide a lot. Then I realized, oh, this is not just sad. This is something else. Yeah, sadness and depression. Not the same.

[00:06:01] So six months is a long time to be feeling that way for sure. Did you learn the word ideating on this podcast? Yeah. Yeah. I figured that probably wouldn't be a word you would know in English, even though you speak well.

[00:06:13] There's people who speak English natively that don't know the word. Yeah, I learned it here. That's cool. I didn't realize we were educating. That's cool. That's a little thing I didn't expect. So do you know what happened?

[00:06:25] Because you said that you, and I'm using your words, so if I'm wrong, you'll tell me like you fucked up things in your goals. What were the goals that you were trying to do that maybe didn't work out?

[00:06:36] So high school was, I had good grades and I thought about going to university, but high school was such a disappointment. Everyone told me high school is going to be different. You are going to learn things.

[00:06:50] But it was exactly the same like nine years of, I don't know if it's elementary school or secondary school. So now they told me that university is going to be different. You're going to learn there, but I couldn't believe them anymore.

[00:07:04] I mean, you grow in high school, you get smarter there. You start to learn there is other ways of making money. Trading stocks was always fascinating to me. Going in, I knew it's incredibly risky. It's extremely hard. It's extremely risky. I will probably fail.

[00:07:21] I love your honesty because I don't know if this is a difference of my culture or whatever else, but Americans would say, I know it's risky, but I'm going to succeed. And you and this might just be X you and not because you're in Estonia, but it's going

[00:07:35] to be risky. I'll probably fail. And I have to tell you, I kind of love that. I don't want you to fail. I just love that. It's like, that's the truth. That's the fucking truth. Well, I'm trying to be as honest as I can be. It's welcome.

[00:07:48] I appreciate it. All right. So what happened when I go on? Yeah, so I worked for a year, collected capital. Of course, at first I failed trading, but then I kind of succeeded a little bit.

[00:08:00] I was at the point where I don't have to go to work for a year and I can only focus on trading. So I put myself in the position, all the bills and everything I have to pay, I need to make from trading. So I would force myself.

[00:08:16] Trading stocks? Yeah. I made some money there, but I was doing risky trading. It was risky and I wanted to make more consistent profits, let's say. And I just couldn't figure it out. I didn't lose money on stocks, but I lost capital on the living expenses.

[00:08:33] I didn't make any profits. I didn't lose any profits. So you were spending time just trying to do that, learn more, figure it out, and you did not succeed? Yeah. I think the normal response to that would be, okay, I failed. I am very young still, like I'm 21.

[00:08:52] That is a young age. I can start over. I can do anything else, like learn something new, whatever. After I failed, I started feeling a little bit sad about it, but I was like, oh well, let's try something new.

[00:09:05] I have whole life in front of me, nothing bad. Yeah, from that point on, it just got worse and worse, the feeling of sadness and everything. I just basically stopped having goals and everything, and just floated around. Got a part-time job. That was the start of it.

[00:09:23] Did you do any crypto stuff? No, no. I hated that. Okay, so you were doing more traditional things. You said something that really made me think for a moment. Well, a lot of things, but you said in a way the most dangerous word, not the most, but

[00:09:37] dangerous word was, I succeeded a little bit. Yeah. It gave me the confidence to quit work. Absolutely. Hey, that might have led to more success. We have an expression, hindsight is 20-20. I'm sure you have it in Estonian.

[00:09:53] You can look back and see your mistakes clearly, but when it's happening, it's not so easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When did all the trading stop? How old were you, last year, two years ago? It stopped a year ago. You said you'd gotten a part-time job.

[00:10:08] This is when the ideations got either started or got stronger. No, at that point I thought I'm just sad. It will go over. I can figure this out. 2023 is happening, right? Last year. Yeah. I remember exactly like in August, that's when it got bad.

[00:10:24] That's when the ideation started and I was like, I mean, this is bad, but I still thought I can figure this out and I can come out there myself. Then I started to make already like plans. Plans to end your life. Yeah. All right.

[00:10:40] Let me ask you a few questions and then I want to hear more about those plans if you are open to talking about it. When you are feeling, let's say shitty. Exactly the word I'm using with my friends. Okay.

[00:10:51] So you're telling your friends they know a little bit. They know quite a lot. I have two very, very close friends, almost family. All right. So the youth in Estonia are changing the narrative around mental health. I like it. Talking about it.

[00:11:05] 50 years ago, I bet you wouldn't tell anybody. Who knows? Probably not. Who knows? Different time. When things are getting bad, shittier and shittier, what are the options that you and I imagine most Estonians, it's always different for the very rich people, right?

[00:11:20] So tell me, what are your options? Do you think about for you X, I want to go see a therapist. I want to talk to a professional. I want to maybe even get on medication. Yeah, but not at first. At first I still thought I can manage it.

[00:11:33] I can get rid of it. I can do it. Yeah, the therapists cost a lot. You have to wait for a long time to get there. So I didn't really, I thought about medication more than therapists.

[00:11:46] That was the time when I like figured that I cannot do it alone anymore. I need some kind of help. But you need to see a doctor to get the meds and they said there's a long wait and they're expensive, right? Yeah. Well, that's a terrible combination.

[00:11:58] You have to wait long and it's expensive. Yeah. Yeah. This is easy for me to find. I'm going to do this with you right now. I'm really curious. You might already know it. What is the suicide in Estonia?

[00:12:15] I want to see if you're higher or lower than average. We are higher, I think. Oh, they only go to like 2021. Yeah, you guys are pretty high suicide rate. I'm sure. Do you think there's a connection between the suicide rate and having expensive doctors

[00:12:31] that take a long time to see and a culture that doesn't really talk about it much? Problem is I think people don't talk about it. They drink and yeah, that's what I went to. You were drinking? That's a big thing?

[00:12:44] Yeah, I started drinking like to just get the thoughts out of my head. What were you drinking? Everything. Whiskey, vodka, beer, alcohol. So when things got really bad, when I was almost sure like in a few months I'm going to do it, I got real scared.

[00:13:01] I got very scared. Then one night I broke down between those two friends and I talked what's going on. They're the best friends ever. Like they were supportive. They said if you are having any stupid thoughts, just call me immediately. Don't worry about it. We'll figure this out.

[00:13:18] So yeah, and after that, I felt extremely good for a week, like just getting it all out. And the plan kind of faded away. Like I didn't have any goals or anything. Coping mechanism, you mean? Yeah, yeah. For me it was traveling. I have two friend groups.

[00:13:38] Two people are very, very close to me. And there's another friend group who I get along with really good, but I don't talk about them about my personal issues. They started traveling like cheap trips to another country here and there.

[00:13:53] So they invited me and I always said yes, even if it was financially not responsible thing to do. But it was like mini goals you look forward to and you keep pushing on for those. So that was the best thing I found at that time.

[00:14:10] When is this happening? It's all happening in autumn. Okay, autumn of 2023. Okay. Yeah, yeah. After the last trip, that was a little bit more expensive one. I didn't plan any other trips. So that's when I started to really abuse alcohol, drowning it like water.

[00:14:30] Because the ideations, they never stop. They were always there. You just want to get out of your head. First listening to very loud music so your brain just couldn't think anymore. Then the alcohol abuse started. That's when things got a bit dangerous.

[00:14:45] When does the danger get the worst? End of last year? At the end of May, I think. Which year? This year. Take me from what you were just talking about with the trip and things started to get really

[00:14:56] dangerous and then you still have several months before it gets the very worst, which is recently. Yeah, yeah. In your own words, however you want to share it, like what happens in that time?

[00:15:07] After a week, it's a whole bottle of vodka and after that week, it's two bottles of vodka. And is it mostly drinking alone? Yeah, always alone. Always alone, right. What's the most dangerous spot you got where the ideations got so much that you, because

[00:15:22] you said you had, you said you came real close. Was that at one time you're thinking about or more than one? Probably three times. One time came real close, but two times I did something very stupid. One night I was drinking. I didn't drink vodka that time.

[00:15:38] I drank beers, but I was heavily drunk. The beer ended. I didn't have anything more to drink. What do I find? I find painkillers. And I thought, you know, I've never took a lot of them. I don't know what the effects are.

[00:15:53] Maybe it will put me to sleep, not kill me, but just so I can sleep. And I just thought I'd limit test. I don't care what happens. I will just be limit testing. So I took 18 of them. That's all I had. I didn't find any more.

[00:16:10] And yeah, I went to sleep, got a bit dizzy, threw up, woke up the next morning like nothing happened. I wrote to my friends. I did that. I told them I'm immortal. You told your friends you wrote to them and said you're immortal? Yeah. Okay. Well, you're alive.

[00:16:28] So I mean, my friends, their reaction was what the fuck, man. And then I don't expect them to say anything else. Like we are honest with each other. So they will say that you're stupid. Why did you do this? So they're not like holding back.

[00:16:42] You drank a bunch of beer. You said you found a bunch of painkillers. Where do you just find the drugs? What do you mean? These are not prescription drugs. When I was taking pills, I was thinking like they were selling the pills to everyone.

[00:16:55] So probably they are not so dangerous. But I mean, taking anything, 18 pills is probably not a good idea. And so you wrote to your friends and then you fell asleep? Yeah. And you woke up? I woke up. I had a hangover and nothing more. I just went on.

[00:17:13] Did you wish that you had died or like, all right, at least I'm alive. That didn't kill me. No, I think I didn't wish I would have died. At that time, I didn't think anything about it. I didn't think it would kill me.

[00:17:24] But I didn't care if it does. I bet that is very, very common. Drunk, some pills. Maybe I don't want to die, but fuck it. Yeah. Yeah. That was the whole thought process behind that. A month later, like now I'm thinking that was stupid.

[00:17:40] That wasn't a good thing to do, you know, to try your body like that. So that was the closest you came? Yeah. A few days after that, I had a hangover. I woke up with a hangover. I took some other painkiller pills. I took 17 of them.

[00:17:55] Now I already thought that like I took them before nothing happened. I can do it again. So I had a hangover. I thought I'll just take them all that I find again. Yeah, my heart started pumping a bit faster, but that was it.

[00:18:08] Well, that must still feel a little scary though. I was out of control a bit like I had lost my head. When did you first reach out to me? Because this is all in the last month. Yeah, I reached out to you like a week ago.

[00:18:20] How long had you been listening to the podcast? Because this is, yeah. I found it last year, I think. Oh, and this is so you were looking for something with the word suicide when things were getting more difficult? Yeah. Things were dangerous.

[00:18:34] Not the attempts, but things I did, stupid things. But the most fear I felt was again drinking. I went out, I went to see a movie. I was drinking so much I blacked out. I don't know what the movie was even about.

[00:18:49] But I come home and in the morning I woke up on a couch and I can't find my phone anymore. Two very important things in my life is my car and my phone. That's what I need to survive. That's how I get a job. It's like everything.

[00:19:03] And now my phone is lost and I'm checking everywhere. I'm writing to my friends from a computer, like call my phone and the phone is dead. So now I'm thinking, okay, someone stole it because I had a full battery. There is no way it can be dead.

[00:19:19] That's when I started panicking and I was like, fuck this. If I don't find my phone today, I'm sending it. I am going. Killing yourself. Yeah. Because I was so done. I couldn't stop drinking. I felt everything is just going so bad, so quickly.

[00:19:36] And now I lost my phone. The one important materialistic thing I have. This phone means a lot to me and now I've lost it. So if I don't find it, I'm done. That was scary. That was very scary to me.

[00:19:49] I'm in fear trying to find my phone so I wouldn't have to kill myself basically. Like in two hours I finally found it. Under a table, back in the corner. I don't even know how it got there.

[00:20:00] So if you hadn't found that phone, you think you would have attempted? Yeah, for sure. How? I had my old plan still. So I care about my car. It means a lot to me. I don't want anyone else driving it. So I'm going to crash.

[00:20:15] Oh, you're going to take your car and you're going to crash it somewhere? Yeah. I had a spot long ago figured out there was an abandoned house near the road. Long straight, easy to drive into. What kind of car do you have? I have a Honda Accord. Brown?

[00:20:32] Yeah. How did I know that? X, what the fuck? X, now is a good time to tell you I'm actually outside your front of your home looking at your car. I'm not actually in North Carolina. All right, you got a brown Accord.

[00:20:44] You're going to crash into a house. Planned it out. Obviously, you found your phone. In fact, you're on your phone right now talking to me. It feels like I scared myself straight because after that incident, the ideations have almost completely stopped. Wow. Interesting to me.

[00:21:03] Like the sadness and everything else, it's still here. But I mean, I was most worried about the ideations like these things didn't let me live. Like you're trying to figure out what you're going to do in the future and trying to set

[00:21:16] some goal that you're going to reach. But then the ideations come and you're going to be dead anyway. Why even bother? They just don't let you focus. You can try something for a week and again, why do you even bother?

[00:21:30] You're going to be dead in a few months. Just stop and relax and you're going to be dead anyway. Is that how you feel now? No. This is the first time like, you know, half year when the ideations have just completely stopped.

[00:21:44] That's why I figured I'd talk about this here. Yeah, that must feel pretty good for them to stop. Yeah, it feels good. Like, I mean, you're still sad and everything, but the ideations were the scary part for me.

[00:21:57] I didn't want to die, but it's like propaganda going on in your head. Actions, you can control your actions, but what your brain is thinking, like it's there. You cannot make it go away.

[00:22:10] So once you were in a position where you started to feel a little better, then you were able to talk about it and you reached out to me. Like you had to be in that space. Yeah. Got it. So that's basically my story. Yeah, part of it.

[00:22:24] I got more questions. Like, let me ask you a question. If I asked you when you were 10, 15, 18 years old, which isn't that long ago at 21 or 20 or 21 years old, you're going to get really sad, more than sad and so sad or so whatever depressed.

[00:22:45] I don't mean whatever in a bad way that you're going to come very close to ending your life. If I told younger ex that, what would you have said to me? I would have just laughed. No, yeah, no way. I am never going to kill myself.

[00:22:59] Like that's impossible. And you had said earlier when we started talking, like you've changed some, I think, and that you used to look at people who were struggling like that and kind of negatively. Yeah. I didn't think it was like true.

[00:23:12] I thought only a very few people like are actually battling with it. But I thought most of them are probably just, they're trying to get attention and they're lazy and that's why they're sad because they don't do anything.

[00:23:27] And now, well, you're one of those people in a way. Kind of, yeah. And there's still a lot of people out there who feel the way you felt about people who are dealing with this stuff, depression or suicidal ideation. A lot. Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

[00:23:42] I had never experienced it, so it's hard, you know. Like I thought these people are lazy because I hadn't had experienced it. But now when I have experienced it, it's not laziness that you're dealing with.

[00:23:56] It's the fact that, I mean, all your energy is going to those thoughts and trying not to think about them. For many people trying not to kill themselves, all the energy is going just trying to survive. Now I can kind of get that.

[00:24:13] If your energy is going trying to just stay alive, you don't have enough energy to maybe work 40 hours a week or see your friends a lot. Like you don't have it. It's not there. Yeah. It's like math, almost.

[00:24:28] So you said that the ideations haven't been around in, what, a couple of weeks, a month? Yeah, a couple of weeks. For me, that's a big thing. The ideations were daily, like for half a year. When it's daily for that long, how did you survive?

[00:24:44] I never want my parents to find out. When I would die, that would mean my parents will not die, but I would definitely shorter their lives a lot because my mother has like panic attacks already.

[00:25:01] They would become really severe and my father would, I think, just drink himself to death because I know they care about me a lot. No, I live alone. I have lived alone a long time. I had a roommate, a good friend, but he's abroad right now.

[00:25:18] Do you have your own place? Yeah. Are you nearby your parents? Yeah, it's close. Everything is close here. So you drive your brown Honda Accord to their home? I can walk to their home. Oh, you can walk? All right. Shit is small there. Okay.

[00:25:34] Do you have a partner? I have never had a partner. My thing was in school, I was a little fat, was hanging around with my friends playing video games. I mean, that was a really good time. We had a lot of fun.

[00:25:46] I didn't think about having a girlfriend and after school, I thought I need to make money before I started the relationship. And after that, I thought, how can I start the relationship if I'm thinking about killing myself? You know, that's not nice to the other person.

[00:26:03] I don't want to lie to them. So I just can't ask anyone out. Okay, that makes total sense. So if it's been a couple of weeks where you've had some relief, are you worried that they're going to come back? The ideations? Yeah, I am worried.

[00:26:18] I have a therapist appointment like in Monday, actually. Oh, cool. Like it's the government appointed if I'm fit for military. You're going to go to the military? No, I don't want to go. You have to take the psychological evaluation for it.

[00:26:35] And then they figured I need a real therapy, therapist evaluation. So they sent me there. But it was a two month long waitlist. So I actually didn't want to go to the evaluation, but I thought I can get a free therapist from there.

[00:26:53] Oh, well, yeah, but usually therapy is not a one time thing. Yeah. I'm thinking about the medication too, because I had a chance to try a medication from a friend of a friend. So it's one time thing. I don't know what medication it was.

[00:27:10] I didn't know how to get them. So I couldn't get hooked on it. And it was supposed to be for ADHD, but also for depression for some cases. And I tried it. It was a few months ago when I tried.

[00:27:26] I had two pills and I mean, they were amazing. They didn't make me feel happy or anything, but they made me feel like I felt a few years ago. It made me feel normal. This is calm with me. Everything is good. No withdrawals from the pills. Nothing. Wow.

[00:27:45] That was really eye opening to me how the meds like work. Yeah, man. Maybe you'll find one that allows you to feel that way often. It'd be great. Yeah, I hope so. That makes life a whole lot fucking easier. All of it.

[00:27:58] I mean, I took the first time I took it and after 30 minutes, I was like, whoa, I haven't thought about like any sad thoughts or anything for 30 minutes. That's insane. Wow. Yeah. I wonder what drug it was. If I remember correctly, it was amphetamine based.

[00:28:18] It was a prescription drug. I had a feeling it was that like maybe an Adderall. I don't know what you would call it there, but I feared that it would make me like happy. And like when something makes you happy, you get hooked on it. I see.

[00:28:31] But it just made me feel normal. Not happy, not sad. Normal. Just like I used to feel. Yeah. You better say that shit to your therapist on Monday. Yeah, I'm thinking about it. But so I want to understand something. You may be going to the military.

[00:28:46] No, I'm doing everything I can to not go there. But the government might want you to go anyway. It's mandatory in Estonia. I have paid fines for ditching it. You don't go to jail?

[00:28:59] No, but they want to take the driver's license away if you don't show up to the appointments. Isn't a mandatory military service, when does it begin? What are the ages they start? After high school. But if you go to university, you get the extension.

[00:29:18] Oh, so they want you. Yeah, they want me. Even if I go to the military and there's going to be a war happening, I am leaving the country. I'm not going to go die on some other terms that I'm not accepting.

[00:29:33] If I die, they're on my terms, not some other people. Right. I don't know if Estonia is going to be getting into war anytime soon, are they? No, I don't think so too. But in case there's no use for me in the military.

[00:29:49] How long is the military service usually? It's one year. That's a big talk in Estonia too, you're a coward if you don't go there and everything. Seems like there's a lot of reasons or a lot of ways people think people are cowards in Estonia.

[00:30:04] What in Estonia makes you not a coward? Makes you brave and strong and good? What do you got to do? I guess money. If you have money, that's considered good. People who have money get depressed and shit, right? I don't know exactly. I'm not so social.

[00:30:20] I'm social with my friends and I have two friend groups. But outside of that, I don't go to parties and stuff like that. When I drink, I drink alone. I don't go to the clubs. Have you drunk less since you've been ideating less? Yeah, a lot less.

[00:30:36] Is that right? Do you think you'll be totally honest with your therapist about everything if you have the time? Yeah, I think so. Why would I lie to him? Because people hear when they say things around suicide, sometimes they get sent to a hospital. That's not good.

[00:30:50] Ah, yeah, that's what I'm scared about. I might not be completely honest. When they send me to a hospital, there would be a chance my parents find out. Oh, that's how you... Oh, that's what you're thinking about. I got it.

[00:31:03] I don't care if they send me to a hospital, but my parents cannot find out. That's the only thing. They can't find out anything? Anything, yeah. So they don't know about your suffering at all? No, no. When they ask me how I'm doing, I'm doing always good.

[00:31:18] I always have money. I'm doing good. I'm going on trips. I'm paying my bills. I'm self-sufficient. Everything is normal. I mean, my mom doesn't like what I'm doing, that I didn't go to school and she's quite mad about that. But overall, we get along very good.

[00:31:35] And your dad still drinks a lot? He drinks a lot, your dad? Yeah, he's an alcoholic, but I would say a functioning alcoholic. Whole life when I was a little kid, he drank, but the food was on the table like he brings in the money.

[00:31:49] And my mom keeps him in check. Your mother keeps him in check, I love it. Drinking in Estonia, that's like quite common thing. Yeah, yeah. We usually start drinking at the age of 15, 16. Is it weird in Estonia if you don't drink anything?

[00:32:06] The other friend group that I traveled with, two of them never drink. And I don't think it's weird, but I would say it might be still considered weird by other people. Your parents don't know that you are really struggling. So that includes all kinds of things, right?

[00:32:22] Including drinking. Yeah, my mom, she knows that I drink, but she thinks I drink very rarely. So you wouldn't go out with your dad and have some beers at a bar? No, I have never done that.

[00:32:34] I know you mentioned a couple of friends that you talked to, but how many of them know how close you came? Do they know that? Do they know what was actually happening that night? You mean when I lost my phone?

[00:32:45] When you lost your phone, you found your phone. I mean, when you drank the beer and took all the pills. Yeah, two of them know. And you said they were kind of nice and cool about it? Yeah. I don't expect anything else from that.

[00:32:56] I assured them that I'm not going to do anything and everything is fine. Is that how you feel as we're talking today when you think about the next week or month or year? I will be fine. I am pretty sure that is my honest opinion.

[00:33:10] No, I'm sure you've been honest, but people, it's a hard thing to talk about, man. You know, it is. Yeah, I feel very uncomfortable talking about it. Well, I appreciate you doing it with me. How many people know we're talking? Two. Same friends. Yeah. I like these guys.

[00:33:26] Both guys? Yeah. All right. Go friends. Have you ever, so you've never been in a mental health facility or a psych unit, we call them sometimes here in Asturias. No, never. No diagnosis, no nothing.

[00:33:37] What do you think you, I know you might not know a lot about this, but you've listened to this podcast, maybe some other things and hey, there's the internet. What do you think you might have, if anything, as far as a diagnosis?

[00:33:49] Mild depression or something like along the lines. My best explanation that I found was like about the feelings to describe to other people what you are feeling. The best explanation that I found was when I was on the trip, I used to love sunsets

[00:34:08] and now I'm up on a mountain. I went snowboarding, so it's snowy. I'm up on a mountain. There's one day where the sky was clear and it was absolutely beautiful, the sunset, but I didn't feel it. I used to always go out and watch sunsets.

[00:34:25] I felt like calm and warm and everything. You felt how nice it was, but now I'm sitting there. My brain understands that it's nice. Now you should smile because it is a beautiful view, but the feeling inside is the same when

[00:34:42] you're sitting on a couch watching a wall. That's an interesting way of describing it. All right. I don't know if you've heard the podcast and my gift of helping people create titles for their memoirs.

[00:34:57] If you have a book you're going to write about your life, Axe, I think maybe as I'm talking to you right now, it might include the word sunsets in there. Yeah, that could be. You can change it to whatever you want. I think the name would be Honda.

[00:35:16] Wait, but you're giving, so in your memoir, you're giving them free marketing, publicity. You love your car so much you're going to help them in that way? Okay. I mean, yeah, I feel really safe in that car. Do you know what a chord means in English?

[00:35:33] The musical stuff. A-C-C-O-R-D is to give or grant someone power or status. That's pretty cool, actually. It does sound the same as the music thing though. You're right. So you have your couple of friends, you can talk to them about some of this stuff or

[00:35:49] a lot of it. Do you have anybody else? Who I could talk about this? No. I sent this podcast to the friends I was traveling with. Someday they are going to live abroad in a few months after that.

[00:36:04] I don't want to talk in person about this with them. They probably don't know how much those trips meant to me, like how much they helped me. They will now? Yeah, maybe someday.

[00:36:16] So you had mentioned that you had goals and they didn't work out and you tried some things and now you're here. What are your days like? Are you able to work part time, full time? Are you doing your own thing?

[00:36:27] Do you have goals beyond that where you want to travel or whatever? No particular goals yet, but I am working. I have to keep paying the bills. If I don't pay the bills, my parents will figure something is wrong.

[00:36:41] Right now I'm enjoying the moment of not idating and trying to go on from there. Absolutely. Yeah. Can you put your phone out to your window? Do you have a window? I want to see what your window looks like. I've never actually seen Estonia other than Google images.

[00:36:58] I want to see what's up in Estonia. I am looking out at other cars, a green field of sorts and then there's two other apartment buildings and there's a sunset. Well, you guys must be pretty north because it's still kind of light there. And what is it?

[00:37:14] 10 p.m.? I think it's close to 9 p.m. right now. The whole summer is kind of light. We have the clock change, the Eastern summertime. So the nights are brighter. Interesting. Interesting. Estonia apartments. Yes.

[00:37:29] I guess it depends on where people live, but that's kind of a standard thing. You look out your window, you see some other places people live. There's some cars, there's a little nature. That's just like, that's everything. I can show a different view. This is the balcony.

[00:37:45] Can I see your parents' home from here? My house is blocking it. When you were listening to the loud music because you wanted to get out of your head, what kind of music do you listen to? Basically everything from opera to hardstyle basically and all in between.

[00:38:04] Do you know the question I asked about the pink and purple pill? Yeah, I've heard about it. You know, I give you the pill, you die, it's peaceful, no one knows it's a suicide. You could take it, you could save it somewhere, you could throw it out.

[00:38:17] Given that these ideations have gotten better, but it's only been a couple of weeks. I'm going to guess that you're not taking it, you're going to save it for a little while, somewhere really safe just in case. I would actually throw it out. I was wrong.

[00:38:31] I wouldn't trust myself with that. That would be an easy way to go. So something bad goes on and you quickly take it without thinking. And I cannot trust myself with that. Interesting. Are there any myths or misconceptions about things you want to, let's say, dispel or I

[00:38:51] say call bullshit on? On top of my head, no. I think I've covered it. Like the biggest misconception I think was that people are lazy. Yeah, I can understand why they can't get out of bed or some things like that.

[00:39:08] When I first started feeling sad and when it got worse, I'd say I'm a logical person. So I can logic my way out of this. Why am I sad? Yeah, I failed, but I can try again. It's no big deal.

[00:39:23] I'm so young, you know, trying to logic myself out of it. But I mean, that did not work. You feel better for a little time and then it all comes back. So interesting and complicated and weird.

[00:39:36] We're both wearing glasses just if people are wondering what we look like, which they're probably not. Last question. If someone comes up to you somewhere today, and I don't mean your best friends, but it

[00:39:46] could have been, let's say someone you know, not a stranger necessarily, but friend of a friend. If that person came to you when you were 18 and that person came to you today and they said, hey man, this feels a little weird.

[00:39:59] I know I don't know you that well, but you seem like a nice guy and I'm really going through a hard time. And I don't know, maybe I have depression. I have these dark thoughts. What would you say to them today?

[00:40:09] I mean, what might you come out of your mouth if someone shared that with you today? I'm not asking you to be a therapist. I'm just wondering like what your mind immediately thinks about.

[00:40:19] My mind would go, you need to go to see a therapist because when I think about what I would want someone else to say to me, I don't know what you can say. Like my friends, I think they had an amazing response.

[00:40:35] They said, call if you need anything. We're here for you. I mean, what else do you want? The big thing I think more is you need to talk about it. You need to get it out of your system because when I first talked about it, I felt really

[00:40:49] good. I felt so good. If I asked you that same question or that same situation happened several years ago before you went through everything and I know you're a little younger and we also just change

[00:41:00] as we get older anyway, but yeah, you think you would have said something different to that person? I would have said probably find a job and go work out and you will start feeling better. But I tried it myself and it does not really work.

[00:41:18] Man, there is nothing, there's no lesson or if that's what we want to call it that can compare to going through it yourself. Yeah. When it started, I wanted to fix it myself. So yeah, I started working more.

[00:41:32] I started to exercise more, started eating healthy, tried all those basic things. But I mean, nothing changed. I mean, it's good to exercise and do all these things, of course, but your mind is still racing everywhere. You know, it interrupts your sleep a lot.

[00:41:51] That's like a big thing. I think it affects almost everything for many people. Yeah. It affects your sleep and when you can't sleep properly, you're more tired. And it's like a snowball going down a mountain and you can push it up, let's say two units.

[00:42:09] You push it up two units, but somehow it always falls down again three units and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. And it's very difficult to push it up, but it falls down very, very easily. Gravity, baby. You make one misstep and you're back at it.

[00:42:28] As you said, square zero. Yes. Starting again. All anew. Yeah. I really appreciate you talking all the way from Estonia. Thank you. You're welcome. And I know I tend to ask a lot of questions, so I appreciate that while you're trying to

[00:42:41] think of how to say something that's already hard in any language, because this is hard tongues we're trying to communicate and you're doing in another language. You know, I appreciate you just trying to find the words.

[00:42:52] Writing is easy for me in English, but when you're talking on the go, that's when it gets difficult. Yeah. Makes total sense. Yeah. I appreciate it, man. I hope the rest of your evening is decent or better than that and that the ideations just stay away. Yeah.

[00:43:08] I hope that too. Appreciate you, Axe. Have a good night, man. Yeah. Thank you for doing this also. You are very welcome. You are very welcome. Okay. Bye. Take care. As always, thanks so much for listening and all of your support. Special thanks to Axe in Estonia.

[00:43:24] Thank you, Axe. If you are a suicide attempt survivor and you'd like to talk, please reach out. Hello at suicidenoted.com on Facebook or Twitter slash axe at suicidenoted. You can check the show notes to learn more about this podcast, including our membership

[00:43:39] and a bunch of other cool stuff. And that is all for episode number 220. Stay strong. Do the best you can. I'll talk to you soon.