Are there any accounts by people who attempted, but failed, to commit suicide, about what was going through their minds as they jumped off that building (only to land in a passing open-topped mattress truck) or pulled the trigger (only to have the gun jam…or the bullet not cause any severe damage) and so on?
I witnessed a suicide once. And I can tell you that the last thing that went through her mind was the bullet of course. Damn was she a mess after that.
Attempted suicide, though? What a rush that has to be. I bet the stress alone from the “click” of the gun would be enough to take 5-10 years off your life. I also wonder what the hell they are thinking at that moment.
I also wonder what they are thinking as they are falling off a building. The fall should take a couple of seconds at least, if it is a very tall building. That is pleanty of time to think “oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…”
I think that even if someone has written or told about their experience, hearing or reading about what they were thinking would not even compare to how it really happened- all the emotions and thoughts that they felt during that spit second and the minutes leading up to the act. If I told how scared I was during a carnival ride, could you really comprehend how I was feeling inside? Not exactly. Somethings we will just never get to know.
The one I like was from, let’s see I think the Reader’s Digest, mid-sixties maybe. A man’s life was so messed up (family, finances, physical health, etc.) that he decided the only option was suicide. Since he was at risk for heart attack, and he wanted to disguise the suicide, he tried to run himself to death. It didn’t work, and he basically crawled home. He tried it the next night, and the next, and the next.
(timidly approaches the mike)
I once tried to do myself in by overdosing on Tylenol. Extra-strengh. I ended up puking my guts out, and having the dry heaves for about twenty-four hours. I couldn’t even keep water down. I finally ended up going to the emergency room, where I was given an anti-emetic. The doctor told me that if I had actually gotten enough of the Tylenol into my system to actually kill me, I would have died of liver failure, and it probably would have taken six to eight days.
(scurries away from the podium)
My sister tryed when I was like 12 or 13. I had just watched my mother beat the living shit out of her hardcore and she was all bloody and such, she went into her room and said “mikey, i love you” and i was all crying. She swallowed like 3 bottles of mini-thins, b6ut it dident work, and later that night i went into her room to talk to her and there was puke all over the place and I called my step dad and he got her stomic pumped and shit…she told me it just felt like she was sick…no lights…no tunnels, just sickness and darkness.
Pleas excuse the lack of periods and the excess of “ands”. Alot was going though my head in that post.
I’d venture to say that a (good?) number of them simply don’t remember the incident, given their state of mind at the time.
The Suicide, as she is falling,
Illuminated by the moon,
Regrets her act, and finds appalling
The thought she will be dead so soon.
--Edward Gorey, *The Fatal Lozenge*[hijack]
Suicide, courageous or cowardly?
[hijack]
I took a bunch of benadryl and went to sleep with a plastic bag on my head about five or six years ago. I can’t remember what I was thinking as I went to sleep, though. I apparently tore the bag off my head in my sleep and haven’t tried since.
Not that i was trying to top myself, but this past winter i was a passenger in a car accident where my friend hit a gate coming straight on, it came through the front of the car, through the headlight missed the engine and ended up in the firewall. Thinking it over i was extremely lucky to come out of it alive, if it had been an inch higher or we were treavelling a little faster it would of ended up coming right through my chest. Just before we hit it everything slowed down im my mind and i could see what was about to happen, i figured for sure that was it and i was going to die me but i was really calm about it, it didnt scare me at all. Actually the first thing that i did after i realized that i was unhurt was laugh, it was a major rush
Is there a book, or an on-line collection, or something like that which answers the OP?