Laughing At Awful Things

I don't know about you but sometimes I'm convinced my brain operates differently than other brains. It's sick and twisted and finds humour in subject matter that isn't really meant to be funny. It might well be an inbuilt coping mechanism but I'm not exactly sure. I find human behaviour interesting, especially behaviour that is a little different from the norm. Suicide is just such one of those interesting behavioural decisions.

Now generally day to day I don't think much about suicide, in truth would never have crossed my tiny mind had I not read two articles in a newspaper, one on the subject of suicide and the other on the state of feminism in today's world. This was all it took for my mind to go on a little journey to the dark side. For some reason after reading this paper my brain decided throughout the rest of the day to merge the two subjects together and go off in strange tangents like I'm sure only my brain can. You may think this sounds rather egotistical of me, but trust me you don't want a brain like mine. It's a little messed up in there.

For example at one stage I was thinking abut some of the raw statistics when I realised that as I was thinking that someone somewhere was contemplating ending it right there and then. The odds are pretty high that someone is thinking of doing the same now as you are reading this. Do you ever think of things like that? I do! Why? I don't know, but that's how my brain works.

Something else I thought about, and this is where the two separate subjects merged in my head, was the fact that if women want to be considered truly equal with men they have to commit suicide in greater numbers. Why? Well for some strange reason men aren't considered good multi-taskers but we are great at suicide? When guys decide enough is enough and its time to end it all they are generally successful at it. Women on the other hand not so much. Women are 3 times more likely to try to kill themselves but men are 4 times more likely to have the the word SUICIDE stamped on his chart by the coroner. That's a serious swing right there and its also something feminists never speak about when they advocate for an equal world. Maybe its tough being at the top?

Don't get me wrong I don't find suicide funny, I don't advocate it, but neither am I judgemental of those who do have suicidal thoughts. I don't much wonder about the reasons. I think I can understand it, life is hard sometimes, there could be many reasons for it and with the credit crunch maybe there are even more reasons now than there was a few years ago.

What I wonder is where people find the time. It would be well down on my list of priorities. People are always wanting something from me, if it was something I was considering the bastards just wouldn't let me do it.

There a lot of myths about about suicide, the two most popular being that it is a sin and that it is selfish. Do you know how suicide became a sin? Moses didn't bring the word of God down a hill and say suicide is bad - don't do it. In fact for for centuries the most popular place to kill yourself was on church property. Why? In villages and towns everywhere church buildings tended to be the tallest building around for miles. It was convenient to do it in a church, especially if you knew when you jumped (or is it fall, I'm never quite sure?) you were less likely to survive with a rather painful broken leg. After a while the church got fed up with the cleaning bills. Any forensic investigator or episode of CIS will tell you that blood is very difficult to remove. Cleaning up blood is an expensive business. The solution to expensive cleaning bills – make suicide a sin. Overnight suicide rates in church grounds dropped.

As for selfish? Really? In these days of diminishing resources, rising food bills and consumerism that is raping and pillaging the planet maybe choosing to end it all is one of the few acts of selflessness we have left. I mean seriously if more people did it the price of oil would fall, food would easier to get by those remaining and the carbon footprint of the human population would be a little bit less too.

Another reason that it can't be a selfish thing to do is that its not exactly an easy pain free option to your problems. I don't know about you but I do know I couldn't do it. I wouldn't know where to begin. Shooting myself isn't an option because I don't own a gun and despite what the papers like to portray it isn't that easy to get a hold of one in this country. I wouldn't know where to go. I don't live in a country where guns are as easy to buy as a can of beer. Even if I did, I don't know how to shoot. I could just point and pull the trigger and hope for the best but sometimes when I'm doing something for the first time I mess up. Knowing my luck I would miss every vital organ and end up with a hole that I would have explain for the rest of my sorry life. Or worse wear a hat to cover it up – I look stupid in a hat.

I could try overdosing on the contents of the medicine box, but seeing as it can take me 3 hours to swallow one headache pill I'd probably mess up on that too and end of with nothing much worse than the runs. No, suicide is not an easy option, its hard.

You can't just jump off a bridge! It takes planning. A teenage girl in New York the other day fell 14 floors and survived. Knowing my luck I'd the exact same thing. Only I would feel even more suicidal because of the pain of the broken bones, but the broken bones would inhibit such an action.

It would be much easier to drink myself to death and in fact that is like a national past time in this country by a certain element of society especially amongst those who like to stay up until 3am on a Saturday night. But that's a long term approach, that takes dedication and I generally get bored of anything that requires that amount of commitment.

Tying myself to the rail tracks would probably be a waste of time because there is so much engineering works going on by Railtrack that Scotrail probably wouldn't be running any services on the line that day. I would probably have to go for a toilet break so as not to make a mess of my underwear and just at that moment a 26 truck coal train would roll past.

I suppose I could like others cut myself to see if I like the idea first but I'm kind of allergic to pain and quite frankly its kind of messy. Death by a thousand cuts just doesn't hold much appeal. Must be even harder for those who faint at the sight of blood.

There is always the old rope and chair trick but who nowadays owns rope? Sailors maybe. Tug-o-war hobbyists? I suppose you could go to B&Q and buy some, theres 10% off day on a Wednesday - you could get yourself a bargain just before you do the deed. Of course you could always put it on your credit card and not have to pay for it – that must a tempting idea to those who have more money worries than they can handle. A sort of sweet revenge on the visa company. But if you are going to jump off a chair with a rope around your neck you better hope you remember how you gained your knot making badge during your day in the scouts, otherwise thats going to be a long slow death or one painful visa bill when you have to pay for a rope at 20% interest that you have no use for.

Choosing to end it all and how is one thing but then there is the suicide note. In some ways I might find that even more difficult. I find this blog difficult enough at times and really, sorry to tell you this, but I don't care how people read this. But a suicide note has got to be much harder. I'm dyslexic, so sometimes I really struggle with my choice of words. Not a good thing to suffer from when it is your last opportunity to say a few words to your nearest and dearest in an uncaring world. What's more if you could express myself you possibly wouldn't be feeling suicidal in the first place. What do you write? Do you need to specify a date, or do you make the coroners day more interesting by allowing them to calculate the time from the state and growth of the maggots? Now that would be selfish! You are going to spoil someone's dinner, especially if the coroner is just new on the job.

Then there is how do you begin? To whom it may concern seems a little impersonal don't you think? Besides if you plan your death right you might time it so that those who made you want to do it are the ones to discover your body. Dear Mum and Dad? Can't help thinking that leaves out the wife and miserable brats who are going to survive you? See not so easy is it? How about?

Hey Guys!

Hope you are good! I am not good!

You are the ones who drove me to do this! I was doing just fine until you had to come and mess things up. I do hope that you happy now that I am dead.

Signed by the foul smelling rotting corpse in this room

PS Fuck you all. That insurance money you were relying on has a special no pay out on suicide policy. Kinda clever don't you think? That's why I took the time to write this note.

Ok so maybe suicide is a selfish act.

Now if you laughed at any of this welcome to the Laughing At Awful Things club. If you didn't? Thanks! Thanks for confirming my suspicion that my brain is a little messed up.