I’ve been dreading this for the last few weeks. And all week long I’ve been procrastinating writing this. I procrastinated so hard that I wrote 2 posts leading into this post that I never planned to write because every time I sat down to write this post I’d find other material to write to avoid having to face this moment.

And why?

This whole project was initially conceived to lead into these particular posts. The original plan in May of 2022 was to have this be a 2 volume art piece.

The first volume would hook the readers and fans of AIO, which would be the candy to get everyone into the propaganda van so that we would all then be willing to follow me down the rabbit hole and live the Year From Hell™ in the hopes of teaching some Fricking Evangelicals™ what Empathy™ is.

And then I realized as I was finishing the first volume, that there was far more to my journey than the events of my biggest suicide attempt.

That really… this story of suicide is just to explain all the things that come after this. To qualify the life education that changed me. And I saw more volumes of material flood my brain.

And if that’s the case, then our work here is maybe at the halfway point. I’m severely worried we’re not even 40% of the total story I want to tell… which how in the hell will I ever write this in time before the next election scares me.

Anybody got a cabin I can borrow for 3 months?

But if I have so much more story to tell, why am I stuck at this point? Why not just rip the bandage off and move past this and get onto all the things I learned that changed my politics and how I lost/gave up on the concepts of faith as humanity has historically expressed them…

So why am I nervous?

I’m worried that this story will be used against me.

I know it will. I now how trolls work. I know how psychopaths work. This entire voluminous prattling is literally me giving people a road map of my psychology… helluva strategy to lay out all your weaknesses to the world, eh?

There is material that unsavory people can and probably will exploit.

I worry that some day a stranger may suddenly start asking me questions about this event in a setting where I’m psychologically unprepared… how would I feel if someone I don’t know tries to talk familiarly with me about my own suicide attempt in front of my kids?

And a year ago… it was a fantasy to assume that anyone would ever follow this project this far… but a year later it’s clear that folks all over the world are engaging with this.

And so this is actually happening… what was a crazy idea to try to weaponize Empathy™ to the FOTF AIO apocalyptic political cult voters now is something where I’m really having to face the fact that I started this godawful project…

of my own volition.

I have absolutely nobody to blame here but me.

This blog is the consequences of my own actions…

just like the events this blog portrays.

I’m weirdly worried that people will judge my methodology here.

“See if ya wanted to kill yourself you shoulda–“

I’m worried that my state of chaotic thinking I’m not expressing well enough and that people will read this and think that I was looking for some quick life escape hatch because I’m too weak to handle life.

In fact, over the last 30 years whenever the subject of suicide comes up I tend to hear 1 of 3 main catch phrases by the Toxic Douchebag Crowd™ who has no idea what they talk about most of the time, but the subject of suicide always triggers the Toxic Masculinity Boyz™.

The 3 Things I hear Most About Suicide by People Who Do Not Suicide™:

1. That it’s the Easy Way Out
2. That it’s Selfish
3. That it’s because you are Weak

Everybody has theories about why someone would do this and how easy it is. Most of these people have never bothered to really dive deep with anyone who has actually done this.

This is why I wanted to share it. Hopefully bust some Suicide Myths… but in the process show that maybe an actor you all liked a whole lot… would you treat mental health patients differently better if you knew one of your favorite actors suffered from the problem?

Would you actually start doing the Red Words?

That’s literally what I’m trying to do here.

I know this exposes me and my family to risk.

But, how is that risk any different than sitting next to one of you COVID spreaders on public transportation?

Christian Bigots™ are targeting my town with bomb threats. People who display Pride flags started receiving ugly letters this week… people are being doxxed by homophobic and transphobic terrorists.

And maybe…. maybe if I can force some Empathy™ down your throats… maybe you’ll join humanity for a couple election cycles here and help reset this country back to sanity. How many of my RedStateVoting™ fans can I hope to influence with Empathy™?

But at what cost to me?

And it’s so fundamentally weird to be revisiting a massive suicide attempt… while worried that the exposure of this information might harm me or my family… in a way this whole project is also… weirdly suicidal.

I am killing my anonymity.

I’m outing myself to the entire world that I’m a mental health patient to a world that. is. brutally. cruel. and. bigoted. and. genocidal. to. mental. health. patients.

I am not Simone Biles. I do not have lots of people and money and success to protect me from crazy people…

But you all are either gonna kill me in a pandemic, or global warming fire, or my SSDI will run out, or the cost of food will bankrupt us, or we have a Civil War.

Like… there are no good options here.

And that is precisely the mindset I was in when I made this original Bad. Life. Choice. to do a blog about my biggest bad life choice… a suicide attempt.

everything is awful

and there’s no way out

and nobody is coming to save you

And so… I write these words into the Internet… and I beg you all for mercy.

You don’t like my story?

Shut the fuck up.

I don’t need to hear it.

If this fails to Empathize™ you… no need to tell me, we’ll both know.

My goal was to write something so deeply personal that it might inoculate me, that even assholes who stumble upon this would have to recognize that the effort expended here is worthy of leaving someone alone if the execution failed.

But this is Art.

And I’m an Artist.

And I can not control how the Audience will receive this work.

Is it a waste of time to ask The World to be gentle and kind with this information when The World never, ever, ever has up to this point?

Please be gentle.

Please be kind.

The CrinklyBag™ sits on the floor of my GarageRoom™.

I probably have The Wall or Dark Side of the Moon playing on repeat to try to calm my nerves…

I’m sweating in November at 3:00 AM

I feel nauseous. I really hope my stomach doesn’t betray me here.

Cuz that’s how this method is supposed to work.

Crying.

Laughing at the stupidity of everything.

My hands are clammy.

My mouth is dry…

Which is probably a side effect of the Wrong Medication™ Lithium.

My throat feels funny– which is a side effect of the Wrong Medication™ Resperdol.

There were other Wrong Medications™.

Whole bag full of them.

The pharmaceutical and psychiatric Industries are very generous about supplying patients with mountains of medications in 1994.

I had a big glass of water, but I wonder if I had a pitcher of water? To wash all the pills down… I don’t remember. Did I go in the house twice?

Because what I’m immediately confronted with when I open the CrinklyBag™ is several orange bottles of the type that your typical pharmacy fills with various medications that they then slap a printed label on for dosing instructions.

And a thing that one may not consider when thinking about suicide are the logistics.

That is a LOT of pills.

My memory was that it was somewhere between 100 and 200.

I feel there at least 4 or 5 or perhaps 6 different med bottles each with a month’s supply.

And… now it is dawning on WronglyMedicatedDaveyBoy™ that this may present a logistical challenge.

That’s a lot of pills.

Did I mention I have dry mouth?

Did I mention I have trouble swallowing food at times?

And it’s precisely at this moment of God’s Perfect Comedic Timing™ that the realization hits Our Hero that the medications I’m on may prevent me from… *checks notes*… taking ALL of the medications I’m on.

A point I would like to mention… I’m terrified at this point.

I do NOT want to die.

I don’t. I want to live. I want to have a Good Life, but it’s clear I’m not going to. In my limited 17 year old thinking brain that has been pummeled over the last 365 days… all data is trending downwards. I don’t think I can actually handle it getting worse.

My whole life is on fire.

And nothing works to make anything better.

It gets continually worse.

Every relationship has been harmed.

Police lights at my house.

Angry parents.

Still Faces from everyone in my life that used to love me.

Being told I’m going to hell anyway…

I am as scared as I have ever been in my life, because I have the fortitude in this moment to be enacting a plan that is far likelier to succeed than my previous efforts.

I’m going the full distance on this one.

Because shit is really that bad in my life.

It’s not that I want to die… it’s that I’m too beat up and tired to keep living.

And this is where people assume you are weak.

And that suicide is somebody quitting on life because they don’t have the spine to gut it out like the hard core badasses who are too macho to ever consider suicide.

Yes. You’re right.

To be at this point is absolutely proof that the brain is suffering and the body is weakened by illness.

Healthy brains don’t do this.

And so yes, there’s a partial Truth to the idea that soemone this low is inherently weak.

I’ll agree that a cancer patient about to die is also similarly weak. They are in ill health and their body can’t fight anymore.

Here my brain is in ill health and my brain and body can’t fight anymore.

It’s. the. same. thing.

Would you call a cancer patient weak?

NEVER.

CANCER PATIENTS ARE BRAVELY FIGHTING™.

But a suicidal mental health patient…

And here’s a Truth. To be suicidal may be because of a weakened brain or body…

But the act of suicide is not. an. act. of. weakness. or. cowardice.

Weak. people. can. not. commit. suicide.

They’ll never have the guts to go through with it.

Cowardly people will chicken out.

Because it is terrifying to take actions that you know will lead to your own death.

Maybe if you get high or drunk you can numb that fear…
but I was stone cold sober.

And I’d like to point out a thing that I think most people don’t realize about suicide:

It is an act in defiance of DNA.

Encoded into the DNA of all carbon-based lifeforms is an inherent quest for survival. Life is wired for survival. Every molecule in your body is genetically imprinted with the furtherance and continuance of your own life force for as long as possible.

Whether it is a palm tree or an eagle or a snail or Fucking KevinDanBob™ or a raccoon or hibiscus flower or an ant or a tiny blade of grass poking up through the concrete or a weed or a cactus or a fox or L’il DaveyBoy™.

Every single one of us is programmed by our DNA to survive.

The act of suicide overrides your DNA self-preservation instinct.

This is no small thing.

Your brain is overriding every. cell. in your body.

I also want to make this point by clarifying that I believe there are 2 Types of suicide:

Type 1 is the Judas Suicide.

This is one of the few mentions of suicide in the Bible. ALL the characters in the Bible who commit suicide do so because they are evil and wicked– special shout out to Samson. And this is why whenever you go to religious leaders and pastors and ChristianCounselors™ to talk to them about suicide all they really tell you is: “don’t. it’s evil.” Because they assume you must be running from something, guilty of something, or defying God Almighty™. Because their HolyBook™ is the only textual authority in their lives.

If you don’t believe me… google “is suicide a sin” and see what you all crammed down MY throat about this subject for decades.

But there is another type of suicide that is not mentioned in The Bible™.

Type 2 is the Mental Illness Suicide

This is not a suicide born of guilt or to avoid a consequence. This is a suicide that overrides DNA. This is a Broken Brain™ outsmarting a hardwired Survival Instinct™.

There is nothing easy or weak about overriding a hardwired Survival Instinct™.

Your body instinctively resists danger. We avoid situations where we might die. Many of our phobias are related to the consequence of death. Why else would people be afraid of heights? Snakes? Water? The Dark?

Because all those things could kill us!

And death is terrifying to confront.

And when you’re committing suicide you’re staring death in the face and stepping into it willingly.

Does. this. sound. like. something. weak. people. can. do?

You are not a death defying stuntman.

This is not about an adrenaline rush.

You are a willing participant and instigator in your own death.

Your body resists this.

Whenever I come across families that have lost a loved one to suicide or met a survivor in my life, I always feel the urge to give a raised fist of solidarity.

It’s not to be macabre.

It’s not because I glamorize suicide.

I don’t think it’s sexy or cool.

But because I understand what it takes.

It takes everything you have.

It is the hardest thing you will ever do.

And that’s coming from someone who quit cigarettes!

That took 25 years and was the hardest fight of my life but it was not as hard as stepping into suicide.

Also… the methodology I’m using here… it’s not fast.

This takes more effort than a 5 lb trigger pull.

A LOT more effort.

You have to be committed to doing this because there are too many chances to back out when you’re taking… *checks notes*… 100+ pills.

The first ones go down without much thought.

Just like taking them at bedtime anyway.

Hands are shaking.

Drop

ping

pills.

The logistics of getting carpet hair off pills you dropped…

Realizing that your OCD doesn’t matter in this moment because you will soon be dead and it doesn’t matter what’s in your stomach.

But the OCD winning because Ew. Fuck. Gross.

More pills…

“ya know… God Almighty™….

YOU CAN STILL INTERRUPT ME AT ANY TIME HERE

AND I’LL STOP IF YOU WANT ME TO”

God Almighty™’s

continued

silence

confirms

the

green

light.

that’s what happens when you don’t pay attention to

red blinking lights

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

**Another Pill**

This is taking too long. And my throat is starting to struggle.

How can I get the rest of these down faster?

Starting to lose my nerve a bit.

Kinda feel like I wanna puke.

Fuck it.

I pour a handful of pills into the palm of my hand to expedite the process.

I toss them in my Dry Mouth™.

And it’s at this precise moment of God’s Perfect Comedic Timing™ that right as the mass of pills barely scrapes by the sandpaper of my tongue and mouth… right as this unholy wad of chemistry begins it’s gravitational descent into my gullet that I find myself in a dilemma:

Resperdol Throat™ has arrived!

Or is it Lithium Throat™?

Whatever. One of my Myriad Wrong Medications™ has decided at this glorious moment to cease the functioning of my swallowing muscles.

The Unholy Wad of Chemistry lodges halfway down my throat and now I can’t breathe.

You read that correctly….

my suicide attempt has been rudely interrupted by my choking to death.

And you fuckers said this was easy.

Fuckityfuckfuckfuckfuckerfuckity!!!!!

THIS IS NOT HOW THIS IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!!!

I’m now panicking

and red in the face

and I can’t swallow the mass.

Instinctively, I grab the water cup to try to wash the dry pills down.

I tilt my head back and pour water down my obstructed esophagus.

This

Does

Not

Help

Noooooooo…. now the half cup of water is sitting in a bubble on top of the obstruction in my throat.

And it’s backed up into my nose.

And now I am drowning…

…while I am choking…

...while I am trying to commit suicide.

This is the rare Triplecide™.

Perhaps this move gets named after me like Simone Biles unique moves…

Hers are far more graceful.

So the panic has fully set in… I’m absolutely scared shitless that I am choking and drowning simultaneously.

And this is a moment I want to highlight…

If I want to die… if suicide is what I supposedly want… why not step into this moment? Why not let the choke/drown– Droke? Chown?

WHY NOT LET IT HAPPEN?!?

Instead I’m now punching myself in the stomach in a panicked Heimlich maneuver. It’s not working.

And then… with all the strength I can muster… every ounce of strength in my fading body I somehow cough in a way that finally spews the entire mass onto the floor.

The whole incident was maybe 20 seconds? 30?

Felt like 10 minutes. Terrifying.

And now that I’m able to breathe again and take some deep breaths….

Now that I have saved my own life…

I can get back to the noble work of killing myself!

get it?

Do you see how this is not about sensible thinking?

People often ask about mental health

“Why would you do that?”

And I always reply

“You are asking for logic in an illogical situation.”

A mental health patient is not using any form of logic you would understand or identify with. This is like Frank Zappa music. It makes sense to itself and nothing else.

It’s the duck-billed platypus of logic. A venomous egg laying mammal of insanity created by a Drunk God Almighty™ just to fuck with humanity.

And this does not make sense to to Fricking Evangelicals™.

Because their logic is even more on it’s own plane than Zappa’s music.

In their world all bad life decisions are easily avoidable with good morals.

Say that to someone who just saved their own life in the middle of a suicide attempt.

Alright.

Now that we’ve had this warm fuzzy moment of life salvation… time to get back to the messy business of taking all the pills. A new problem has emerged in that a significant amount of the pills are now all over the fuzzy carpet and this is killing my OCD.

Suicide is hard work!

Eventually

all the bottles

are empty.

And so now we wait…

let’s put on our favorite song Comfortably Numb (Pulse Version)

and put it on repeat and close our eyes….

Comfortably Numb is what I am, in fact, seeking after a Year From Hell™.

I’m nervous…. getting twitchy…

Knowing that within the hour I will probably be in Hell™

Good God Almighty™

and

Heaven™

didn’t want me.