Have you ever heard the term “Slow-motion suicide”?
Yeah, that’s what I’m doing.
And I can’t stop. I wish I could, I wish I could want to live, but goddammit there isn’t anything much I want to live for. I don’t have anyone - anyone - except my wife, and the only reason she’s with me is because she needs me. She still treats me well, she cuddles with me to watch movies, but we have had next to zero sex for years, she resents me for not understanding her fetishes (I do understand them but sometimes they hurt me emotionally) and, like any normal person, she often gets fed-up with my depression.
I’ve been taking meds for the last 7 years, and though I had periods where I was better, for the last, what, year? Six months at least, I’ve gone downhill. I just can’t see a way out, can’t see anything changing for the better in my life, and I’ve honestly decided I don’t want another twenty, thirty years of this.
I can’t just up and throw myself in front of a bus, though. My wife has to graduate and find herself a good job, and I have to stay alive long enough that most of our debt (yes, because I’m pretty much the sole provider) is paid, and she gets enough of an inheritance to live well.
But still I can’t abide the idea of not doing anything to ensure I won’t be around much longer, so, being unable to take up smoking, or becoming an alcoholic, because she’d notice, I stopped moving.
I actively avoid leaving the house and walking anywhere, I stopped moving much around the house, I’m pretty much cocooning myself around my computer and avoiding contact. It helps that my constant chronic pain is a good excuse for it.
It’s been working, too. I feel my body deteriorating faster. And I know she notices it, and is worried by it, but up to now at least she doesn’t know I’m doing it on purpose.
She says she’s afraid of losing me, but she’s mostly just saying that out of pity, I think, because I know I’m a nuisance to her, and at least by doing what I’m doing I don’t put more pressure into our finances - if I were trying to stay alive I’d need more meds, and more healthcare, including dental, gym, physiotherapy, mental therapy and such - so that’s a plus, she needs the money to prepare for her life anyway.
The only thing I hurt for is that this process is so long. Every day, every time she looks angry at me or suggests I hinder her life I just want to quit and blow my head off (no gun in the house, lol), but I know if I do that now she’ll be worse off.
It’s become so bad I think if I don’t tell anyone I won’t get to stop myself and fuck, I don’t want her to just up and find me dead in the shower, man.
I want her to hate me enough that she won’t be hurt when I’m dead, but how do I keep myself alive long enough for that to happen?
