No matter where I go, I won’t fit in. In high school, I felt like I was always the odd man out. I just couldn’t fit in anywhere. I couldn’t be a jock, rocker, rich kid, preppy, artist, alterno, punk, or nerd, but I tried at all of these. No matter how much I tried, I was a little of each, but not completely anyone one group, therefore I always felt excluded. As an adolescent, I needed to fit it, but I just didn’t. I felt alone. I felt abandoned by everyone. At times, I wanted to fit in so bad that it was killing me.
“Killing me.” I found the answer. “Suicide!”
I didn’t have a gun, or rope, or pills, or anything like that; all I had was music. Artists like The Cure and Nine Inch Nails reflected the emotions, feelings I was going though, striving to fit in and to love and be loved. Although, I didn’t have anyone to talk to or didn’t have access to 1.800.237.TALK (8255), which I think I would have called. I also found Albert Camus and his existentialist way of thinking; Samuel Beckett with “I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” All these were so far away. They were too poetic and not real to me.
All these artists are feeling this “psychache[1],” (the inescapable overwhelming psychological pain [my definition]) and expressing it, but I thought to myself, ‘now what?’ That is, until I met Edwin Shneidman, I never really met him because he was dead, but was introduced to him by an article on NPR about his death.[2] This guy was 91 years old, suicidal and was feeling exactly like me. I almost threw up thinking that I was looking into a mirror. He was saying everything that I wish I could say and he was dead, but not by suicide.
Edwin Shneidman with two others created the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center. I thought to myself, “suicidal people helping suicidal people…genius! Now I know where I should go.” I tried to get as much information about Shneidman that I could and in my quest, I found American Foundation For Suicide Prevention (AFSP) that was having a walk in Los Angeles, Orange County and San Bernardino, I signed up for all three, not knowing what I was getting myself into, but I found a place where I fit in. I finally found a place where my darkest secrets of suicide were brought to light and I was not shunned for feeling the way I do. I wore green and blue beads at the walk and saw green beads on others, which frightened me. “I’m really not alone.”
Since that first Out of Darkness walk[3] in Orange County, I have since become a certified suicide prevention counselor, volunteer on the local 1.800.237.TALK (8255) line, am on the Out of Darkness committee in Orange County, a member of the American Association of Suicidology[4] and now just become a Field Advocate[5] with AFSP. I have come to realize that I am not alone in my thoughts of suicide and death; I won’t ever completely fit in, but I can help with the stigma of suicide to the point where those who do kill themselves are not scrutinized for taking their own life.
August 9, 2010
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[1] Shneidman coins the term “psychache”—intense emotional and psychological pain that eventually becomes intolerable and which cannot be abated by means that were previously successful—as the primary motivation for suicide. – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_S._Shneidman
[2] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104267986
[3]Your donations are greatly appreciated. You can donate at: http://afsp.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&eventID=1035&participantID=102400
[4] http://suicidology.org/web/guest/home
[5] http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?page_id=ABD27B53-CF1C-2465-1884581E35B7CC96
A. Alex Cano's Blog 