Dear NothingReallyButHey,

After more than 30 years of being chronically suicidal, I feel very much the same. I've always seemed to scan my environment for possible methods, possible escapes, and it helps me to sleep at night knowing those emergency exits are always there, always available.

From the time I was five years old I wanted to escape my family and just disappear. I tried so many times to run away from home and find a train car to jump so I could escape from my life. I was too young at that time to know about the chronic suicidality that runs through my entire family (along with other chronic problems with mental ill-health of course), and that my intense desire to run away and disappear was simply the first glimmerings of my suicidal urges.

For me, death is like a seductive lover who promises eternal peace and rest, escape from this hideously ugly and sad species - from this exquisite, unbearable pain. I have lost track of how many attempts at self-abbreviation I've made over these past three decades, how many pills I've taken, how many therapists and psychiatrists I've had, how many times I've been hospitalized, or imprisoned in the laughing academy. I've faced down so much pain, agony and suffering, again and again, trying to get there. As a result, I'm now covered with scars and stitches all over my body, a veritable bride of Frankenstein with 52 sutures decorating my neck, and not to forget, the brain damage from being dead for a little over two minutes. But, my luck's got to change sometime.

So until then, if you see me admiring a big, beautiful tree, know I'm only calculating which branch is the best to hang myself from - just like you!