CRAIG EDWARD KELSO, Suicidal

A former student recently committed suicide. 

I didn't need the reminder, but it's good to share about these things when they reveal themselves. 

Are you feeling blue? Are you feeling overwhelmed? Is fucking everything going wrong? Has it been going wrong for a long, long fucking time? Are you having some crazy thoughts about hurting yourself? 

Don't. Do not. 

I know that reads glib, easy. 

But don't. 

Suicide is for sure your right, and I know more than a few people who would argue its philosophical necessity as the price of bodily ownership. I more than get allllllllllll that. And while it is for sure your life to take, don't. 

People love you. They do. 

They might not always say it at the right moment. They might even ignore you way too much. But they love you, and love you hard. 

Your absence from their lives by your own hand will set in motion chains of events you wouldn't want any kind of responsibility for, any claim over. Think of them before you do anything rash. Sometimes it helps to know you're not just impacting your own life and pain, but are, instead, adding to a great many others' pain and suffering. Hopefully that one fact alone would stop you. Maybe not. 

Look, I've lost everything at one point. My career smashed. Two marriages down the tubes -- a two time loser. I've gained wild amounts of weight. I've had my reputation associated with the worst possible of acts. My mother died suddenly when I was young, and I was the one to make the decision to pull her off life-support. A short while later my father's brains were sliding off a hotel's bedspread, onto a goop in the carpet. I've had a child taken from me. I've been THIS CLOSE to homelessness, twice. I've been fired for no reason other than pure discrimination. I had a vehicle stolen at just the worst possible moment. I've been attacked, my life threatened. 

I've had people actually ask, in all seriousness, why it is I haven't tried to kill myself. Hahahahaha. Morbidly funny. 

Look, Dear Reader, it gets better. Just the mere fact of living makes it so that you still have a chance. 

I believe that. 

You adjust to the new normal. You find joy in other things, ultimately. You will wake up one day and the sun will be perfect, and you'll be so very thankful you're alive to feel it. You will begin to laugh at the absurdity and fundamental silliness of your existence. But you have to LIVE to get there. And then maybe you'll meet someone who absorbs some of that pain, and offers to partner with you through a part of your life. And then maybe that person's offer becomes a new reason to keep plugging away -- but you have to LIVE to get there. Maybe you'll get your foot in the door at a new company, so appreciative you work harder and in ways you never thought possible, and you begin to earn a comfortable living -- you have LIVE to see that happen. 

Take suicide off the table. Just shine it. Force it away from you. 

Laugh, as much as you're able, at your circumstances. 

Avoid psycho-active drugs. I cannot stress that enough. Don't take them. They're experimental for the most part, and everyone reacts to them differently. They're a mask of the ultimate cause, dulling the symptoms. Learn to use your anxiety, to know what triggers attacks, and try to deal with it in natural ways -- exercise, writing, talking with friends, fucking, whatever. 

There are people who will talk to you. That helps a ton. There are people who love and care about you. 

And I mean it.

*

CONTACT: checalaloskelsos@gmail.com