Death Wish

Life is Pain, Suicide is Freedom

Growing up I was a reasonably happy kid. I think part of that stemmed from living obliviously in my childhood. My mind didn’t know what reality really was. Growing up I believed life was the way it was on TV Shows like “Arthur”. My reasoning for thinking this way was because I lived a sheltered childhood where I was always protected from the horrors of the real world and there would be aspects of my life just simply swept under the rug in order to preserve my mindset.

However, as if to knock me down, reality came around in 2002. It had begun in May of that year when I was still attending Pleasant Valley Elementary. I was playing on the playground when the end of recess whistle went off calling for everyone to come inside. I ran down the hill and was tripped by another student causing me to fall over and shatter my right ankle. Such a minor occurrence should never have an effect on anyone but for some reason it marked a turning point for me.

The summer of 2002 was spent in my house trying to learn how to walk again. I only
left the house seldom to go see my grandmother and aunt and in one instance Ocean City. However at Ocean City I was forced to spend the entire vacation in the hotel room while my family went out and went swimming. My biggest issue was not walking but trying to explain to people that my ankle injury was more severe than the doctor’s original diagnosis of “sprained”. Most of my peers believed I was simply faking the injury and thus harassed me making jokes about how I limped and fell over.

In August of that same year I began attending Boonsboro Middle School. I assumed that just like Elementary School I’d be dealing with friendly people in a nice cozy environment. Once again reality came around and I found myself feeling down all the time from the treatment I was subjected to by several students who I attended class with. One of the few things I was harassed about was my weight. At that time I was (and still am) a fairly large guy but since that was never pointed out to me in my “perfect world” and thus I had the complex of a smaller person despite my weight.
The teasing and harassing began getting to me and the inability to cope with it led to me reacting in the worst possible ways (such as threatening to “beat them up” or “I will kill you” without even meaning it). Each time I’d be the one getting in trouble. I tried going to the principals about it only to be told to “ignore” it. I tried to get my parents to help me but they were having their own issues along with principals telling the students that my parents were complaining leading to more trouble. By the end of the 6th grade year I found myself in a deep depression and wanting to “escape” from my life.

Throughout 2003 I was contemplating whether or not life was really worth living. I had been exposed to the real world and discovered that the world was going to just chew me up, spit me out, and leave me left for dead. I never attempted to go through with it because of one thing—my mother. Despite my parents issues I still cared for them and thus did not really want to hurt them. That especially included my mother and the one factor in her that changed my mind was her father.

My mother had a different upbringing than I did. She had reality in her face from day 1. She wasn’t sheltered like I was and was not oblivious to the real world. In her childhood she experienced a tragic loss when her father committed suicide. Throughout her life afterward she experienced herself bouts with depression. I feared if I did such a thing it would drive her to her own death thus causing a severe chain reaction that would destroy my family and leave my sister in a worse situation than I would’ve ever been able to handle.

7th grade however would be different. I was finally able to make new friends and I began being tolerant toward the harassment from my peers. The issues between my parents were being cleared up and things got better. I went the rest of Middle School without many issues aside from a few small conflicts with people who just didn’t care much for me. High School however began some new problems.

In 2005 I began High School and was hoping to make a name for myself and accomplish many things there. One such thing I tried was playing football. Up until that point I had only played football once back in the 5th grade and had done rather poorly at it albeit on a bad team. In this instance I had trained for two months to get into shape and to begin what I was hoping to be a four year playing career and High School and maybe more in college(if I felt I was good enough). However it was not to be the experience I hope for.

Despite my reputation for being a so-called “football expert” my knowledge on how to play the game was very limited and the people I’d play against were physically, mentally, and emotionally stronger than I was. Despite my frame of 6’0 280 lbs. I was unable to overpower many players and somewhat feared contact . To make matters worse our squad wasn’t very good and thus I’d be getting questioned by my dad every night as to why we are struggling so badly during times in which I really didn’t want to talk about it. Around October I began having issue with my best friend of 9 years.

One of the things I hold dearly and value is friendship. Some people tend to see me as “creepy” whenever I express any kind of emotion or even act friendly in any way, shape, or form. I tend to hold certain people in such a high regard that if they did anything that affected me negatively it would absolutely crush me. My best friend of nine years began teasing me and at times just absolutely dissing me at practice mocking the way I played, the way I talked, and my inability to see without my glasses. When he started doing this I became absolutely devastated because I had held him in a high regard as he was one of a few people who hadn’t abandoned me during the transition from Elementary to Middle to High school.

Initially he saw that what he was doing was upsetting me and stopped being the way he was to me. The rest of my 9th grade year was spent semi-reclusive from hanging out and trying to get in better shape to hopefully do better in football the following year. However my 10th grade year was not the revival and “good times” I hoped for. My JV football year was spent only playing in 3 games(all in “garbage” time) and again problems began arising between my best friend and I as he went back to what he was doing the previous year and trying to embarrass me any way he could. I was so frustrated with him, football, and other things that I unleashed my anger on another student in a fight leading to my removal from the football team and what was inevitably the end of my career.

When the 2nd half of the semester began I felt alone in the world and completely unwanted by my own friends at Boonsboro. Despite a few people trying to help me out I found myself unable to relate to anything there and thus wanted to find somewhere I belonged and felt like I belonged. It was in the spring of 2007 that I decided to return to what I called “home”, my church. In my youth it was a relationship with God that made me feel great and that no matter what problem God can help me overcome it. My church was mainly family members and various friends of theirs and so I already had the “home” feeling to it.

The first 6 months there were very kind to me. I had rebuilt a relationship with my relatives, who previously were only seen sporadically by me and I felt almost “reborn” in some sense there. I also met a girl who I found to be a complete angel. We spent a lot of time together that summer and soon I felt like she could be someone for me to love and I felt that the right place for me was at the church with my family and her. That summer I came up with this “dream” scenario of sorts where I’d graduate from Boonsboro in 2008, move to Bunker Hill to live with my relatives to play football whenever we can, learn the ways of God, and be with the one girl who made me feel great about myself. Little did I know reality was about to hit me again.

In August, my supposed senior year was set to begin. I had plan contemplating whether or not to graduate in June and was going to make a decision before the end of the month. Meanwhile I had heard that the girl and her boyfriend had broken up. I was getting phone calls from my relatives in Bunker Hill to try and date her. After a long and frustrating weekend I decided the one thing that would make me feel better was to go through and ask her to be my girlfriend and so she accepted.
That week I felt 100 percent elated and felt that no matter what people said to me nothing was going to get me down. I was very excited to finally have what I was seeing as my “dream girl”. That Thursday I was going to be picked up by her grandmother and brought to the church to see my blonde angel (my at-the-time nickname. It sounded so great too. Man I’m cheesy as hell). As I sat in her grandmother’s car on my way to church, I peeked down at my cell phone where I saw a text message from her saying that she wanted to abruptly end our relationship(which was sent the previous day but I didn’t get till 5 minutes prior to arriving at church). Suddenly I woke up from my “dream”.

When I got to the church I wanted to be alone and did not want to see her so I decided to sit outside. 20 minutes later she decided to come out and try to console me. After talking for a bit we came to somewhat of an understanding as to why she broke up with me so quickly (she claimed that she wasn’t over her previous boyfriend). I didn’t buy the excuse and as a result spent the entire week bitter toward her. When I returned the following Thursday I was in somewhat of a “smart” mode toward her and everyone else and basically spent most of the night calling her out and making allusions to what had happened a week earlier(that behavior is best explained in another writing).

However after I lot of thinking I decided to forgive her and to take her to the Homecoming Dance at Boonsboro. That night I had a lot of hope for myself, her, and hopefully use it as a way to get back with her (as I still saw her as the “blond angel” I described earlier). We arrived at the school around 7:45 and many people were quite impressed by me getting what they felt was a very beautiful and great lady. The experience itself however was a bit of a “mix” night of sorts.
One of the biggest problems I had was sweating as the cafeteria was incredibly hot and as a result I would have to walk away for a few moments to wipe the sweat off my face. Another issue we had was that she was complaining about having a headache and I didn’t want to do any fast dancing with her because I didn’t want her to feel any worse. However the slow dancing made up for it and at the end of the night I felt a lot closer to her. Once again…reality came around.

A few days later at church I was thinking about asking her out again. However when I arrived I was stunned to find out that she was with another guy. The remainder of October would be a cold month as she didn’t speak to me at all. I had missed one Sunday and on that Sunday she was confronted by my cousin about the way she was treating me. It was in that conversation she said that she didn’t care about me or how I felt.

Insulted I returned to the church a few days later in “smartass” mode basically mocking her and her relationship with the other guy before storming out of the church in frustration (which in hindsight was the wrong thing to do). I spent the next month away from the church and only talking with my family members. However by mid-December I started thinking about things and realized that maybe just maybe things weren’t really her fault and maybe she didn’t mean the things she said(yes I gave her a THIRD chance after all that). When I returned to church that month I immediately made it clear that I was happy and willing to make peace with her. 2 weeks later I was again contemplating a relationship with her.

I decided, however to go about things differently. I was going to basically try and “charm” her by making her feel loved and doing whatever I can to be a great friend and an even greater potential boyfriend. I even sent her a letter telling her how much she meant to me and how I felt about her. In Florida I drew my plans out to return from my vacation on a Saturday, buy her a ring while there, and on Sunday give her the ring, tell her how I feel and ask her to be my girlfriend again. My plan went according to how I designed it and at the end of that Sunday her and I were together again and I was at an all-time high.

Our second relationship was longer than the first one but was plagued with issues. One such issue was our conversations on the phone. She would tell me to only call in the evening (between 7 and 9) and not to call after 9pm. Our conversations would be brief and would usually end with her having a reason to hang up. However I was not going to let this ruin anything but some things were beyond my control.

One night the church group was assigned to go door to door and sell candles. I was assigned to sell with my youngest cousin while she was to sell with my cousin who lived in Sandy Hook with me. She and he had previous problems stemming from her “bitchy” (as he puts it) attitude toward him. That night he kept trying to tell me that she was trying to sell candles at her ex-boyfriend’s house and I just simply ignored him because I figured he was just jealous of her. When I got home I received a shocking phone call.

Apparently there was an incident where my cousin had sexually harassed her by embarrassing her in front of people by saying I was so excited about trying to force her into doing “activities” with me (and completely specifying what activities they were). Naturally I was infuriated by his actions and so I spent all of the next day yelling at him and telling him to stay out of my life forever. I was ready to go through with this and continue my time with her. However reality came right back to me and knocked me down again.

I woke up Sunday morning with no ride to church to see her. My mother was sick and I was on bad terms with my cousin in the Hook so no ride would be granted by my uncle. The previous night she and I had been together at her other grandmother’s memorial service. As the picture taken of us that night implied we had been very happy with one another and it seemed our relationship was bound to succeed. I sat in my room watching TV when I received a phone call from the same cousin who was with her just two nights earlier. What he told me sent me back down.

That morning at the church she was going around and telling everyone that we had broken up the night before by text message and that I had went into an emotional breakdown and had ran to the woods hiding from everyone. The truth of the matter was I never got a text message, I didn’t know it was over, and I had just gone home and slept. That night I called her about what had happened and asked her if we were together. She basically denied doing any of that and said we were still together. Relieved I hung up the phone and felt a little better…till 4 days later.

On the next Thursday at church I arrived to discover her with a new man who I had never seen before. She spent the entire night sitting with him and not saying anything much to me. I began making excuses saying that she was just being friendly with him and that she was just being nice and that there was nothing going on. However after seeing a repeat that Sunday at church I decided to make a phone call to her. When she answered I asked her just what was going on and she then said to me that I was on speaker phone and that her whole family can hear me. Realizing she was trying to provoke me I simply just said “bye” and hung up the phone.

Now there was an excuse given for our abrupt ending to our relationship. The excuse turned out being that according to her grandmother she had simply “forgot” her and I were dating because of a mental problem she has and somehow believed she was dating this other guy. Eventually she and he would have problems (she openly kissed a guy in front of him who was visiting our church) and they broke up. He was somewhat surprised when I told him after that her and I were dating right when her and him began dating (which was roughly days after her and I started). I would also find out through him she was cheating on me with another guy at her school named Jonathan.

For the final four months of my time at the church I began seeing that it was no longer a place where I belonged. I began seeing my church as a place of hypocrisy and of phonies. With more issue rising between my relatives and her family I wrote that my church was divided and was basically a disgrace to any form of Christianity and religion as a whole. When the summer of 2008 rolled around I decided to give my church a chance to prove me wrong about its union and so we all banded together to travel to Gainesville, GA to a 3 days Christian Rock concert event. During that weekend there the only thing I saw was the divided church I had described just 3 months earlier. All I saw were adults pushing their own agendas, my ex’s family alienating mine, egos, my ex being a slut again, and just a bad overall atmosphere thus marking an end to my time there with them.

My senior year (the real one, not the dream one) began with me in somewhat of a depression. While classmates of mine celebrated what they accomplished and looked forward to tomorrow I thought of how much time I had wasted, how poorly I treated my relatives(they tried warning me about my ex in January but I didn’t listen), and most of all saw myself as a major disappointment to my parents. In my opinion I was not the kid they really wanted to have. My father had invested a lot in me and seriously pushed me into being this football player that I never became. Combined with the decline of my grades I felt that I had really accomplished nothing but hurting my life and disappointing everyone.

The one thing that I felt I belonged in was now Drama. I had made it a goal to be in a lead role in a production. While it did not happen in the first semester I was extremely confident I could pull it off in the second. Upon reading the script for “Oh What a Knight” I felt that the role of “Falstaff” was suitable for me and that it was my chance to finally have something to be remembered by and impress a lot of people that I felt may have been doubting me(which is why I behaved so erratically at the auditions. It’s no excuse but I was a little desperate at that point). Upon finding out that I was not given the part I was instantly shattered because I felt that once again I had let myself down and once again I was unable to do something right.

It was around mid-March of last year that I began having suicidal thoughts again. The main causes were from self-disappointment in my inability to land the lead role in the play, my belief that my parents were disappointed in how I turned out, my parent’s financial troubles (which I attributed to myself), my lack of a successful relationship and lack of love felt by another human being, and our housing situation (which could’ve been made better if I had not complained about my dad wanting to move us out of Sandy Hook back in 2004). I began losing sleep thinking about all of these things and I had decided that I didn’t want to live anymore as I was becoming a burden to my friends and family and that they’d all be better off without me. My plan was to end my life after production wrapped up (although the method I was going to do so was not decided). My mind however was changed over spring break.

That spring break I had become sick and found myself in total isolation (aside from my parents, sister, and people on AIM). In that time I had time to clear my head and think about things. I thought about what would happen if I did go through with it and I realized how much I really miss everyone and hated being apart from them. When I returned a week later I was much happier and content (albeit a tad sad about having my part diminished from 4 nights to 2). The play turned out being great and I ended up graduating and I am currently attending Shepherd University.

However with that being said I do in fact have a death wish. It is a problem I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life. I have had a few occasions in the last year where I’ve had suicidal thoughts for a few reasons. In each case though, I have been able to get myself back up and back to work again. I understand there is no actual cure for my issue and that the best way I can handle it is to cope with it and to seek whatever help I can. I fear that there will be a time where I will not be able to get through and that I will end up harming myself.

I am very concerned not just for myself but for others who have a similar problem as I. I have made it a goal in my life to help anybody that needs help coping with issues like mine. I hate seeing anyone in that kind of pain and I fear that anyone with the problem will not be as lucky as I have been to get around it and cope with it. I seek happiness one day but I do know that while I can be happy that the problem will continue to haunt me for the remainder for my life and will haunt others. I request at this time, if you can to make a donation to the National Foundation for Depressive Illness and to visit their site at