So I went and talked to my RA and laid out all the reasons I thought I should off myself. It was a pretty organized list. And at the end of it, he surprised me by saying “Yeah, that all makes a lot of sense. If everything you’ve told me is correct, I don’t see what other option you have either.” I was totally stunned… I mean, his job is to talk me out of suicide, not to validate it as a choice, right?

Then he continued and said, “But look, if you’re dead set on killing yourself and you’ve decided that it’s the only way to deal with things, what if you waited a week? I mean, now that you have a way out, a week couldn’t suck all that bad, because you know it’s the last one… and if anything happens to change the way you feel during that week, well, then you still have options, you can change your mind.”

It was good advice. Validating suicide as an option both shocked me and at the same time kept me from feeling that I was being patronized. It made it more real and made it something that could be discussed seriously. And the one week deadline or extension did in fact give just enough time for something to happen that kept my interest in sticking around.

These days what really works best is suspense… I gotta stick around as long as I can to see how it all turns out. ;-) (well, that and the fact that I love the way my life works now).