Talk Me Into Suicide - Chapter 1

It started a few months ago. The voices in my head. At first they were benign, coaxing, convincing me something's not right, but not necessarily wrong. Then they got louder, bolder, but remained innocuous.

And then they got malicious. They got controlling.

We sat facing each other silently for a bit in that small stuffy room, on two dull brown couches that he had no doubt purchased online. The room was a hint of depressing beige. There was a clock on the wall to my left that read 1:06 and a painting of a lake on the wall to the right. The rest of the room was bare, save the dilapidated desk behind his couch, another online purchase.

He seemed calm, the psychiatrist, but he broke a sweat. I'm good at reading people. They think they can hide fear behind a mask of bravery. They can't. He was nervous. He realized this wasn't going to be a run-of-the-mill psyche case. Then again, he was inexperienced, just freshly off medical school so he wouldn't have worked with many psyche cases. I had picked him for a reason. That very reason.

'What do the voices say?' He asked.

Tell me the confidentiality clause again.

He cleared his throat. 

'Whatever you tell me is confidential unless I believe you are a harm to yourself or someone else. But there has to be concrete evidence of it. For example, I won't break confidentiality if you report thoughts of suicide, but if I feel strongly, based on the things you tell me, that you will for certain attempt suicide, I can have you hospitalized against your will. The same goes for threat to others. If you give me unequivocal reason to believe you are going to physically harm someone, I can break confidentiality and inform law enforcement officials, but not otherwise.'

He ended his monologue. I trust what I say in this room will remain confidential. A novice psychiatrist will think twice before breaking confidentiality, an action that could axe his career and send him into early retirement.

Have you ever had someone try and persuade you into murder, doctor?

He stared back, silent. That's fine, I just needed him to listen, intently.

Just walk out at night with a knife, find a homeless bum and stab them. How difficult can it be? Do you think the law would waste a breath on solving that crime? No. You'd get away with it. Take a big rock and smash the head of the drunk passed out on the street. Do you think society would miss that delinquent? You'd be doing society a favour. Let's kill. It's easy. It's liberating. Imagine how freeing it would feel to take a life? Do the most unthinkable act, one that both the mortal and heavenly plane consider unforgivable. When you defy a commandment they both, humankind and the spirits, consider sacred, you break free from the chains that tether you to them. Enforce death. Something only the God's are known to be capable of. Humans create life and the Gods decide when to end it. You could be God.

The room was silent again. I could hear time pass us by. Tick, tock, tick, tock.

That's what the voices say. Every day. Every night. They try to convince me to kill. 

He gulped. 'And... And have you? Have you killed someone?' He stammered.

No. Not yet. That's why I'm here, to ask you to help me. To stop me from taking a life.

'You did the right thing,' he spat out quickly, sighing in relief. 'Coming to me, that was wise, that is brave.'

He was quick in believing me. The alternative would mean having to turn me in, an option he no doubt does not want to exercise. I have chosen the right person.

'You have come seeking help and now I can help you. This is very, very good. This shows me you feel the need to change, to get better, and I can help you,' he continues. 

Oh no, my friend, I haven't come here to get better. Oh no no no, there is no getting better for me. I have come to you so you can silence the voices in my head, that is correct, but not through healing. Quite the contrary, I'm afraid. 

I need you to talk me into suicide.