Mike McHargue - Youre a Miracle (and a Pain in the Ass): Embracing the Emotions, Habits, and Mystery That Make You You

The barrel of a shotgun tastes like pocket change and fireworks. The flavor is overwhelming, like a battery pressed to your tongue, though the taste and aroma are quickly matched by the discomfort of what it takes, physically, to put such an instrument in your mouth.

After placing the stock of the weapon on the ground, you lean forward and awkwardly bow your head, as if in prayer. If your goal is suicideand it must be, or why else are you pointing a shotgun at your head?you want to make sure as much shot as possible passes through your brain. So, still leaning forward, you lift your forehead into a less penitent posture. The result is pain, with the barrel smashing against your teeth and jabbing into the gums behind them.

Shotguns are called long guns for a reason. With the barrel in your mouth, you cant reach the trigger while maintaining the critical head-to-barrel angle. My solution to this problem was improvised: I slipped off my right shoe and put my toe on the trigger. Doing so stretched my hip flexors uncomfortably and put strain on my knee. Ive never liked pain, but I could cope with this discomfort. In a few seconds, I wouldnt feel anything ever again.

I was sixteen years old, and tired of pain, rejection, and fear. My heart ached so much, and so constantly, that I didnt want to have a heart anymore. So here I was, sitting in my parents bedroom with my fathers hunting gun in my mouth. I took a deep, smoky, metallic breath and pushed the trigger with my toe.

I FELT THE clunk even more than I heard it. It reverberated through my teeth and into my skull.

Ill never forget that feeling, the ultimate anticlimax. Confusion washed over me, bordering on panic. How was I alive? Turns out, Id cocked the gun successfully but hadnt loaded it right. I was saved by my ignorance of guns, and too afraid to try again. My heartbeat hit triple digits as I fell on the brown carpeted floor and sobbed.

I hadnt been an obvious candidate for a suicide attempt. I was a lanky teenager who played in a band and had a lot of friends. My parents loved me and provided a lifestyle that was comfortably middle class. I had a car and everything. My life looked about as stable and secure as adolescence can be.

Lying on the floor that day, I couldnt believe that Id pulled the trigger. Taking ones own life goes against some of our most powerful instincts, those for living and self-preservation. This is why, when someone attempts suicide, the most obvious response for the people closest to them is to ask the unanswerable question, Why? For people like me, howeverthose who have survived suicide attemptstheres an additional, equally puzzling question: Did I really want to die?

The answer seems clear. After all, Id put a loaded gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger. But if Id really wanted to die, why hadnt I picked up the shotgun, troubleshooted the problem, and then tried again? How could I want to die badly enough to pull a trigger once, but not twice?

Why, instead, did I lie on the floor, full of grief and shame, lamenting that I had failed even at killing myself, while feeling thrilled by the tears on my cheeks because those tears meant I was still alive? How could I be happy at the same time I wished to be dead?