A Boundless Curiosity

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007; 12:27 a.m.

I am eighteen-years-old. I have been diagnosed with depression and have been put on medication, but for the past three months I've ignored my doctor's wishes and have neglected to swallow the 5 mg pill that helps control my wild side. At first, it was freeing; my monster, chomping at the bit, had been unleashed, and the feeling that came with such a freedom was extraordinary.

Now, I wonder how I could have permitted myself to make such a mistake.

I never liked taking medication to stay sane. I'd never thought about suicide, never wanted to hurt myself or anyone else. I simply... wasn't normal, wasn't right in the head. Even after three prescribed medications, I knew I didn't need it. I could function on my own.

Lately, since graduation, I've retreated to a place from which there is no escape, a place where I can no longer control myself or my thoughts, and where there is nothing so beautiful as death. It used to be every now and then, I would wake up in the morning and wish I didn't exist. Now it's every day. Every day my mind strays to that single thought and contemplates it. I can't help but wonder if death or nonexistence is really as painful and terrifying as some say, or if it'll lead to a better place for me, where I feel and am sane, and I'm not controlled or managed or ruled by anything or anyone other than myself.

Every day, when I go to work, I consider putting my car into a ditch. I wonder how badly it could hurt me, or what would happen if I drove into the river or a train, or crashed into the sheer rocks on the Narrows. And every time I tell myself, "No, that's the coward's way out", but I just wonder what would happen to me afterward, who would be sorry if I died, or who would come see me in the hospital if I lived.

I wonder if it would put life into different perspective for me, or if my bad luck would intervene and either kill me or ruin an expensive piece of machinery without ruining myself, my mind or my body, in the process. Some days the urge is so strong I actually let go of the wheel, let my car drift into the gravel or the other lane, but I always take it back in my hands, right my car, and continue what has turned into a miserable existence.

I'm both terrified and excited to see the day when I don't take hold of the wheel again and I let my two-ton car take my life in its careless hands for just a moment.

Some days, rare days, I don't need the car and the road to think of death or pain. Some days I stare at the bottle of Tylenol I keep on the dresser, or the 800 mg tablets of Ibuprofen I keep close at hand, waiting to end a certain suffering while creating another.

These days I feel a million miles away, detached from reality and trapped within myself, and there's no one to trust or turn to.