Memento Mori/The Honor Chasm (Warning: Lot of Suicide)

Foreward/Warning

I apologize for talking about so much death. This post talks a lot about suicide and suicidal ideation. Feel more than free to skip it, it is intense. I am writing this for me, not you. I don’t think I have told anyone these thoughts before, but as I say in my very first post on this blog, I am an open book. Read me if you choose to do so. Thanks.

Memento Mori

“I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory

Is this where it gets me? On my feet, several feet ahead of me?

I see it coming, do I run, or fire my gun, or let it be?

There is no beat, no melody…”

—From “The World Was Wide Enough” from Hamilton: The Musical

There’s a character in the Stormlight Archives Series named Kaladin. In the books he suffers a lot from depression. I do too. 

Kaladin has had a terrible life. He was forced to join the military at sixteen along with his younger brother, who he had sworn to protect. His brother died, something Kal felt intensely responsible for. Later, he became a slave due to corrupt leadership. In The Way of Kings, he spends most of his time as a Brideman. Bridgemen are forced to carry a bridge and set it down over chasms so that the soldiers can run across the chasms. There are a lot of reasons why they use this strategy instead of something else, but the biggest is that these bridgemen will get fired on and take aggression away from the soldiers. Since they are a collective of traitors and slaves, they are seen as expendable and it is considered a worthy sacrifice. Kaladin becomes the leader of these men and does his best to keep them alive, but despite his efforts, many still die. One night, in the middle of a storm, the weight of all that death leads him to walk to the Honor Chasm. The Honor Chasm is a well-known place for the bridgemen. It is where they go to commit suicide and die on their own terms. Kal sits on the edge as a storm rains on him, contemplating it all, trying to decide if he should jump or not.

At times, I too sit at the edge of the honor chasm. I have lived a very difficult life. I’ve had therapists tell me that they don’t know how I’m doing as well as I am despite what I’ve been through. I don’t have an answer for them because I don’t know either, except that I fight very hard against the depression that has plagued me most of my life. I’ve spent about a decade of my life homeless, I’ve experienced racism and discrimination, I’ve dealt with anxiety and self-confidence issues and imposter syndrome and suicidal ideation and dissociation, I’ve dealt with death and death and death and death and oftentimes, I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory. My Nana died two days before I started college and it’s been nothing but death since. A funeral or two a year this whole time. Not just a distant relative I barely knew, but people I grew up admiring and talking to, people who I loved. I’ve done a lot of work but it still hurts. Some days, I still sit at the edge of that chasm. 

I lost my grandma, GG, at Christmas time. Her health had been rough and we had also had issues with the hospitals not treating her right (from my understanding, they had given her a much stronger drug than she needed and it had adverse effects. My aunt had planned on suing them and probably would have if GG hadn’t died later from unrelated causes). I remember I was at my glasses appointment and was planning to go visit my mom right after. GG was back in the hospital again for a reason I don’t quite remember. It did not seem that bad, especially since she had been in and out a lot over the year. I was finishing up my appointment when my dad called me.

I will never forget this call, it still haunts me.

My dad sounded shaken up when I answered. Neither of my parents cry often, so when they do, it feels wrong. He said, “Your GG is probably not going to make it much longer. We’re going to leave for Kansas as soon as I get off work so we can see her one last time.” My heart dropped, but instead of panic or sadness, I felt worry for my father. I have never heard him that shaken. I have heard him cry before, but this was different. He started talking about how he had to finish his shift because he needed the money. Things were very tight money-wise, they still are, and the tragedy of possibly not even being able to go see your mother-in-law one last time because you didn’t know if you could pay your bills if you didn’t finish your shift… It killed something inside of me. I told him I was already going by the house to check on mom and that I would start helping them get packed so they’d be ready when he got off work. In that moment, I had to be strong. For him, and for the rest of my family. I had to be strong. I said, “I love you, dad.” He started bawling so hard that he could barely say, “I love you too, son.”

The Honor Chasm

Death doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints

It takes, and it takes, and it takes…

—From “The World Was Wide Enough” from Hamilton: The Musical

We did our best but she died minutes after we started on the six hour drive. This was the storm, this was the real trial, this was when I stood at the edge of that chasm and questioned if life was worth the pain. We didn’t celebrate Christmas. We didn’t have the money to celebrate if we wanted to. In fact, because of our traveling for the funerals, there were bills that did not get paid. The funeral was on December 26th, 2024. My Poppy’s funeral had been passionately sorrowful. My GG’s funeral had a subdued sorrow. We were just here a year ago for her husband and now we were back for her. Like an old acquaintance that you wished you’d never see again, we greeted it dispassionately. 

One of my classmates wrote about suicide and suicidal ideation in their essay. Before my GG passed, I had never experienced such feelings. Despite all the awfulness in my life, I had always felt more like running away and abandoning the pain was more of an option. When I had learned about people close to me having suicidal thoughts, I was not able to understand them. Here, I did. Letting the pain die with me suddenly seemed appealing. I stood at the edge of the Honor Chasm and I felt that all the pain wasn’t worth it. If the universe hated me that much, maybe I should make it easy and let the Honor Chasm swallow me up. I’ve always been a fighter, even as a baby I had to fight to stay alive, but I had been fighting for so, so long and I was just tired. I wanted a break. I needed a break. But the universe wanted to keep piling on and piling on and piling on until my legs wobbled under the weight of all the woes and each step felt impossible. In that moment, I understood those friends that no longer wanted to suffer anymore and thought that death was an answer.

I tried to get help, I vented to friends and they told me to just “lock in.” I vented to my mom but I felt guilty every time because she was dealing with so much herself. I felt alone and that no one cared.

The suicide attempts of two friends, the loss of family members, the realization that I was alone in my pain, the tension in our home, the financial situation, it crescendoed into great wall of sound and I lost myself within. I dissociated, I felt disconnected from my body. My body was simply a machine that made things happen and my mind was swirling with emotions. Anxiety and anger and pain and grief and sadness and loneliness and self-pity and hopelessness and suffering all coalescing into a hurricane of helplessness and I was trapped within. I realized I needed help. I realized that this hurricane of horror was too much for me to deal with alone. 

I’m a fucking fighter. I always have been. But even the strongest fighters can’t do it alone.

So I got help and I started going to therapy. I fought and I fought and I fought. I refused to commit suicide because I wanted to live, I wanted to fight to make things better, I wanted to believe that there was beauty and love and happiness and peace on the other side if I could just get through this storm…

I turned away from the chasm, determined to keep fighting.

“Death can have me, when it earns me.” -Kratos, God of War

HAMMOND AND HAMILTON
Non-Stop
Legacy
Unfinished Symphony
Intermezzo
Wait for It
Hurricane
The Eye
Memento Mori (Warning: suicide)
High Storm/The Unimaginable
La Fine/Pain=Creativity