Suicide has been a life-long infliction since I was a child. In college, tired of it, I decided suicide should be turned outward into murder. I was sick of the ‘weak female’ image of women. I actually thanked God a few times for being born a woman. At 5’3” it was highly unlikely I would murder anyone.

At 19, a friend confided her mother’s suicide, finding her hanging from a basement wooden beam. That solidified my earlier decision not to have children: What a horror to inflict upon a child!

“Have you ever thought of committing suicide?” In college, I graded people’s philosophical maturity based upon their reply. If ‘No’, they knew nothing about real life.

Philosophically speaking, suicide is a normal option for the demented mind, the pained mind, the PTSD sufferer. For most, it is not an escape or an, “I’ll show them!” action. For me, sometimes it seemed the only way to end pain. Was it Albert Camus or Sartre who suffered while working for the French Resistance against the Nazis? Their life-or-death choices would have made all of us a bit existential or nihilistic.

Taking Wellbutrin at the age of 34, cured me of suicide. I then researched the serotonin angle. In my opinion, some chemical imbalance, rather than making some of us prone to cancer, diabetes or migraines, encourages suicide.

Wellbutrin killed that. And my lucid dreams. And my ability to cry. And my sex drive. As an educated Borderline Personality, I knew I craved extreme stimulation to stay on an even keel. I satisfied that need by staying on the meds and living overseas in foreign cultures. Additionally, the meds made alcohol a forbidden indulgence, so I avoided alcoholism too.

Suicide periodically returns when off the medication, and so I periodically returned to Wellbutrin, missing my lucid dreams.

At 68, suicidal thoughts still visit me. Unlike the St. George sculpture by a Paris metro station, killing the dragon-demon Suicide is impossible. But I have outlived it, so far.

Suicide originates from pain. People who criticize others for committing suicide should congratulate themselves on their inability to feel deeply.