We Could Be Rats

by Emily R. Austin

I’m not sure I’d recommend taking the advice of an uneducated, twenty-year-old dead woman, but if you insist, I might say you should try being like a rat at a fair. To be clear, I don’t mean that you should gorge yourself on carnival garbage. I just think you should try to collect days like that. Do whatever will turn you into a rat ball, so to speak.

At the time, I had no idea how few days like that we get. When you’re a kid, you assume you’re just getting a taste for all the memorable experiences life has in store for you, but the truth is, most people don’t spend countless nights running through the streets with their friends. They spend a handful of nights doing that if they’re lucky.

I don’t want to be buried with a tampon in.

All I’m trying to get at is that most of us with young uteruses can’t just kill ourselves or go to the beach willy-nilly.

however, I can also appreciate that others might not feel as optimistic as me, the suicidal person.

How is your headspace? If it’s bad, you should try to get your adrenaline pumping. Try introducing yourself to a stranger, taking a cold shower, singing karaoke, or telling someone a secret. Dopamine is harder to voluntarily produce than adrenaline, and they are similar hormones.

I’m also of the belief that dying feels better than worrying you might die at any minute.

I need this to be the suicide note equivalent of pairing a blazer with jeans and a graphic tee.

I didn’t throw pie at Mom because I wanted to wreck her day. I threw pie at Mom because I lost control of myself.

The problem is, I think one of the benefits of growing up with a sibling is having a witness. It’s nice to have someone to cross-reference your childhood with.

There is just a rotten bit to everything, and to everyone, right?

You always said you were introverted, but I don’t know. You might just get tired carrying the mental load required to monitor everyone around you.

The reality of high school wasn’t anything like that. Though maybe that’s because I wasn’t the teenager I was told I would be.

She and I used to talk about how a lot of life felt like that, like we were never the target audience for any of it, like we were always on the outside of something.

Seeing someone my age capable of independently navigating a new place felt like seeing someone offhandedly perform a miracle.

I just wanted to be happy, but sometimes your own happiness comes at the expense of other people’s, doesn’t it? It’s hard to balance being both happy and considerate.

I always wanted to be something I couldn’t be.

I’m a different person than you are. I’m hesitant to spell that out because in similar situations in the past, I never successfully got that point across. I think people often judge others by their own standards.

Inaction is an action.

Every word means more when there are fewer of them.

I’ll do it until I’m an old lady. Even if I stop believing in God, every single night I’m going to say, “I pray for my sister.” Those are going to be my dying words.

I knew it was coming, but somehow, it still took me by surprise.

I didn’t want my hand held, but they didn’t know what else to do, so I let them. Sometimes it’s kinder to let people believe they are helping you even when they aren’t.

She gave me a prescription sleeping pill and said, “I’m really sorry you’re going through this.” “That’s okay,” I said, which was weird of me. I should have said, “Thank you,” or something.

I came prepared to convince her I was telling the truth. I tend to expect conflict. I brace myself for hostility, so I feel flustered and unprepared when people are kind to me.

I asked, “Do you have people who want to help you?” She said, “I don’t think anyone knows I need help.”

I felt like I was a black sheep, and she was an enabler.

I felt disconnected from them. Like I was a stranger. I felt lonelier around them than I did when I was by myself.

I decided that if I were a doll, I wouldn’t have picked myself up. That was when I decided to kill myself. I didn’t like myself.

I think being a teenager is about hiding all your quirks and contorting yourself to fit in and impress people, and being an adult is about re-finding who you were when you were eight years old.