2. If I Killed Myself

BACKSTORY 

I think that the first time I ever struggled with suicide ideation was in 8th Grade. There was a boy in my class who would make fun of me constantly and, even though it wasn't physical abuse, thankfully, it still affected me in a very bad way. I remember one day, right after getting home from high school, I locked myself in the bathroom and began to entertain the thought, like something that was hidden in the back of my mind and wanted to get out somehow, but I couldn't allow myself to. So, all I did was repeating to myself that I could not and I should never do that, in a kind of survival and denial mode at the same time. That boy left high school during the first days of the following course, and I remember he tried to make amends somehow before leaving, so I'm not blaming him, or not only him, for what happened, but the truth is that, once you conceive such ideation, it gets stuck with you and you kind of have to learn how to deal with it as it evolves with the passing of time.  

The next time I had this ideation was on the first day of 10th Grade and it happened very abruptly. I had begun to smoke pot during that summer and never laughed out loud so hard in my life but, of course, it was a fake happiness, for nothing had really changed about the bullying situation, so, that day coming back to high school, after having had the best laughs of my life but, then again, having to face a reality that was far from ideal, hit me like a bucket of cold water. I broke down and began to cry during playground, and that's when the prodromal phase of my illness began. I became extremely apathetic and roamed high school like a zombie for the following years. Somehow, my bullies noticed and stopped attacking me a little, but the pain and hopelessness had already invaded my body and my mind in ways I could had never imagined, so it was probably too late to stop the illness from spreading. 

 

Later on, there's been other moments of having suicidal thoughts, like when I went through my first heartbreak at the age of 17, which made me fall into a severe depression and had to ask for psychological help myself even before knowing I would have the first psychotic episode two years later, which also brought back more ideation. In general, the aftermath of every episode entails some ideation. I've had three episodes so far, the last two of which were due to a consensual decision of trying to go off meds, for the doctors were not sure whether my psychosis was caused only by the marihuana addiction or it was an actual schizophrenia, so they had to be certain about this before switching the diagnosis, which is what happened in 2021 during my last episode. Thankfully, I have never been hospitalized, for I have not shown signs of violent behavior during these episodes, but as I said, the ideation stays with you forever and you always must be very careful about that. 

SONGWRITING AND PRODUCTION 

The idea behind this song was conceived long before trying the horror movie method I've been using this last year for my new album. I think it was 2010 when it first occurred to me to write a song about bullying and suicide. Back then, I was highly inspired by the following two songs: Hello of Evanescence and For You Only of Trading Yesterday, both sad and melancholic ballads. In fact, you may slightly notice some similarities between the melody of the verses of my song and Trading Yesterday's, without being an exact copy, obviously. I sometimes use some existing melodies as a reference and then mold them into my own song, for it's very hard to create something completely new and original from scratch.

So, with that melody running through my head and inspired by another great Evanescence ballad, Missing, I began to write the lyrics of the verse, which led me to create a melody for the intro and the pre-choruses and choruses. The final instrumental ended up being so beautiful that I decided to keep the melodies of some parts as the melodies for the lyrics and main vocals. I know producers don't usually do this, for it's probably too obvious, but it's something I've made with some of my songs in the past and, although I admit it actually is an easy recourse, I just couldn't resist doing it again with this song and I think the result is pretty satisfying. I just can't imagine this song in a different way.