I need to commit suicide.

I’m not certain, honestly, whether I want to or not, but that doesn’t really matter any longer. Lots of people do things they might not entirely want to do because they must, and this is no different.

Understand, I’m not looking for sympathy here. Just stating a fact. I’m a burden, a black cloud, dragging people down and killing happiness wherever I go. Everything I say or do is somehow wrong. No matter what I always make things worse, p****** people off constantly, making everyone unhappy. And the people I love suffer the most. I’m a cancer, infecting everyone who dares to know me. It isn’t right to keep letting this happen. Superior people shouldn’t suffer because of me.

Yet there are some people so good that they try to love me anyway, and it always ends in disaster. In the end, they can’t take any more and naturally hate me, like any other normal person. Everyone involved ends up hurt and it’s completely my fault for being me. My ex-husband, former friends, even my mother finally couldn’t fight nature any more. But stupid me still keeps trying to build relationships– I’m sorry, I shouldn’t, I can’t help it– and more people keeping getting dragged down and hurt.

If I were a better person I would have killed myself years ago, saved everyone from suffering the curse that is me.
I know that I should have and I’m sorry. But I’m going to make it right.

The problem is that I don’t want to hurt my family more. It’s horrible enough that they got stuck with me through no fault of their own. They shouldn’t have to deal with trauma on top of that. Although I know the prevalent feeling when I’m gone will be relief, I worry that some might also feel grief, shock, even misplaced guilt. I don’t want that to happen.

So I’ve researched life insurance– in this country most policies let surviving family collect even in the event of suicide as long as the policy has been in place more than two years– and learned what documents I should have on my body to prevent anyone from having to endure identifying me afterward. I’ve even read multiple articles about helping loved ones prepare for an inevitable death. (Most agree that I should talk about my upcoming suicide openly and host a sort of pre-Death Wake to day goodbye about a week before. This will all help them to understand my suicide in the correct positive light.)

However, this presents a problem. I don’t want people to feel like they’re required to do the Official Right Thing by trying to stop me. I can’t stand the thought of them lowering themselves to blatant lies, inventing fake reasons and even trying to pretend that their lives wouldn’t all be far better with me gone.

I also know that certain members of my family would take my trying to discuss my upcoming suicide as a PERSONAL ATTACK on them, assuming that I am only making threats in an attempt to hurt them. (Remember how I said I somehow always say and do the wrong thing? And miraculously manage to engage people no matter what I do? Yeah.)

So. I need to commit suicide so that everyone around me can be happy, but I don’t know how to tell them.