Suicide

"At the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is to come. At the darkest moment comes the light." - Joseph Campbell.





I began writing this today in my journal. As is often the case, however, I found the words to flow easier when I thought about telling them to an audience. Therefore, what started as a personal journal entry quickly changed into something I felt like putting into my blog. I didn’t feel it appropriate to put into my more public blog, so I figured I’d put it on this site.

This writing is meant for me. If you wish to read it, that’s fine. I am not putting it on this site for attention or for any other reason than it felt good knowing it might be heard by another person while I was writing. I post it now because I’m not really done writing it yet and I plan to add more to it later. Instead of just saving this on my computer, I figure I might as well share it online.

Given that I’ve made a few enemies on here, I have no doubt that other users will use this to attack me. I don’t really care. If I did, I wouldn’t post this. Though this is, perhaps, the most personal thing I’ve written, I feel comfortable posting it through the anonymity of this site. I would hope those who read it would at least be respectful not to leave nasty comments but, hey, it’s Xhamster. I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen lol. Whatever. I’m posting this for myself. Also, the incident that I write about is in the past. I'm much happier these days, as I am free. Not suicidal at all any more.


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On New Year’s Eve 2012 I attempted suicide. The attempt was not a cry for help, nor was it an act of compulsion, delusion, emotionalism, or psychosis. The decision to carry through with the suicide was deliberate and thought-out, and when the idea of committing it became a concrete intent I was of a sober, if not very defeated, frame of mind. The notion of death brought with it a sense of peace and much needed rest, even as its drive was fed by a deeply-rooted sense of anger and hatred toward myself at the time. I wanted to die, but I also wanted specifically to kill, if that makes any sense.

The major event that sparked the drive toward death was part of an ongoing struggle I had been facing regarding the major and rapid alteration of my core identity since leaving the military in 2010. Those of you who I have gotten to know a little over the past two years through this website have seen glimpses of that struggle. It is a struggle to find and accept the truth of who I truly am, a process I have personified and named "Lilith." I make no claim that my issues were any greater or more unique than those affecting anyone else; I just state that they were present and at the heart of my decision to take my own life.

The critical reasons for the desire to die centered around the poorly-executed reclamation and recognition of the feminine side of myself which I had repressed for a greater part of my adult life. During my military service I had to, by necessity, adopt a very masculine persona in order to operate effectively in my environment and to the extent that I did. Especially during the first portion of my career, I found it more pragmatic to change myself into “one of the guys” than to force much of my feminine nature, of which I felt at the time was not conducive for service, onto the inherently male-dominated culture of the military. In other words, I recognized the military as a man’s world. If I was to be effective within that world, it was only more appropriate and wise for me to conform to its nature than for me to expect it to change on my behalf. Hence, I set upon the mostly-u*********s masculinization of my personality and character to better fit my perception of what was needed to succeed in a military career.

Before I continue I wish to digress and clarify three things. First, the feeling that it is necessary to adopt a more masculine persona in order to be a more effective professional is certainly not unique to the military or even careers in general. Our culture places a premium on everything which is deemed “masculine” over that which is considered “feminine.” The latter is associated with concepts like emotionalism, triviality, irrationality, passivity, and even weakness in general, whereas “masculinity” tends to imply rationalism, toughness, aggressiveness, active participation, and strength. Though I no longer agree with this overly-simplified dichotomy of human nature, I think it is still a very prevalent line of thinking within our culture and my personality in my early life was, more or less, effected by this classification. To put it simply, masculinity was just plain better with regards to success and this was more true for the military than, perhaps, anywhere else.

Second, I would like to point out that my views on this were altered because of and during my time in service. I eventually reached a stage in my career (and life) in which I was beginning to recognize the value of my more feminine traits within the military structure and to utilize those traits for my developing brand of leadership. For instance, I found that, on occasion, to show a more nurturing and forgiving side of my personality was very useful amidst the very black-and-white and uncompromising and prevalent atmosphere necessary to preserve military order and discipline. By virtue of my gender, I could show a bit more compassion toward those I led without that compassion being misconstrued as weakness or taken advantage of. I do not believe this is an ability enjoyed by my male-counterparts. In a way, for me to be more compassionate was condonable because to do so was expected of me by virtue of my gender, whereas that same compassion coming from a male would have been regarded as an aberration and, therefore, a weakness in his character. In relation to the males, I could afford to be a relatively (and I emphasize “relatively”) more compassionate leader without being seen as soft or lesser. In contrast, I could be downright brutal when trying to compensate for any misconstrued perception of being overly lenient. That much, at least, was very conscious on my part.

Third, I have now come to regard the role of service member as an entirely separate gender unto itself. Insomuch as the military lifestyle requires a very specific set of values, behaviors, beliefs, ethics, and thinking, a person’s role as a “soldier,” “sailor,” “airman,” or “Marine” constitutes so much of their personality that, I believe, it is safe and useful to regard these roles as constituting entirely separate gender orientations altogether. Further, as I regard sexuality to be a separate phenomenon distinct from gender, both affecting, though not necessarily encompassing, each another, it’s worth noting that the overall accepted sexual taste of most service members is one of dominance and control versus that of submission. This is largely true for both males and females, I think, for to be sexually submissive necessitates a degree of exposure and vulnerability that is in direct opposition with the military mindset. When it comes to both gender and sexuality, the predominant characteristic is that of aggression with special emphasis on a readiness to kill.

I highlight these three points to emphasize the extent of the enormous persona I eventually adopted during the course of my career. Whether male or female, military or civilian, gay or straight, and everything in between all of those, every human being wears a persona. Some people are better at it than others. For me, I was very effective while in service. But that effectiveness came at the expense of my identity. Every day that I repressed all of my unwanted feminine traits that cried out for expression, I strangled a part of myself. Every time I ignored certain tendencies and impulses that I deemed not conducive for achieving whatever mission I had before me, I suffocated the very things that truly animated my spirit. Every time I played the uber-masculine part, the most real and truest part of my being... that part of me which came most naturally and freely, was starved and neglected.

As I have often written about elsewhere on this blog, it is a very real and sound psychological principle that whenever a natural impulse is ignored or denied existence, that impulse will invariably grow and mutate until it can no longer be repressed. I call it the "Lilith Effect." Like steam filling a balloon, it will find expression in one way or another. It must. For me, all of my repressed femininity found an outlet primarily, though not entirely, through the way I manifested my sexuality after I left the service due to injury in 2010. While in service, I found it very difficult to get too close emotionally to anyone, let alone to make myself vulnerable enough to adopt a sexual role that could be considered “feminine” or “passive.” To put it crudely, I had a hard time allowing myself to get “fucked.” Even during my (brief) marriage, I found sex to be mostly uncomfortable and, often, completely unappealing. Issues with my husband aside, the very idea of giving into another person’s will, allowing them to be in control, dominate, or, otherwise, penetrate and invade my personal space, my body, was complete anathema to the mindset I adopted as part of my military persona. As such, my desire (again to put it crudely) to be fucked went both unrealized and even unrecognized. I repressed it. And as I repressed it, it grew.

It was only after I retired that I finally allowed myself to realize my femininity, both in a sexual capacity and with regards to gender. In terms of gender, the rediscovery of my more feminine side has been both extremely welcoming yet very disorienting. After nearly a decade in service, it’s very hard sometimes to know where I begin and where my military persona ends. Many times they truly do overlap. They are just who I am. Yet, still too often, I find myself expending needless energy acting the part, so to speak, and not just being myself. That gets exhausting. It was tiresome while in the military, though outside the context of my career, I find that putting up that persona no longer has a legitimizing force behind it. It feels more like living a lie, now.

In terms of sexuality, after I retired I found myself to be the exact opposite of how I operated while still in uniform. I went from being very cold and nearly prudish to being the extremely sexually open person you see on this site. I didn’t just begin allowing myself to be fucked, I went to the other extreme and became very promiscuous and sexually open. More specifically, I developed a ravenous appetite to be out of control; to be used; to be dominated. Basically, I developed a very exaggerated form of my inherent, yet repressed, feminine sexuality.

So, given the stress of an abrupt career change, the drastic overhaul of my personality with regards to gender, and the complete shift from being sexually neutral (or aggressive) to being ultra-passive/kinky, I found myself in a severe identity crisis in 2010. Added to this, upon retirement I began undergoing treatment for worsening symptoms of both bipolar disorder and PTSD, both of which were untreated and undiagnosed while I was in service. To use military parlance, my life basically became one gigantic clusterfuck in 2010. On New Year’s Eve of 2012, it all finally caught up with me and I finally attempted suicide.

Upon deciding to actually kill myself, when the debate over whether “I should or shouldn’t” transitioned into “when and how,” something odd occurred in my mind, or at least I considered it odd. When the decision was made, it was made distinctly and entirely by the military/masculine persona I wore for so long, not by the woman I had become. It was as if that old persona had gained a life of its own, autonomous and under its own will. For the first time, I experienced that personality as an outside force, not as a part of myself. It was alien. In a very strange way, it was only in trying to murder myself that I actually found myself and came to life.


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The decision was made shortly upon waking from a very vivid, horrifying dream which I immediately interpreted as my mind’s way of suggesting that I had done irreparable damage to my feminine side, to my true self, over the years by trying to brutally force it into submission. Briefly, in the dream there was a very powerful, very masculine military officer (a colonel) who was marching his battalion directly at, over, past, and through me, as I stand there helpless upon the parade deck. The battalion was full of new graduates, some of whom began to fade out of existence as they marched. Those who faded were those who would not submit to his authority. Presumably I had submitted in the past, and always would in the future. There was a morning news weather crew there, forecasting that the rest of the week would be just like that day, rainy, with “people fading.”

Anyway, I could write a book on the various other symbols in this very, clear and rather non-cryptic dream. Suffice it to say, I have become acquainted with the person represented as the colonel in my dream. He has followed me through fantasies, loves, infatuations, and obsessions. He is what Jung might label “the Animus,” the aspect of our personalities which we normally repress and only glimpse when we view or judge others. Jung claims that the animus (masculine: anima) is almost always of the opposite sex, contains traits we either are afraid we might possess, or ones we wish could possess, and that our interaction with it normally acts as a mediator between ourselves and our entire u*********s. In my case, this was very true. The man in my dreams, the colonel, was sort of my ideal man (he was not always a colonel, nor even in the military. The dream in question made him so). He was everything that I wanted in a mate, and, really, everything I had striven to be. But in the recent dream, the cold, calculating rational that I had always admired was now turned against me. I wasn’t good enough for him, so he was literally stomping out all of the unwanted traits that I possessed. There was no love when I was standing there on the parade deck. My very notion of self was being trampled upon, torn up, and humiliated by what was happening. He saw what was happening, and the worse I felt, the more emotion I showed, the harder and faster they marched. After awhile, the dream abruptly changed to the simple image of bloody, loaded revolver. The image of the gun was "there." It was offered by my psyche as a solution for the pain invoked by the earlier part of the dream. It just sat there... the image was just "there" until I finally woke up feeling very alone, frightened, and defeated. It was like the dream was TELLING me to commit suicide. That it was the best option. That was horrifying.

The point is, when I woke from the dream, I felt defeated. Since retiring in 2010, I had been trying to reclaim that feminine side of my personality. I resuscitated her in fits and starts with the help of Lilith, normally bringing her to life in the form of some exaggerated “feminine” action, such as my little excursions in those adult theaters, and through a few various other sexual encounters. Slowly, if not a bit sordidly, I was becoming ME again. Catherine, not “Ma’am” was coming alive again. I was beginning to relish the fact that I could just be “Kate,” not “Captain So-and-So.” Yet it was a struggle. Where did I leave the masculine world of structure and discipline behind, and where did this newly embraced world of freedom and just being me start? Where could I find the middle ground between ultra-conservative and ultra-slutty?

Well the dream seemed to indicate that there was no middle ground. It was either all or nothing. When I awoke, I felt as though my only option was to revert back to the comfortable confines of the masculine world I had been used to (represented by the colonel, my Animus). If I didn’t, I felt like I would continue down the dishonorable path I had been leading, wherein I was essentially whoring myself out to whoever came my way, dabbling with d**gs, etc. Given as much as I refused to turn back and live a lie, to go back to denying my more feminine side and donning the masculine persona, I envisioned my future as being truthful, yet pointless. I foresaw a pointless life revolving around nothing but desire and lust. The career I had always dreamed of was gone, and I didn’t really want any other. I just felt doomed to being a worthless slut, as so much of what I valued as “good” and “honorable” was wrapped up in that very masculine persona which threatened to stomp me out in my dreams. I had rather been dead and true than to go back to living that lie.

So, faced with the decision of (what looked like then) to be between living an honorable lie and or living a life that was truthful, yet largely dishonorable, I chose death. I realize how utterly stupid this line of thinking is, but, at the time, it just made sense.

With the decision having been made, I set about the task of organizing how I would carry it out. About two years ago, I had given up possession of my firearms to my sister for reasons you might imagine. Therefore I did not have access to such a weapon. I debated in my mind other methods. The first thing that came to mind was to drive off a cliff. The thought had occurred to me before, especially while driving in Malibu and in Topanga Canyon; those places have always sort of been places of refuge for me, places to which I always turned to regain a sense of serenity. I decided against this, however, as I’ve seen too many head-injuries and I didn’t feel I could guarantee death, even if speeding. I wanted a sure thing. I next thought about taking my newly-refilled bottle of Lithium. This would likely have caused death, if all of them were consumed, but in the case of being resuscitated I could suffer brain damage. Again, not a sure thing. I next thought about bleeding to death. I owned two KA-BARs like the one at the bottom my page. I knew that if I could hit an artery, I could possibly make this thing work. If I failed, at least there would not be brain damage, which I feared more than anything.

So I decided to cut open my radial and ulnar arteries. Both arteries are small, and I knew I would need time for them to lose sufficient blood, I decided to overdose on Xanax in an attempt to remain asleep while I bled. I took 70+ mg (I had refilled it with my Lithium). I took the additional step of taking a handful of aspirin in hopes of it acting as an anticoagulant... whether that was sound thinking or not, I don’t know. So with the pills took, I wrote a brief letter describing why I had chosen to commit suicide, sat on my bed, and began the battle of will to try to cut my own flesh.

I don’t write that last line in an attempt to be dramatic. But, for any of you who have tried to deliberately cut or pierce yourselves, inflicting that sort of damage upon oneself goes against our strong survival instincts. It’s just not that easy to deeply slice into your flesh with a razor sharp, 7” blade. For one thing, it hurts like hell. When the pain begins, all of your instincts are crying out to stop, not continue! Next, when you see the blood begin to drizzle out, and then gush, and then finally squirt, you mind automatically begins to sort of panic and urge you to get treatment. However, I did not want treatment, and the wounds I had inflicted were not sufficient enough. With a deep breath, instead of cutting down into the artery, I chose to stab it. One look at the blade at the bottom of my profile, you can easily see the damage it can do. The first stab went halfway through my wrist, though I barely nicked my artery. I thrust a second and a third time. On the final, very deep thrust, I did what we had been taught to do while using this weapon, I pressed the tip up and, like a key, rammed the blade in, twisting it about 180 degrees, and yanked it out. In what kind of astonished me, that did the trick. In a moment of utter surprise, I just watched as the attempt was successful. The artery (radial) was severed almost completely, and began spurting out blood onto my face, lap, everywhere. With every heartbeat, it spurt. With my ulnar artery already losing blood, though not as quickly, I finally passed out.

I don’t know how long I was out, but I had awoke to the sound of what seemed like water dripping. I looked down to see that I was absolutely covered in blood. It had formed a pool somewhere on my body, and was filling up and overflowing onto the ground with my every heartbeat. I passed out a few times before a little voice... my true voice, that of Catherine, in all of her truth and femininity, demanded that I get up and call 911. I listened to her, that voice, called a paramedics and woke up a few days later all stitched up and on the psych unit of my local VA.

(I just remembered something: when I was discharged from the hospital three weeks later, the only clothes they had were my woodland cammies, my parade boots, brown boot socks, bra, panties, and my dogtags. No wallet or anything. I have no idea why I was even wearing my uniform or how I got into it. I'm guessing the fact that I was in my uniform is how the paramedics knew to take me to the VA instead of the closer, regional hospital. Before I left, I had to have a friend of mine run by my house to get my cover (hat), as I didn't want to walk around outside without it. I didn't want to tell anyone I was even in the hospital, let alone have them drop by my house to dig around for my clothes, so I just had my friend go get my wallet, my cover, and my glasses. He also picked up my checkbook so I could pay my bills. He told me that there was a trail of blood stretching from my bedroom to my bathroom and into my kitchen. When I got home it was all dried up and in little flakes where it had apparently pooled on my sheets, and, in fact, there was blood one the floor, the walls in my hall, on both of my sinks... everywhere. Yet I don't remember even ever walking around.)

But it is the very strange dialogue I had with that voice, as well as with that of my Animus’, throughout this experience which is especially interesting.

I’m going to bed soon, so I hope I can explain this sufficiently. When I was debating in my mind the various means for which to carry out the suicide, the dialogue in my head was between two distinct “voices,” or personalities. Let me be very clear in noting that I did not actually "hear" these voices, nor were they invasive, as with schizophrenics. I knew the voices to be versions of my own inner voice, but I had never experienced them to be this powerfully opinionated and opposed to each other. These weren't just two alternate perspectives; it was like they were emanating from two completely different personalities. The masculine personality, who had been the source of my self-condemnation as I attempted to reclaim my feminine side, it was HE who advocated suicide. It was like he hated the woman I was becoming. He could not accept that I was indeed a woman. It was almost like he had been threatened by me as I explored my more feminine side. If I was to spurn him, that is to say, I was to turn my back on his world, then I was worthless and must be eliminated. It was HE who was calling for my death. Even though I wanted to die, in a weird way, he wanted to murder me. Suicide to him wasn't a way out, it was punishment.

But seeing the vision I had for my new life, I wanted to die as well. Just as he wanted to kill me for my weakness, for my femininity, I wanted to die from those same reasons. On the one hand, I wanted rest. On the other, I wanted to kill myself for being so damned weak. Throughout this process, I’d say that he was in charge more of the time. I, Kate, loomed in the background. When I debated on the merits and cons of various methods of suicide, it was almost like it was him putting forth a proposal, and me, trying to counter it. We both wished to die, but I wanted to do it as humanely and dignified as possible. He wanted to do it brutally, and filled with hate.

Anyway, when I (we) decided upon the severing of the arteries, I became very hysterical, as the full gravity of our choice became clear. I didn’t want to die; he did. It was almost like he became angry with me. The taking of the Xanax was almost an attempt to get me to shut up. And it worked. I was not really present for those last few wounds. Those were his doing. But on the several times I woke up while bleeding, it was me, Catherine, who was screaming and begging not to die. In my mind's eye, I was hysterical. And in my mind's eye, that masculine side of me became more resolved. It was out of anger and hate that he plunged that knife into my arm those three or four final times. I could feel his anger as I passed out again.

But around this time, something very strange occurred. I saw things through his eyes. At that final stab, I saw me, Kate, on the other end of the knife, helpless, crying, screaming.... dying. And, through HIS perspective, my heart broke. In this instance, as I was about to deal what I had hoped would be a final stab, I looked upon that other half of me, and I couldn’t believe the amount of overwhelming sadness and guilt which over came me. Possessed by that masculine persona, I was literally murdering myself. Not only that, I was murdering that part of me which was pure, true, and who had been repressed for so long. My heart broke as she (I) screamed... and I’ll never forget the look of helplessness on her face nor the sound of her screams for as long as I live. It was at that moment, the moment of murdering my true self, see myself in the third person, so vulnerable and full of terror, that I recognized myself for who I was. I was just Kate. No more persona. No more act. I was just me. And when I recognized myself as this helpless person whose life was about to be taken, I was able to forgive my weaknesses and my mistakes and embrace my humanity, faults and all. That is when my feminine side, the real Catherine, the side you see here on xhamster, took charge, got up, and called 911. She, or I, decided to live. I might have my weaknesses, but my life still retained value, and I would find it without compromising the woman I am any longer.

So it was only in nearly murdering myself that I was able to fully distinguish between the faux persona I wore for so long, and the woman I truly am. And it was through that very dangerous process that I finally accepted as valuable all of those feminine traits our culture and I, myself, had for so longed demonized. I refuse to any longer put up a false front to try to conform in a man's world. I'll manage just fine to carve out my own place in our society while being truthful to myself. I welcome that masculine side of me, even in all of his hate, as I am bound to his personality forever. But never again will I submit to his rule. I am a woman, not a woman trying to be a man. And with that, I am free to be myself.