The thin line between courage and cowardice...

This post deals with sensitive, serious and controversial issues.

I can't believe a story got me to write it... It's been lingering for a couple of weeks... since an episode of House that I saw... but it was the story that finally got me writing it...

It deals with a very serious issue and I don't think anyone who doesn't want to should be subjected to it. I'm not one to hide my demons or myself AND I think might use it as the premise for a future story.

ETA: This is serious... like death.
ETA: If you do choose to read this, please know that I am not in that head-space anymore. I am better. I just needed to unload with all this talk about the issue on TV, in Fan-fiction, music and movies.

*********************************

Why do people kill themselves?

Every time I read about suicide, people around me ask the same question. But I can't because I know why. It might not be the same reason for everyone but I know the feeling. I felt it. I reveled in it once because it was all I had. Like this overwhelming tsunami, it destroys everything that's good. It wasn't just depression or despair it was so much, so much more. A torrential downpour that wipes away everything in its wake.

What kind of coward would do that?

We are remembered as cowards, and maybe to some extent we are. But it also takes a great deal of courage to take your own life, I know, because I couldn't do it. My best-friend knows, because she could.

I can't believe I almost never got to meet her. If her parents hadn't have found her I'd never have been able to shine in her light. Even today her close friends celebrate the day she was in the clear. The day they knew for sure she would live, her 'birthday'. I thank whatever deity exists that brought us into each others lives, because as much as I hated my boarding school, the only good thing that came out of it was my friendship with her.

People who say they are going to commit suicide don't do it; The people who don't say it usually do.

A statistical study I once read said that. But it isn't true. I know. My best-friend knows.

I am a survivor.

Will I ever go back there? I don't know. But everyday I work to stay away. Everyday I know I'm better off, I know I am loved and that I can love back. I know that I never want to go back to that place because I know that I will be missed, even if its for a little while. I know I will have brought sorrow to the people whose happiness I would want to do it for in the first place.

Yes, its still a lingering thought. I think that maybe it always will be. But I know now, in this moment, it isn't cowardice that is keeping me from taking that blade, bottle of sleeping pills or even the ledge on the 14th floor. It is courage.

I've been there before. But, I will try my damnest best to keep away, and I know I can do it...

Because if High School at my boarding school didn't tip me over the edge, and I came really really close to doing it again, nothing will. I don't want pity. God knows, I do it enough for the rest of the world and I know that most of people have it a lot worse that I do. All I want is that people know that you can't always know what a person is thinking, behind the smiles and the laughter, nobody did with me, and nobody does with my best-friend. The only thing you can do is treat people with respect and dignity because nobody deserves to feel unworthy or 'less than'.