I Was Feeling Suicidal, Until I Did This; What Helped Me May Save Your Life.

Special thanks to: E.O., N.G., S.B., R.T., J.P., and Z.K. You know who you are and what you've done for me. I'm forever grateful.

Preface

Trigger warnings: suicide, depression, self-harm, abuse.

Before I go into what I did that worked for me and put a halt to the temptation to take my own life, and what could do the same for you, I have to let you know that there's a lot to unpack here.

This is one of the longest articles I've ever written (22 min. read), with 3 parts to it:

• The first part goes over my background with suicidal thoughts, especially the most recent episode of having them. And then we go into how I dealt with it.
• The second part will talk about my honest take about dealing with suicidal thoughts, and how you might be able to find your own answer out of them.
• The third part is an optional read, and it is the written monologue/essay I typed out for myself when my emotions peaked the other day and when I sought clarity. It's raw and it's real, and it talks about some personal things I poured onto paper to find the will to keep going.

Otherwise, here we go.

The first time I pointed a knife towards myself, I was 8 years old.

Rest assured, no contact was made besides my hand and the handle.

But that was the first time I, even for a brief moment, had considered a form of self-harm.

From what I remember, I had hurt my sister and her friend in some capacity, and the guilt washed over me.

That's what led me to the kitchen.

You may already know I was raised in an abusive family.

And the environment I grew up in taught me that mistakes and wrongdoings were to be "corrected" with violence.

I guess that's how I rationalized picking up a blade before my age even reached two digits.

And as I grew up, I reached some pretty nasty low points. I thought I got out of the worst of them when I wrote that linked article.

Turns out I was wrong.

The last time I was tempted to throw in the towel was a week ago.

Out of respect for our privacy, most details will be omitted, but here's the gist of what happened.

One of my best friends, my former girlfriend, had fallen for and started seeing another man.

After flip-flopping in dating and ultimately deciding that we were better off as best friends, I had told myself and others that we were simply best friends, and that any romantic feelings I had for her were gone.

A week ago, I found out I was wrong, yet again.

That's when I discovered two different types of news:

1. She had started seeing another man, with whom she's had a deeper connection than what we shared.
2. I wasn't over her.

She moved on from her romantic feelings for me, and I felt like a chump still holding on.

I felt inadequate. Ashamed. Forgotten.

Replaced.

Let it be known that she's done absolutely nothing wrong.

And besides, the flip-flopping in our time together was my fault.

She does deserve better than me, someone who can fully commit to her, and someone who's more compatible with her.

Anyway.

The discovery of this new advancement in her dating life hit me like a truck. It was my first genuine heartbreak.

She's the first person I ever truly loved, especially romantically.

You have to remember that having love for an abusive family doesn't come naturally.

"Love" was not a concept that I fully understood or grasped, until I met her.

And so when I felt like I lost her to someone else a week ago, it felt like a huge piece of my soul was shattered.

This is what triggered my latest run-in with suicidal thoughts and temptations.

The other day, I went home from work with the wrong shoes on.

I have dirty work shoes that are left on site and I have my clean-ish shoes that I wear outside of work.

I was feeling like such shit at work dealing with my suicidal thoughts and heartbreak that I had to leave work early.

And in my haste to go home and hide from the world in my room, I didn't even remember to change from my mud-caked shoes.

I've never had to leave work early due to my mental health state.

I never thought it'd get to this point, but I actually confided in my boss with everything that was happening. The heartbreak and the suicidal thoughts. I opened up to a coworker, too.

Both of them offered words of encouragement and support.

And when my coworkers and supervisors got wind that I was going through a hard time, they all gave me space and their condolences.

I really do work with some great people.

So when I asked my boss if I could leave work early that day, he understood and gave me the green light to leave.

He suggested that I take a walk or do something outside of the house that day so that I wouldn't be depressed in my room.

My coworker also suggested that I be outside. His suggestion was to go to the beach.

What I ended up doing when I went home... was neither.

And that made all the difference.

Weighing the why's, and coming out wise

When I got home, I did something I didn't expect:

I turned to what I have a knack for: writing.

I created a note document on my computer.

I named the document: "To be or not to be."

In the document, I created a table of two columns.

One column was labeled "Why live," under which I decided I'd write reasons to keep moving forward and not take my own life.

And the other was labeled "Why die," where reasons to give up and bury myself would be written.

I figured that if I ended up with more reasons to give up, I might as well throw in the towel.

So I started writing.

At first, I wrote a couple reasons to continue living.

Then, the reasons to die came flooding out.

This torrent of negativity of what I had bottled up surged forward, manifesting in characters on a screen.

Here's some of the things I wrote as to why I should give up on living in this world:

• "You’re walking blindly into anything that could be good or bad. But life’s a bastard that teases you and gives you false hope."
• "You could be heartbroken again, or worse."
• "You’re fed up with walking 1 step forward, and then falling 2-3 steps backward. Over, and over, and over again."

This was the time to be honest. Absolutely anything I hated about my life and the world I lived in came out here.

I felt fulfilled by the time I finished filling out that column.

But then I looked at the other side of the table.

The words "Why live" stared back at me.

Somehow, it knew that I wasn't finished writing.

I looked at the few reasons I had written down, and I knew, as much as I hated to admit it at the time, that they weren't the only reasons I had to keep going.

The first reason that I wrote penetrates the depths of my soul and strikes the core of who I am and why I'm here.

And whenever I read it, I think back to the teenager in high school who truly almost gave up before he had a chance to live.

It said:

You haven’t found the happy ending you promised yourself.

I told myself back then that a happy ending is what I was owed after everything I had been through.

I kept writing in that column.

Another reason stood out to me:

You finally, genuinely, have friends who care about you and talk to you, speak to you, want to spend time with you.

And it's true. I've acknowledged and thanked some of them in the "Special thanks" I put at the top of this article.

At my best friend's urging, I got in touch with my other close friends to let them know what I was going through.

I called a different one each day. They made themselves available for me and showed that they cared.

Years ago, I had no one. I was alone.

But this time, I had people who showed up.

People who gave a shit.

Now that I finally found them, I couldn't abandon them, could I?

But none of these reasons I wrote down could compare to the essay that followed at the very bottom of the "Why live" column.

It's so long that I'm making it an optional read at the end of this article.

You'll get to see how real I can get with myself in it. I literally write to myself like I'm a different person in it.

It was a moment in which I was just brutally honest with everything. The hurt, the downsides, the upsides, what I had to live for, what I could expect if I didn't give up, what I'd miss, and what was ultimately wrong about quitting.

And by the time I finished writing it, I felt reinvigorated.

I felt that I had more to live for.

So if you want to see that, keep scrolling till you reach the section titled "My written monologue from the stream of consciousness."

But enough about me.

Let's look at you, or your loved one.

Let's talk about how we can get through suicide together.

Bringing the horse to water

I'm not a therapist and I can't give you any medical advice or therapy.

But if you're feeling tempted to hurt yourself, or if a loved one is, I've got a few things that might help you take a step back or two.

The first thing you have to ask yourself is this:

A lot of people who think about self-harm or suicide don't actually want to die.

What they want is relief. They want to escape their pain and suffering.

Or at least replace their pain and suffering with a different form of pain that's more bearable and/or in their control.

And they're hurting so much that death seems to be the only feasible escape.

I totally get it. I was just there not long ago.

But here's the thing about the relationship between pain and death.

Pain is temporary. Death is a permanent "solution" to pain that cannot be undone.

And while you can argue that there are certain types of pain that never go away, like losing a spouse or a family member, the human spirit is surprisingly resilient, and can adapt to pain over time so that it's not as intense as when it first hits.

You'd be surprised with what you're capable of.

Here's something else you can think about.

You know what else humans are good at?

Negativity has shock value. It grabs your attention and latches onto it like hungry piranhas to a juicy slab of meat.

Pain is instructional. Your behavior is more easily driven by the avoidance of pain than the desire for comfort.

I grew up in South Korea. The culture there can be extremely toxic.

You're not there to become the next doctor or lawyer. You're there to not be the screwup who brings shame to their family name.

And if you don't absolutely excel, your neighbor's best friend's daughter's pet frog will hear about it and laugh at you.

• "I hate my job."
• "I hate that guy who cut me off on the way to my date."
• "Oh, and my date showed up 5 minutes late."
• "Oh, and I spilled wine on my shirt."

Negativity really adds up. And pretty soon, your life just paints this shitty picture.

But what if we take a step back and look at the good side of truth?

Now, I'm not here to spout some cheesy, optimistic bullshit.

I stopped pursuing the label of being a "motivational speaker" because my interpretation of that label is someone who just basically tells people to smile no matter what.

Optimism on repeat like a broken record.

That's horseshit – you're going to have bad days and frown. So what?

So when I say "the good side of truth," the truth is that there actually are good things that we take for granted and forget about when they're buried underneath all this negativity.

Let's look at the flipside of the quoted remarks I shared earlier.

• "Well, at least I have a job and an income."
• "Hmm, at least I have a car to drive to get to where I need to be."
• "Yeah, at least my date showed up at all and I wasn't stood up."
• "At least I can afford to have wine on my dates. And I've got clothes to wear."

Nobody's life is 100% terrible. And if you think yours is, you're welcome to contact me and talk to me about it. Because I'm sure I can find some reasons for you to keep going, and things that you have going for you.

You can do what I did and write out an monologue/essay of sorts. Or even just make a table, like I did.

Be brutally honest with yourself. Acknowledge what sucks in your life, but also really examine your life and think about the good things that have happened and may have even forgot about.

Because they're there.

So, what's this about "bringing the horse to water?"

Here's where we have to address a rather serious truth which may be hard to swallow.

And while we saved it for last, it's definitely not the least important part of this article.

I'm sure you've heard this before, but:

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.

What I'm trying to do for you in this article is bring you to water.

Give you an opportunity to take a sip of the water of life, the willpower to keep going.

But if you're not willing to drink,
if you're not willing to help yourself,
if you're not willing to give a genuine effort to push forward,

then no amount of writing or advice or help from anyone will help you.

But don't go anywhere.

This is what you need to understand:

I can totally empathize with you if you don't feel like getting help.

For a few days after the heartbreak, I just sat in the pool of negativity and didn't even want to move from it.

I fully accepted that I was going through some shit and I acknowledged it.

For reasons similar to not wanting to be a "motivational speaker," I didn't force myself to smile through the pain.

I was having bad days. And that's fine, we're all allowed to have those.

But as you can see, in the end, I made an effort to really break down my life in writing and figure out what the next move for me was.

And if you read the stream of consciousness at the end of this article, you can see that I came to the conclusion that I had more to live for.

So if you need to take your own break and have some bad days or even weeks, then do so.

Do your grieving, your processing, and your mourning.

Don't try to bury what you're feeling. Because you feel what you feel, and that's who you are. You're allowed to have feelings.

What I am encouraging you to do, though, is find the strength to get back up afterwards.

Or at least initially, find the willpower to find a solution.

Because solutions are there. A way out of your pain IS there.

As I mentioned earlier, pain is temporary.

It'd be soul-sucking to remain in a permanent state of utter grievance for the rest of your life.

Even worse than that is taking your own life, because you wouldn't be feeling anything at all.

That includes the good stuff you'd never be able to feel again.

• The joy of hanging out with friends and family, including future friends and family you haven't even met yet.
• The highs of winning a game. A competitive table tennis match, a World of Warcraft duel, a basketball Connect 4 game, you name it.
• The delicious, savory bite of a burger. The way your tongue swirls around your favorite pasta. The way the cold of your favorite ice cream envelops your cheeks and gums.
• The ache in your belly you get when you've been laughing too hard and for too long because one of your mates cracked the best joke you've heard in a long time.
• The way your breath expels from your lungs when you lay eyes on someone beautiful. They walk into the room for the first time and you can't help but stare. They smile at you, and you feel your cheeks blush.

Trust me, I know what these things feel like.

They're...magical. But really, there aren't any words to describe these experiences.

They're priceless. They can't be bought or paid for in any dollar amounts.

Yet, you can get them for free.

Simply by existing. By choosing to stay alive.

And if you haven't yet experienced any or some of these, wait till you do before making any decisions.

And if you've already experienced all of these, I'm willing to bet you wouldn't be opposed to experiencing them again.

Life will have its downs. You will have your moments when you're sad, angry, and hurt.

But if you stick around, you'll also have your moments of happiness, wonder, laughter, and love.

Teenage me would've thought this was lies.

Adult me knows better.

And if I managed to make it this far to see and feel these experiences that make life worth living,

so can you.

My written monologue from the stream of consciousness

If you made it this far, I'm extremely grateful.

Even more so if you happen to be suffering. I'm really proud of you.

The article's over, but as promised, here's the monologue/essay/stream of consciousness I wrote the other day under the "Why live" side of the table.

As previously mentioned, it's raw and it's real, and it talks about some personal things I poured onto paper to find the will to keep going. It was an opportunity for me to talk to myself, about myself, as if I were another person addressing myself.

I'd recommend writing something similar, in your own words, if you're struggling to find reasons to keep going.

The template you can follow that my thoughts ended up formulating is this:

• Uncensored, open acknowledgement of the pain you're going through.
• Realistic acknowledgment that despite your pain, life isn't over.
• Coming to terms with unfulfilled desires.
• Understanding that in order to achieve your unfulfilled desires, you have to keep going, even if you don't initially want to.
• Also acknowledging and embracing the risk of future hurt and pain. Life will always carry an element of hurt, but this doesn't make it utterly suck, nor does it mean that you should deprive yourself of it.
• Admitting that good things that have happened to you, and repeating them so you can truly come to the conclusion that life hasn't been entirely bad.
• Brainstorming future plans, which is related to "coming to terms with unfulfilled desires." This helps you stay focused on the horizon and future.

I hope you're ready to scroll a lot, because I wrote a lot of stuff in the heat of the moment. Some of it is quite repetitive, but I was really more concerned about the act of writing than it being "neat."

Here it is:

You got hit hard.

Fucking hard.

Heartbreak is a bitch.

You lost your best friend/former girlfriend to a guy she’s barely known.

She’s moved on from you, full on. You haven’t.

It fucking sucks.

It fucking hurts.

It knocked the wind out of you.

You fucking lost it that night of the day you heard the news.

You didn’t care anymore.

You were fucking GONE.

You couldn’t stand the thought of them being intimate.

You were so possessive and jealous. You felt inadequate.

You wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.

And hey, maybe you still need a break from the world.

But that doesn’t mean you need a break from life.

There’s a big difference between the two.

Go into hiding if you need to. Get that next reset, that next chapter, if you must.

But that doesn’t mean you have to give up on life forever.

The world’s big. There’s a lot of people in it.

You can find others. You can find the special one.

She might’ve been the first but she doesn’t have to be the last.

Mathematically speaking, there has to be a better match for you out there who wants you even more than she did.

And there are multiple people like that, who are your type, who’d want you badly too.

But the only way you’ll find a girl like that is if you’re not a fucking corpse.

That’s the truth of it.

You want a girlfriend. A partner.

You want to try having kids with the right one.

You want to make love to her and be in a happy, fulfilling relationship.

The truth is, you don’t want to die.

You just want to relieve the pain. Get over the heartbreak and all.

You’re tired of losing.

You’re tired of feeling like a failure.

You’re tired of watching other people win when they don’t deserve it, and you lose when you don’t deserve it.

It gets very stressful. Very taxing.

When you resent the world as much as you do, it takes a lot on your soul.

You don’t need to keep doing this. You already know what you resent the world and people for.

The exercise becomes increasingly pointless.

Forget about those fuckers.

Forget about what other people are doing.

Focus on your own progress. Work on yourself. Be better, stronger.

Become someone that your type of girl would fall for.

You can always get better, but that doesn’t mean you have to feel inadequate.

Yes, strive to be better, and don’t be lazy, but remember that you’re a better person already than a lot of people.

• You’re honest, kind, authentic.
• You give a shit.
• You take an interest in others.
• You provide great conversations.
• You’re funny and vibrant, goofy and playful.

This doesn’t mean you have to be a fucking child or a clown to everyone.

Keep that reserved for the right people.

If you need to become more focused and reserved around most people, then so be it. You can still disappear and do your own thing.

But you can also still give people chances, especially when the right people, like potential partners, come along.

Regardless of your demeanor, you’ll only get to find the special one if you stick around.

Like I said earlier, take the breaks if you need to. Transform yourself behind closed doors.

And yes, when you come out of the shadows as a changed person, you could still be shit on by life.

You have to be prepared for this.

• You might get heartbroken again.
• People could still be shitty.
• You could still see the undeserving win.
• You could get fired.
• You could run into money problems again.

It’s scary to think about how many things could go wrong in life.

But let’s take a second to remind ourselves of the truth.

The truth of what kind of good things could happen.

• You could find your girlfriend/partner/wife tomorrow.
• You could know the joys of raising kids.
• You could eat more Korean BBQ.
• You could try new foods/desserts.
• You could go back to the arcades and LAN lounges.
• You could find more funny videos.
• You could find more music you like.
• You could hear more funny jokes at work and such.
• You could go ice skating, or even snowboard again.
• You could find more black/white accessories that you love.
• You could find a new favorite game of all time.
• You could learn more MMA techniques.
• You could make new friends and lifelong connections, really build that circle of people you hold dear.
• You could continue having a positive impact on readers around the world.

These are very real possibilities.

I know you’re not in the business of convincing anyone of anything, so the truth is that these things could happen.

But they can ONLY happen if you don’t give up permanently.

There may be other kinds of giving up, but death is the one final form of giving up that cannot be taken back at all.

It’s too final. It doesn’t come with a takeback.

And even if you lose absolutely everything, I guess come to think of it, it’s hard to justify, still, giving up permanently.

As much as I hate to say it right now, I can sort of acknowledge that there might always be something to live for.

• If you keep going, there will always be good restaurants and food.
• There will always exist people who could be your new friend or girlfriend.
• There will always be good music.
• There will always be video games and movies and TV shows.

The point is, there’s ALWAYS something that you’d enjoy or could enjoy, no matter what.

So, if you want the TL;DR of this essay, it’s this:

Giving up means you won’t get to enjoy anything of life anymore.

Sure, it means you won’t have to suffer either, but you’re not quite finished with what you want to experience, places you want to go to, people you want to meet, feelings and love you want to feel.

You’ll have to eat more shit down the road to get to what you want, but at least there’s a chance you‘ll get what you want.

Anything can happen. Life can throttle you tomorrow, or it can bless you with the love of your life.

Life can already kill you whenever it wants, so why do the job for it?

Take your time and go after what you want, and keep your heart open to experiences, places, and people.

Think about E.O., N.G., S.B., and R.T. You wouldn’t have met these people at all if you gave up long ago.

But because you didn’t, you got to meet them.

You got to understand what genuine friendship is. What love is.

What about Korean BBQ? Or Timezone? Or Macchiato? Or Laneway?

Sunday pub crawls? Trivia nights, musical bingo? Beach days?

Spontaneous whales and dolphins sightings?

Going to Newcastle?

This is just in Australia alone, and you wouldn’t have had ANY of these experiences if you gave up long ago.

Would you have wanted to miss out on these?

If your answer is no, then think about what OTHER potential future experiences you could miss out on if you choose to give up now.

• Finding that long-term relationship girlfriend/partner/wife,
• having that enjoyable passionate sex,
• meeting even cooler guy friends or funnier girl friends,
• a table tennis championship,
• a LAN lounge or Fortress night with the boys,
• getting to ride on your friend's bike again,
• doing that road trip in California,
• visiting Singapore,
• having a walk along the water at night with a friend or loved one,
• eating more Krispy Kreme donuts,
• Christmas party with work,
• shooting your shot with someone and not giving a shit what the outcome is,
• finding a new favorite mobile game or quote from a philosopher.

Who the fuck knows.

The possibilities of what COULD happen, that are GOOD, are endless.

And sure, so are the bad possibilities, but you have to take the good with the bad.

You have to take the risk.

Unfortunately, there is no way to eliminate this risk of bad things happening.

But you have to take your chances. Because trying is the only way you’ll ever get to see what could be.

And yeah, I know you feel like you’ve tried for so long and eaten so much shit, but remember what has already happened to you that was good because you tried.

• You met your friends.
• You came to Sydney.
• You got to travel and see new things and meet cool new people.
• You’ve heard funny jokes and made funny work stories.
• You got to try new restaurants.
• You got to find new accessories and clothes that you really like.
• You’ve discovered places to do fun things.
• You’ve had the good sex you’ve had and kissed the hot girls that you have.

The truth is, there HAVE been good things that have happened because you kept going.

Shit has happened too, but like I said, it’s part of the deal.

You might wish only good things could happen, but maybe bad things happen so you can learn to appreciate the good stuff.

It sounds cheesy, but maybe it’s true.

But anyway, there’s your proof of good things can happen.

And there has to be better stuff around the corner too.

There’s no way there isn’t a chance that something better can happen.

You didn’t get to go to the arcades in the U.S.

Or teppanyaki. Or see the beaches after San Diego. Or take the ferries. Or musical bingo or trivia night.

But you’ll only get to see them if you don’t give up.

So while times may be tough right now, you can’t afford to fold your hand just yet.

You have to see what happens next.

Exciting, better things are possible. We already know this as a fact.

And besides, since you’ve been through so much shit already, what could life possibly throw you now that you haven’t been through?

Yeah, maybe health stuff, but let’s not think about that. Just eat healthy and work out and stuff. Don’t get hurt at work.

As for other stuff like heartbreaks, fake friends, people being shitty… in the end, this is just the same shit in a different suit.

You’re not new to life. You’ve been through this shit.

If it happens, just “next” it. You’ve already seen it. Let it go and move on.

Focus on the good stuff that can happen, the good stuff that you haven’t experienced.

I mean, think about it: if you have to deal with another fake friend, yeah it’ll suck, but you’ve dealt with it before. Same shit, different suit.

But if you get to meet your future wife, like holy shit.

That’s not something you can know what that’s like at all.

Or finding a new favorite Korean BBQ restaurant. Or a new favorite dessert place.

Yeah, you know what Korean BBQ and dessert taste like, but those experiences are never quite the same as the ones you’ve had before.

You’ve also never given a speech to a large crowd before. You know you’ve wanted to do a TED Talk.

Those are new heights, new discoveries.

You have friends now, you have a circle of support.

You’ve got people to fall back on, and there are statistically speaking, more like them waiting to be found.

You just have to keep going.

So, press on.

And don’t forget, you still plan on sitting on a porch in rocking chairs with her someday, reminiscing the jokes and the squeezes.

Yeah, you probably won’t be married to her or anything, but if you want to know what that image is like, in the flesh, you gotta keep moving forward.

So, keep going.