And the people who loved you will ask why oh why oh why oh why....

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Every year, there are an estimated 18,000 homicides in the U.S. Not a huge number when you apply it to the fact that we just crossed the 300 million mark in our population. In the same year, an estimated 30,000 people will commit suicide. Beating someone to the punch, perhaps?If there's one thing that I can't stand above all else, it's an as*hole that will use the phrase: "I used to be so suicidal."Fu*k you. Being suicidal is like being an alcoholic. It never leaves you. What you were, you cankerous boil on the a*s which is human life, was DEPRESSED. You can be depressed and not be suicidal. Being depressed means you actually still CARE. When you're suicidal, you don't even bother to be depressed. You're empty inside. Nothing touches you. You quite literally feel NOTHING. I love the optimistic little freaks who chime seemingly helpful phrases like: "You've got so much to live for!" See, when you're suicidal, those things that they bring up – family, friends, job, etc – are the very things leading you to want to no longer exist. Your family would be better off without you. Your friends aren't really your friends anyway, just some cluster of people you've accumulated to try and bolster your moods. Your job? Well, fu*k that. Any monkey could do what you do. Again, all of this is because you don't care. Your mind closes to the thoughts that other consider rational. Dark fantasies swirl. I believe that when we truly contemplate suicide, we are envisioning the future, our warped version of ESP. The world looks prettier without us in the frame. Everyone is happy, smiling, full of life. Let's direct that movie, that future. Let's eliminate the extra set-dressing mucking up the scenery. When you're suicidal, you don't try and talk people out of taking their own lives. You envy the ones who succeed and mock the ones who don't. You understand why they do it, even if you've never known them, never met them. There is a fabric that binds us all together. In the movie Stay, there is a scene where Naomi Watts' character describes taking 2 razors to the bath with her, so that in case she drops one, she has a "back-up" with which to finish the job. That's what it's like. Suicide is not whimsical. It is plotted, it is planned, it is methodical. Because someone who is truly suicidal doesn't want to fu*k it up. I laugh whenever people say that a suicide seemed "so sudden." When they talk about one surprising them. Sure, of course it surprised you. That doesn't make the act surprising. Are there signs? Things we should look for? For some. But those people that you can spot the signs in aren't truly suicidal. They are those classic cases of "crying out for attention." Those that are depressed or just plain drama queens. One of my readers died two days ago from an apparent suicide. I didn't know him well, fu*k, I didn't really know him at all. People are surely pouring over his profile, looking for the "signs." He was a writer, but there was no note left behind. Shouldn't there have been clues??No. Those of us who are suicidal are not little puzzles to be solved. We are not thinking about an act that you need to attempt to stop. Your "crisis hotlines" are not for us, although they are helpful for those who are depressed. The term "suicidal" is outdated. (Especially when you take into account all of the trendy motherfu*kers who attach such little value to the word "Suicide" as long as there are some half-naked tattooed chicks right alongside it. Well, that is until someone actually offs themselves.) To steal from something Jacob once wrote, it's more a question of being "auto-homicidal." We don't want to kill ourselves as much as we want to murder the person that we've become. I think part of the reason why I am frightened of heights is because they exhilarate me. I know that the tingling in my feet is one part fear and one part excitement over the possibility of taking that leap or finding that fall. I also know that I've never been high enough to satisfy myself in knowing that it would be successful and that I wouldn't just end up in a wheelchair, with brain damage, reliant on others, unable to try again… Or that perhaps I would be too brain damaged in the first place to remember how badly I want to. These are the things that we think of. These are the thoughts that never go away. Much like the dormant sores of those afflicted with herpes, the thoughts are always there, under the skin, festering, waiting to reappear. There is no cure. You were never suicidal in the past tense term. You never survive "suicidal times" in your life. You either succeed or you fail. Jason succeeded. I failed. Yes, that is a touch of jealousy you detected. Good-bye Jason, I hardly knew thee and yet... I understand, dude. I understand.