Raising awareness

For some reason I feel that it's my duty to make people aware of the proper way to slit one's wrists.

I don't know why this is. I have not had any intense spiritual experiences in which The Lord came to me and boomed, "Jenny, do this for me, for it is Your Task upon this earth to prevent as many people as possible from botching their wrist-slitting suicides." And yet I absolutely cannot leave it alone. If I am ever talking to someone and they say something about slitting wrists, I have this immediate Pavlovian response like, MUST. ENSURE. IS DONE. PROPERLY. Even if they come into the room weeping and tell me that their cousin tried to slit his wrists yesterday but was discovered by his roommate and rushed to hospital, where he is now undergoing an intensive battery of psychological tests. You know, I try to say it in a gentle sympathetic tone, like, "Oh, God, how scary. I'm so glad he's okay. Did he slash across his wrists, though, because he's never going to die that way, the blood will just clot?"

BECAUSE I CANNOT HELP IT.

And seriously, I have no idea why I am so compelled to do this. I don't want anyone to commit suicide. If I ever discovered that someone I knew had slit their wrists properly, thereby killing himself/herself, I would feel terribly responsible. Every time this happens, I think about it a month or so later and fret that the people with whom I was speaking were toying with the idea of suicide and have now been tipped over the edge by my awareness-raising.

One of these days, I'm like going to have somebody call me and tell me they just can't take it anymore, they have to end their lives, and they're going to go get a knife and slash their wrists. And I'll say, "I really hope you don't kill yourself, and if you do, please be aware that you'll be much more likely to actually die if you cut straight up your arm, rather than across your wrist," and they'll say, "Uh-uh, you cut across your wrists, that's why they call it slitting your wrists," and I will be enraged at their daring to question me, and I'll be all, "Um, no, actually, I know it's called that, but you seriously have to open the vein all the way up your arm to maximize your chances of success," and then it will be all my fault.

It's a bit like the way I always always always tell my story about the guy with OCD who shot himself, because it's my favorite story of all time (if I haven't told you that one, ask me, cause I love to tell it), and I tell it to people that I know have problems with OCD. I am seriously going to drive someone to suicide one of these days.

But probably not! (she said hopefully) And the story about the guy with OCD who shot himself is absolutely my favorite story in all the world (though closely seconded by the story about the Mutiny on the Bounty replica that my sister and I went on one time), and I love to tell it, all the time, to everyone, and it's all about redemption (sort of), even though it is probably not best to plant ideas in the heads of everyone I know that shooting yourself is the way out when you have OCD. (It's not! There's therapy! There are drugs! Things can be better for you!)

And just in case I wasn't clear, it is no good to cut across your wrists with a knife. You will probably hurt yourself, and I guess it's not absolutely beyond the realm of possibility that you might die, but the real way to do it is to cut up the arm, opening a vein up in a number of different places so that it's harder for all the blood to clot. Pwease dwive home safely.