Hi Cary,
My name is Tremayne and I’m an 18-year-old from Queensland, Australia and I feel like I’ve hit the pinnacle of my depression.
I used to be the most happy person in the world. Even when things went to shit I would always put on a smile (even during the COVID-19) and make a joke like nothing matters. I’m always prepared for anything and like life it drags me down when I realize that I’m never prepared for the actual truth and it’s difficult to deal with especially when my friend disappeared a year ago.
I still hope and pray every day that she’s alright and safe and I can’t just get her out of my head and it’s breaking me mentally. I can’t even sleep 5 seconds anymore because she haunts my dreams. Like the other night we talked and had a great time (even though it was a dream). When we finally walked in the moonlight she told me things I didn’t even know about her, like she was adopted. Anyway when she spoke her last words which stick in my head like a favorite song, she told me she was dead and I fell to my knees. Then I woke up.
Since then I’ve lost faith and hope and I don’t know what to do anymore. So I’ve been thinking what if it were true and I wasn’t dreaming, that it was an actual message which I believe, and then I thought to myself, what’s the best way to commit suicide and that’s when I came across your article “Since You Asked” [What’s the best method for a painless suicide? Salon.com March 2006–ed] and read the whole page and in my personal opinion I thought it was amazing advice (a little dark in some ways but amazing nonetheless). The point is that I’m afraid for the first time in my life that I found someone I can care for and she just disappeared without a word or trace. My therapy doesn’t work for me, neither the pills or the thought of constant suicide to be honest. I don’t want to do it but I would if she’s gone, she means the world to me both as a friend and more.
Could you help me? ‘Cause I don’t know what to do anymore and it scares me to know if she is gone, and at that note I’m not smiling, telling jokes, eating, I don’t sleep anymore (6 days to be precise). Please help me, what should I do? I do look forward to your reply and hope you get this. Stay safe.
Tremayne
Dear Tremayne,
I woke up thinking about your letter. People sometimes ask how I choose one letter or another. Sometimes I have to mull it over but this morning when I woke up I heard, or imagined, words about your situation, about what you face, about what you can and cannot do to make things better.
Let’s talk about what you can do to get through this storm of emotions and suicidal thoughts so you can live a life that’s more happiness than pain, more good days than bad days.
Bad things are going to happen. You can learn to defend yourself against bad things so they do not take over your whole life and make you want to kill yourself. You can do this. You can take some actions that over time will make you stronger inside.
Let’s talk about pain. So, you are a young guy. You are probably very strong physically. You have probably felt some intense physical pain in your life, breaking a bone or getting cut or bruised badly, doing something foolish and skinning yourself, falling in the street. You know how to live through physical pain because you’ve been doing it all your life. You hit your hand with a hammer, it hurts like hell, you yell, you stamp around the room or you just bend over and hold it in your other hand, you feel it throbbing, you hate the fact that it happened, you curse, you take a few minutes to let the pain subside. Maybe somebody, a workmate or friend, hears you yell and comes over to see what happened. Maybe he wants to see the wound. Maybe it’s annoying or maybe you feel grateful that somebody cares but you show them the wound and if it’s very bloody and disgusting maybe it elicits a gasp or a groan, or maybe the person tells you it’s fine. But you share your pain. Because you’re not ashamed of it. It’s not something to hide. Everybody knows what pain is. We all know what it feels like to hit your hand with a hammer or skin your knee. It really hurts. But we survive it.
It’s too bad that emotional pain is invisible, that it doesn’t turn your skin blue, so everyone would see your blue skin and know you’re in emotional pain and respond in a helpful way. Also, if it were visible, you could notice every day that the color of it is slowly changing, it’s getting less blue, it’s starting to fade.
Where I’m going with this is that emotional pain is a real thing that can be felt, identified, cushioned, borne, lived with, treated, withstood. This is so key! Because it is simple and true and yet often ignored and, if I might say so, ignored by young strong men who have not learned to identify and acknowledge emotional pain. To survive you need to know what emotional pain is, know how strong it is and how long it is likely to last, know that it will weaken with time. That means treating emotional pain with respect but not amplifying it or letting it take over. You hurt your foot but you still go to the park or go to the beach because in spite of your injury it feels good to do those things. It lifts your spirits in spite of the pain. You do those things but you also protect the injured part. It’s the same with emotional pain. You acknowledge that you are hurt and that it’s going to hurt for a while but you do things anyway. You walk with an emotional limp. You can’t be as nimble as you’d like, you can’t be funny and carefree and loose, you can’t be witty and charming and confident because of your injury, but you can still show up. You can still be Tremayne.
And being Tremayne is pretty awesome. It is in fact a gift. It is in fact a miracle. Even when it sucks it’s still a miracle to exist, to be conscious, to have senses and thoughts, to know that you are alive, your heart is beating, your fingers can feel the coolness of water and the warmth of skin, your eyes can take in the color of a sunset, your mouth can taste a peach or strawberry, a piece of toast and coffee, a bagel with cream cheese, tomato, lox and capers oh don’t get me started about the foods I love and the foods I miss, the thing is that life even in extreme emotional pain is still an unfathomable miracle.
I watched the TV news last night. I watched a report of a young and vibrant medical professional who became infected with the Covid-19 virus and took her own life. People do take their own lives. It makes me weep. I used to live in the United States where people are choosing to take their own lives all the time. It is a tragedy. It is preventable.
Suicide is preventable.
From time to time, you may be in the grip of suicidal thoughts, which are, to my mind, insane thoughts. If you do not know how to climb out of this period of insanity, you may, in one ill-fated instant, make the choice to kill yourself. So you need to learn to withstand emotional pain, and to recognize your insane, depressive thoughts for what they are, to recognize them and fight them. Thoughts like “My life is over,” and “I’ll never be happy again,” and “There is nothing to live for” are insane, depressive thoughts. You hear them in songs but they are just stupid, insane thoughts. They are untrue. For instance, for a living being to say, “My life is over,” is just demonstrably not true. If your life were over you couldn’t be saying that. Likewise, to say “I’ll never be happy again” is to claim to know the future. No one can know the future. The future will often prove you wrong if you allow it to. Because if you hang around you will still be there and you will find yourself, at times, not all the time, but at times, ridiculously happy. To say, “There is nothing to live for,” is also simply a false statement. There is a lot to live for.
So one way to withstand emotional pain and survive it is to arm yourself with true thoughts. A true thought is something like, “I am in emotional pain but it will not last forever.” Or, “I have less energy today than I did yesterday, but my energy level goes up and down, and tomorrow I may have more energy.” Or, “I really wish that person who is missing would walk in the door today, that would make me happy.”
Other true things you can say to yourself are, “I don’t know where she went or what happened to her, but the story isn’t over yet.” You can say, “Just for today, even though thoughts of her might occur to me, I will plan some enjoyable activities. I will call a friend. I will go out into the sunshine. I will eat a nice meal. I will get plenty of rest and a good night’s sleep.”
These are sane ways to respond to life’s pain.
You are a young man. The things you do now are going to support you through many years of life, if you stick around. If you begin doing these things now, if you cultivate them, they will arm you against future emotional pain and they will keep you in good shape, so when the opportunity for happiness arises, you are ready for it.
Again — thanks for your letter. I don’t always wake up thinking about someone’s letter but I woke up thinking about yours this morning. It’s probably because you remind me of myself when I was a young man, heedless of the danger I was in, feeling I could do anything and survive it, feeling that even suicide might be an option, having insane thoughts that I did not know were insane, secretly nursing painful wounds and telling no one.
I’m glad you told someone–by writing to me. I think you also need to tell someone in person. You mention therapy. If you have a therapist whom you trust, get in touch. If not, get in touch with a friend whom you trust. Tell him you need help getting through a dark time.
It gets better. It really does. It takes time but it gets better.
Ur ignorance only adds to pain, instead of trying to rationalize through shallow bs why don’t u put urself in the shoes of someone who has lived with the pain of never wanting to exist. Just because ur provincial understanding of the matter blinds you to the feeling doesn’t mean it isn’t a reality for others. Get off your high horse and shut the fuck up, maybe read ur bs in a coffee shop while u praise tame impala and pretend you have some insight. U disgust me. I’ll see u in hell when I reach the end of my 6ft of rope.
OK, that sounds good, see you there! If I’m not there ahead of you, wait for me!
Hello Cary,
I do not know how to reach you as the contact form on this website is not working properly. Please can I write you and share my story while I remain anonymous? I also do not want it published either. Thank you.
Dear Cary you don’t know me, and honestly you really don’t know all the people who write into you for advice. I am not saying this in a mean way just saying you don’t truly understand anyone’s full story. Suicide is an incredibly hard topic and trust and believe it isn’t an easy decision to come to. Simply saying there will be better days is a crock. It’s hard because life has dealt people things like illness not just mental but physical that is just to hard for most to fathom. Some have lived with this illness and no one understands them, choosing an easier way seems logical no matter what is on the other side because they Are living in hell. People think it’s so easy to take your life but it’s not it’s so hard part of you is still fighting the other part is tired of fighting and just wants to rest. Truth is no easy answers, no it’s not going to get better it doesn’t. Fake lying to yourself and others is a facade. I wish you the best but let’s speak honestly life is pain for most of us. Sometimes the thought of hiring a hit man seems like the easiest option. But let’s face it when it comes to living there are no easy options, people say get help talk about it but how much can you talk a chronic illness away, you simply can’t and when your young living like your 80 it’s hard to find the good and happiness in anything. Choose life right who know what’s waiting on the otherside.. exactly right who does..
I hear you, Cookie. I hear you.
Yes, you are a miracle Tremayne. We all are, as is this life, along with the worst of it, comes the best of it. Thank Cary for advice like this:
“And being Tremayne is pretty awesome. It is in fact a gift. It is in fact a miracle. Even when it sucks it’s still a miracle to exist, to be conscious, to have senses and thoughts, to know that you are alive, your heart is beating, your fingers can feel the coolness of water and the warmth of skin, your eyes can take in the color of a sunset, your mouth can taste a peach or strawberry, a piece of toast and coffee, a bagel with cream cheese, tomato, lox and capers oh don’t get me started about the foods I love and the foods I miss, the thing is that life even in extreme emotional pain is still an unfathomable miracle.”
Again and again I say how do you DO it?! I mean you respond to every letter with such empathy, clarity and compassion. I read them and think I wouldn’t even know HOW to start helping. And you do help. I am a 35 year chronic pain and fatigue patient (fibromyalgia), now aged 69 with my condition having gotten so bad over the past 10 years that I had to give up my work, which I loved and was tied into my identity. I often wonder why I’m still here, but my kids say if I kill myself they’ll never forgive me! Your answer to Tremayne gave me pause and made me think that I should try thinking more positive thoughts, and being grateful for what I do have, which is actually a lot. Please know, Carrie, that you are always doing good with your incredible way of communicating with people. I‘m responding, but I know there are lots of people who feel as I do that, of course, don’t let you know. I’m so glad that you’re giving advice again. I only wish you had all your previous columns in one book so that I could absorb the ones that I really need to hear.
God, I’ve missed your column. Thank you for bringing it back. A reasonable number of people give good advice. But the number that does it with really, really good writing is small which makes yours all the more precious. I hope Tremayne is enveloped by your thoughts because they’re good and their goodness shines out because of your good writing. I can imagine that gives them a bigger chance at reaching him. Tremayne, please take Cary’s words to heart. They’re advice is golden.
I am with you Cary. I felt in your words your deep caring about Temayne, and anyone else who may have hit bottom in their loss and the pain of it all. The whole wide world of it poured over me. I am adding my voice to yours in letting the person know who wrote to you, the truth of suffering, is a state that passes once we allow ourselves ordinary hope and pleasures, yes, pleasures and gratitude for our own life and that of others we love who are present and those who are not.
Oh, Tremayne, listen to Cary’s beautiful words. You can get through this. I wish I had had these words to share with my sister many years ago. We all still feel the vacuum she left. Life can be painful and hard but also joyous and surprising. Please stay.