Neither Could Dylan

I never thought very deeply about suicide until someone I knew committed it. It’s another one of those moments in my life that completely changed the way I thought about people and the challenges we all face. 

Driveway is a song that was first featured on my EP Jestem Krzywym Lasem but I always felt it deserved a more detailed production. It wasn’t until producing Foxchase that I felt confident enough in my own skills to be able to do it justice. 

When you hear about people who have committed suicide, it’s often followed by the question of, “were there signs?” Was it obvious that this person was depressed or in some way unstable in their life? 

It’s a question I asked myself of my friend then, but one none of us who knew him were able to answer. 

One thing I’ve learned about suicide is that most of the time there are absolutely no signs. You’d have no idea that someone is contemplating taking their own life until they actually just go ahead and do it. You have to be keenly aware of someone’s character to even suggest that’s a possibility and many of us are just not that close and open, even with our family and friends. 

Other people who make outward comments about being depressed or even saying that they’re suicidal are not very likely to actually do it. They’re already taking part in a very critical piece of emotional well being just by saying these words and acknowledging their struggles, so they’re more likely to take positive steps towards correcting their mindset. 

Instead, I think people more often engage in acts of what I consider ‘slow suicide’. This is when we cater to vices that don’t necessarily improve our mental or physical well being, but believe it helps us cope. We overdrink. We chain smoke or abuse substances. We engage in reckless behaviors. You might know a couple people like this in your own life – I used to be one of them. 

And for whatever reason, we have normalized a lot of this behavior and muddied the waters for what’s acceptable and in many cases we even encourage it or see it as impressive. 

As a result, it’s challenging to talk to someone who you think may have turned from a charismatic partyer to problem-drinker or a drug abuser. It’s challenging to speak to someone about what you perceive to be their lack of control or lack of responsibility to themselves and others. And it’s challenging for those people to admit when they need help. On both sides of that fence, I think we’re both afraid that we’re right. 

In the case of Driveway, my friend was not someone with any known issues with alcohol or substances, in fact I’d argue he was among the most responsible of our friend group. 

He was also only 21 when he decided he’d been here long enough. 

It’s no one’s fault, of course, but there’s still a part of me that feels like we failed him. 

People often talk about the act of suicide as being one that is inherently selfish, but I think it’s quite the opposite. I’m not sure how you can look at someone who does this, who has decided that taking themself out of the equation of their own life is in any way selfish. To me, in those final moments I have to imagine that because they’re thinking of this as a solution, they have also considered themselves to be a burden. And someone who is truly selfish does not consider themselves a burden, they lack that empathetic trait. 

A question I often find myself asking is what could have been different in his world and ours that led to a different outcome. 

Since we never knew he was struggling, the answer I come back to is just a willingness to communicate and the compassion to listen. We don’t always need to wholly understand or have any sort of solution, but before we can even determine that we just need to listen. 

If you find yourself in a place where you are contemplating your worthiness in this world or if you’ll even be missed when you’re gone, I want you to know you matter and whatever you’re struggling with can and will get better.

It helps to start by just being kind to yourself.

Official Lyrics:
10 years to the day
I hold it in
I keep it safe
An engine idles in the driveway
Upholstery still stained

10 years to the day
I hold it close
I take it with me
Replace the breaks
Oil the chain
An engine idles in the driveway

Put pencil to the page
An outline to trace
A deep rest and a dotted eighth
Breathe it in here with me
Tell me what to say
I let it ring
I let it ring
Why wait
Why wait

10 years to the day
I hold it in
I keep it safe
10 years to the day
I hold it close
I take it with me
10 years to the day
I hold it in
I keep it safe
10 years to the day
I hold you close
I take you with me

Replace the breaks
Oil the chain
An engine idles in the driveway
Replace the breaks
Oil the chain
An engine idles in the driveway

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Keep listening and jump to track 9: Bitter