Ashley and I went to see A Man Called Otto tonight. A great film that I highly recommend. A film about loss & also about gain. It hit hard on the topics of depression. The main character throughout the film tries to kill himself on four occasions, failing each time. The film resonated with me because I've been there. I've been there three times in my life. I'm certainly not proud of it, but I'm also not ashamed of it either. What I am ashamed of is if anyone has ever felt like taking their life, that I may have done or said something to them, that would make them afraid to share that with me. We live in such a judgmental and critical society. People are more concerned with making you feel a coward or ashamed of yourself or embarrassed, than they are trying to get to the root of your pain. We'd do ourselves a lot more good as a people if we asked ourselves "why would he/she want to do that?" with the intention of actually finding out, rather than asking, "why would he/she want to do that?" as a rhetorical question, answering it ourselves with a mocking, "they shouldn't."
I was in junior high the first time I seriously contemplated suicide. I had taken an extension cord and tied it to a pipe in the basement. I hung on it, the way Tarzan would I suppose, to make sure that it could hold my weight. Then I made a makeshift noose, stood on top of the couch & went to put it around my neck. Right before I slipped it over my head, my cat Abner attacked me. Came over and bit me right on the foot. I shooed him away & went to put the noose over my head again. Again, Abner attacked me. It was almost as if he knew what I was trying to do and he wasn't going to let me do it. He saved my life that day. I suppose that's why I took his death so hard when he was hit by a car later on that year. I suppose that's why I still think of him often. I suppose that's why I'm so protective over cats.
The second time I seriously contemplated suicide was 2-15-2004. It was a Sunday. That Saturday, 2-14-2004, I had taken 3rd place at the Sectional wrestling tournament. A tournament where you had to place 1st or 2nd in order to advance to the next tournament. I had made my deceased sister Sydney a promise that I was going to win her a medal from the High School State championships. Wrestling had been my life from the day I made her that promise on 3-3-1998, until the very second my semi-final match at sectionals ended & I had lost. It's all I knew. It's all I was. I had worked so hard, sacrificed so much & now it was over. Her death was hard enough, but knowing that I had failed her was unbearable. That Sunday morning, I told my Dad that I was going over to a teammate's house. Where I really went was the Manhattan Bridge. A bridge out in the middle of nowhere. A special spot that I had always liked.
It was cold. Much colder than the winter we've had this year. Snow was on the ground but it had been cleared off the roads. I parked my car on the gravel near the bridge & went up and stood on side, looking over the railing at the water running over the rocks below. Funny enough, my thoughts weren't about my sorrow. Believe it or not they were more practical. I wondered if the fall alone would kill me. I figured that'd be the best way to go. Yet it wasn't all that far of a drop. So I figured that I might just break my legs or my back or something. I'd lie there in excruciating pain before hypothermia might kick in. Worse yet, I might land where I was paralyzed to move with my head under water & I might drown. Then I thought of other things. I had visions and memories of events that seemed to have no purpose. I thought of the time when a stranger had helped me get ketchup I couldn't reach at a McDonalds when I was a kid. I thought of a time when my mom had woken me up in the middle of the night & we drove all the way to Marshalltown. Why I thought of these things, I don't know. I can't say for sure why I eventually got back into my car and drove home.
I guess it's because I thought at the time I'd eventually find some answers or in the least I'd find peace with knowing that I never would. I'm often very bitter about my experience at Northwestern College & I'm about to reveal to you why. I went into Northwestern College thinking that I'd find some answers as to why I felt the way I did. Why things happened the way they did. To say that there weren't any open hearts would be a lie. There were a handful. Kailen Fleck, Tony Hofteizer, Lindsay Squires, Professor Taylor. There were a few. Yet for the most part it was the polar opposite of what I was expecting. I was expecting a world full of understanding, empathy, sensitivity and love. Instead, with exception to a few, it was a world of cruel, harsh judgment. Open up about your depression, alienation. Open up about your suicidal thoughts, excommunication. My college best friend Cheung Yeung "Dan" Kim & I talked about this often. He suffered from a lot of the same issues that I did & for that matter still do. I haven't seen Dan in 15 years. I wonder sometimes if he did end his life.
When I finally left Northwestern College in April of 2007, I left with a "kick ass" mentality. This world wasn't gonna get the best of me. Stephen Stonebraker may not have made it as a high school wrestler, but he was gonna be a somebody in something. I tried my hand at acting. I tried my hand at professional wrestling. I tried making it in a numerous amount of endeavors. All that happened was a lot of time went by.
It was June of 2014 when I contemplated ending my life again. I had broken up with my girlfriend Melissa in February. I looked in the mirror & realized that my entire life had been nothing but a series of failures, disappointments, tragedies and letdowns. I had so many goals & not a single one of them had been achieved. The only thing I had left in my life was writing. It was the only thing. I know a lot of people have a hard time relating to what I'm saying now, but being different doesn't make you wrong. I've always had a deep, rooted and passionate desire to be successful. To really stick out and be somebody. To be special. Not everyone has that, but I did. Maybe I still do. All I know is that at the time I felt that I had tried, and I had failed. I had no desire to keep on living if all I was gonna do was get up, go to work, come home, eat, take a dump, repeat.
I had gone on a couple of dates with a girl named Loni. We weren't compatible sexually, romantically or intimately, but we appreciated one another in other ways. Both deep, philosophical thinkers we enjoyed conversing. She was a rather depressed individual herself. She also dealt with an assortment of physical health issues. She mixed me up some pills one night. One was an anti-nausea pill that would prevent me from throwing up. Another was an extremely strong sleeping pill. The others a mixture of a lethal dosage that would do me in. I kept those pills in my bathroom drawer for quite a long time.
I'd take them out and look at them sometimes. Why I never ended up taking them? My mother. There a lot of reasons as of right now why I'm glad I didn't take them, but at the time? There was only one reason. My mother. As rotten, low, worthless, depressed and miserable as I felt at the time, I couldn't do that to my mother. She had already lost one child. I refused to make her go through that again.
I eventually flushed those pills down the toilet. A short while later, Loni is how I ended up getting Peanut. A while after that, I stopped hearing from Loni. I figured she for one reason or another just decided to cut me off and stop talking to me. That wasn't the case. Loni had actually killed herself. I never found out how exactly she did it, but I've always wondered if it might have been the same cocktail of pills that she had given me.
I've admitted very little of this to a very, very small amount of people. I know how cruel, judgmental and evil this world can be. It's not like it isn't that way now. It still is. There are people out there that would love to know this information about me. Would love to be able to use it against me. Would have fun making fun of me for it or taunting me about it. We aren't short of psychopaths. We got plenty.
So why do I share it? Because I know what it feels like to feel alone. As if everyone else around you is happy, content and satisfied. As if you're the only one who is depressed. The only one with feelings of anger, bitterness, regret and pain. I know what that feels like.
And it's not like my life is now a parade of successes, triumphs and victories. It's not. My life is still full of failures, disappointments, heartache and headache. I think one of the biggest misconceptions we give people. Life is still gonna be challenging. It's still gonna be rough. It's still at times, going to just plain suck.
My aunt Shirley taught me a trick years ago when I first told her about my depression, how bad it was and my suicide attempts. Whereas my Dad just got pissed off at me & acted as if I shouldn't feel the way I feel, Shirley gave me an idea to help me fight suicide should it ever enter my mind again.
Lottery tickets.
My Grandpa thinks lottery tickets are the biggest waste of money and he gets so angry when I finds out that I've bought some. I promise you, they aren't a waste of money. Not when you buy them for the reasons I buy them. I mean after all, how can you end your life on a Tuesday, when if you stuck around, you'd be a millionaire on a Thursday? The way my life has been, that's exactly what would happen. It all comes to an end & if I had just stuck it out a couple more days, I'd be sippin lemonade on the beaches of San Diego.
It's been almost 9 years since I last contemplated suicide. In those 9 years plenty has happened to where you'd think it would have crept its way back into my mind. It hasn't. Why? Perspective change. I'm still writing. It's not like I've given up on that. I'm working on a co-written novel as we speak. I still want to be a success too. I dream of being read. I dream of being in libraries and book stores. I dream of giving talks, signing autographs. Staying at home being paid to work on my next novel. It's not like I don't want that anymore. It's simply that I've come to peace with the idea of it not working out. I've come to peace with maybe I'm not good enough & maybe I never will be. Success is something I still desire, but at the same time won't fall completely apart without. It's something I welcome with arms wide open, but not something I absolutely have to have to be complete. My goal now is peace. I find that in Ashley. I find that within my pets. I find that within lifting weights at the gym. I've made a ton of changes in my life the past 3 years & it's all very simple. Anything that moves me closer to peace, I hold on to. Anything that moves me further away, I let go of.
And that is why this, my story of suicide went from being such a difficult thing to share and be open about to something I can share freely. Give me all the judgment, criticism, ridicule and shame the world can throw my way. If sharing this helps one person, one single person in some way, then it was worth it.
