One Foot Over the Balcony. I used to call them cowards. Then I… | by Stephen Quail | Sep, 2025

I used to call them cowards. Then I found myself calculating the drop from my own balcony.

Content warning: contains descriptions of suicide, self-harm, and emotional distress.

A few years ago, a childhood friend — the one I used to play football with — killed himself. He was no older than twenty-five.

His mother found him behind their house. I can’t imagine what she felt when she saw her son’s body swinging on the garden hose. Maybe it felt like an emotional death. Life aims a gun at your face exactly when you least expect it. It fires. You don’t feel physical pain, but inside, everything dies. It feels like you might vanish too, while your body keeps gasping for air.

Another shot — his body was still warm when they found him.

I remember my mom telling me the news, and the first thing that rose up from somewhere deep was irritation. “How the hell could you do that? You couldn’t find another way but to hang yourself? Idiot.” I’ll be honest — “idiot” was the kindest word I used for people who “went and did it.” I despised them.

Until one day I caught myself standing on my balcony, calculating whether the drop would be enough for death to come instantly. Oh yes… by my logic, I was preparing to become one more “idiot”.

Maybe it all began long ago — back in childhood, when my alcoholic father beat my mother, or with the stepfather I saw drunk more often than sober. To be honest, I only saw him sober in the mornings when he left for work. Or the bullying at school. All those were small drops that slowly collected in the cup of my subconscious, drops I didn’t pay attention to. I just lived with them.

The first real alarm bells rang when I started hurting myself.

Yes — I acted out what I had seen as a child. “You fucking idiot! You can’t do anything right!” I yelled at myself, smashing my body with my fists. At first it was the legs. I aimed for the muscles and hit until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

But over time it wasn’t enough.

I felt I wasn’t punishing myself enough. I’d grown used to that pain. I needed something new. Maybe the face? I would hit myself for the smallest mistake. Slap, slap! “You gonna keep messing up? Pull yourself together, you worthless piece of shit!” The relief from the emotional release and the pain came instantly.

“What is that under your eye?” my wife asked, looking at my face.

I must’ve gone too far. Time to lie.

Once, in an uncontrolled fit, I missed and slapped myself across the ear. The pain — like a needle inside — folded my legs under me. I fell to my knees and begged my wife not to hear it. Then there was ringing in my head for days.

Did I stop hitting myself after that? Oh no. I just learned to aim better.

But I’m human, right? I’d gotten used to it. My hand would ball into a fist. Unlike slaps, a punch was enough to drop me for hours. The pain sent me into a state where I wanted nothing. Once I hit myself so hard I felt electricity in my legs. “Mate, you’ve got to stop. This isn’t going to end well,” someone said in my head.

Part of me couldn’t stop it. Making promises to myself to stop hitting only made the eventual volcanic outburst feel worse.

So, you didn’t control your emotions — but how did the desire to hurt yourself evolve into a will to commit suicide?

Sitting here now, analyzing, I understand: it wasn’t a single thing. No. It was a cluster of factors whispering in my ear.

I’d been out of work for a year. My wife was working for both of us. And I… I destroyed myself with overthinking. I built dialogues and scenarios in my head that always ended in either despair that filled me or irritability — and

SLAP!!!

— a burning cheek.

Every day I tore myself down with thoughts, insults, hits, hating more and more. The days when I felt happy were gone. I saw fewer reasons to continue. Emotions faded. I almost stopped speaking.

One day my best friend from the army came over. We sat in the kitchen talking about our lives. Alcohol slowly loosened the awkwardness and the fear of talking (we hadn’t seen each other for half a year). He told me he’d split with his girlfriend of several years. I could see it hurt him — tears slowly rolled down his cheeks.

And me?

I was searching my head for where my emotions had gone. I felt nothing. No pity, no sympathy. I tried to force myself to feel pain.

Then he pulled two bullets from his pocket. One looked like it was from an AK-47, the other smaller, and he handed them to me as a “souvenir.” In my head a thought popped up:

“If I put a bullet on the gas stove and light it, would it kill me?”

I asked him. He laughed (which was good) and told me never to think about such things again.

“Fine, I won’t. But still…”