I've truly had enough.  I'm just being beat down.  I desperately needed my days off, both to get shit done and to rest...and I've woken up both days with a near debilitating headache.  I'm still trying to get as many chores done as possible, when i want to just lay in bed and cry.  As bad as i felt yesterday, my roommate came home and was uncalled for mean to me.  I get that he doesn't want me here anymore, but perhaps he doesn't get that I'm spending approx two hours a fucking day desperately trying to find a place to live...it's not easy when you have no money and you have cats.  I'm stressed beyond compare, and naturally, that's making me physically ill.  I truly wish to die...but I'm too chickenshit to take my own life...afraid I'll fail in that, too.

Letter to a friend

A dear friend of mine recently suffered the loss of a dear friend of hers, sadly to suicide.  Depression wins again.  She was wondering, as most survivors of suicide do, if there was more she could have done.  I was impressed with even her attempt to understand depression, because most people who don't suffer it don't care to try to understand it.  This was my email to her, to TRY to explain from a depressed person's perspective, what it's like, on the simplest level (meaning it's far more complex).  I don't claim to speak for ALL those suffering depression, but I think I have a pretty good handle on it.

(Names changed or omitted to protect the innocent.)

"Sadly, I can't make any promises [to not take my life].  I actually bought a notebook to write my goodbye letters in.  I didn't want to die without telling the people I care about how I feel.  My sister makes fun of me and says I'm clearly talking about suicide for attention, since I've been talking about it for years.  What she and others don't understand is that it's most definitely not for attention.  It is a daily battle.  If I've been talking about it for 10 years, it means I've won the battle for 10 years.  I'm tired of fighting.  I literally cannot think of the last good thing that's happened to me.  Not one single thing.  It's been bad after bad after bad.  I am willing to take the good and bad...but I get no good.  My mom suffered clinical depression and I've inherited that.  Add seizure meds that CAUSE "severe depression and suicidal thoughts," and I'm in trouble.  The other day, I just laid in bed crying, saying I wanted to see my mom again...and if it had to be through death....I looked around my apartment a month ago looking for a sturdy place to hang myself....before I even realized what I was doing!  That scared me!  Now, I'm in need of a place to live, can't afford anywhere, can't afford my bills, and my wealthy family won't help me cause it was my decision to pursue my dream and be poor.  Talk about depressing.  I feel guilty knowing two friends are fighting cancer...they WANT to live, and I want to die.  But I had a conversation with one of them.  I tried explaining to her how major of an illness depression is....how it's not really 'Cassie' who wants to die.  There's an annoying voice in my head constantly telling me I have nothing to live for...I'm a worthless piece of shit (pardon)....there is nothing left for me to accomplish....my time has come....no one would give a crap if I died (I know this isn't true, though I DO feel my family wouldn't care)...etc.  Some days, the voice is really loud.  It's more powerful than anyone can understand.  But when you are near homeless, can't afford a place to live, can't FIND a place to live, can't come up with $5k to pay off your debts to even ATTEMPT to afford rent, can't afford food (yet the govt says you make "too much" for assistance), etc, health sucks, family is mean, etc, etc...it gets to be a lil much.  Why continue living when you have such a sad life?

Let me put your mind at ease and tell you what I'm putting in my 'suicide letters.' There is NOTHING you could have done differently.  You could have talked to him 5 minutes before he took his life, telling him how much you love him, etc.  Wouldn't have mattered.  He KNEW how much he was loved.  Try to understand from our/my perspective....the love of my friends does NOT pay my bills...buy me food...give me a place to live....fix my health problems, and most importantly, it does NOT take my sadness away.  [It does NOT silence the demon voice in my head.] Nothing does.  I'm ON antidepressants.  I TALK about what I'm going through.  My close friends KNOW I'm suicidal.  Talking doesn't help.  Meds don't help.  Sadly, LOVE doesn't help.  Personally, I find depression far more deadly than cancer, because there is NO cure.  Cancer CAN be cured.  You can fight it and win.  Severe depression is often a battle that cannot be won.  You could not have helped your friend.  I know I have friends who love me....friends who would be sad if I died.  I know my grandmother would be devastated.  But in the end, if I'm too tired to keep fighting, the intellectual knowledge that my friends love me won't keep me alive.

I'm sorry.  :-/"