Saint Jude and Fighting Suicide.

The Saint Jude pendant is my next tattoo. I can't wear a pendant any longer, nor a cross, because the metal against my skin causes such pain that I can't sleep. One of the ironies of having Fibro I suppose. Haha my faith in God makes no sense, I have been hurt so many times, including in a church, and by a member of the clergy. You would think... and then there are the friends that I have lost. I'm too much of a thinker for religion. And yet I believe, I really do, oh my God to I believe, and I can't shake it.

Saint Jude is the Patron Saint of Lost Causes. My original Pendant was given to me by my friend Sam, who killed himself late night on Feb 3 2006. He died in my arms. He has been weighing on my mind these last couple of weeks. His death changed me. I left the pendant he gave me in PA on my trip to Phoenix, it was a mistake, I took it off for some reason and rode off without it. I can only hope it found someone who needed it as much as I did.

The tattoo is something that I can't take off, can't loose. I don't think I will ever move forward. Saint Jude fits me. It has been 11 years since I left them, and I still can't shake the things that I have done, the things that I have seen. It haunts me, it haunts me like a sickness.



I am having a rough night. Its the things in our lives that shape us. If that is really true, and I think it is.. haha I am so fucked. I am so tired of this fight.

I can remember the days, the days when I used to get my father's gun out and load it, and it would just sit on the table next to me. Sometimes I would hold it in my hand and press it against my forehead and just pray. Pray for a way out of this.

I tried it once when I was 15. I did everything right. I got out his gun, I loaded it. I wrote my parents a 3 page letter and put it on my stack of notebooks. I sat in my room, and I wrapped my head in a towel so that they wouldn't have as much to clean up. I put this song on loop

And then I closed my eyes, I put the barrel of the gun into my mouth. It was a .38 Colt, my grandfather's old Service revolver. One bullet that I had been carrying around with me. I pulled the trigger. Man I tell you time slows down, it all but stops. I won't say your life flashes, but oh my God the sense of Regret. And the gun it didn't go off. And I just sat there and sobbed. I just Sobbed for I don't know how long, it felt like an eternity.

I went back to that gun again and again until I was 18. I never went that far again, but I would load it - with a different bullet - and I would just hold it to my temple. Saint Jude. It was the way out. It was the final solution.

When my father found out I was suicidal, when he found out how close I'd come he did two things. He gave the gun away, and he made me give him my Word that I would not take my life.

I have kept my promise. I almost lost it in Phoenix when I had a gun and bullets for a while. I almost lost it. I had to get rid of the gun. I CANT have access to a gun, its too much temptation. I can't fight that for very long. It is a tool that will get me out of here. A way to end the pain, and you cannot imagine the pain.

SO I gave my word. And then Sam killed himself. Most of the kids I worked with when I was younger are dead. Dad is dead. The people who understood me the most. Who KNEW what I have experienced are all dead and gone.

So what can I do? I won't break my word. No matter how much it HURTS. I used to joke that if I ever killed myself there would be a group of angry family members up in heaven waiting to beat me up. And now my dads up there. MY DAD IS DEAD. I want to SCREAM.


But I have people who love me down here. My mother, my family. Brent is like a brother to me. There are the people I love, and who love me. I can deal with this. I can keep fighting this. This war of attrition. Its like trench warfare. Its like WWI is going on in my skull and at night all the demons come out.

If I am anything. If I am anything at all. I am proof of how much the human mind can take, and keep going. That will be my legacy. How much more is there?

Will I live to be 30 or will I live to be 100?

Sometimes I WISH that people could See it on my face. That I looked as old as I feel. But then I'd look like Brother Plunket. It's too soon for that. I'm not ready to call it a day yet. I am a fighter.