Gee, Rapaire, those are quite the helpful suggestions! CO² narcosis aided by a plastic bag? Didn't occur to me. Duh. I was deploring the fact I had no garage to sit in with the engine running instead.    :-/

The alcohol/sleeping pills thing probably wouldn't have worked though. I'd have had to see a doctor to get the pills, and I was afraid to go. He/she would have asked way too many questions, maybe even thrown me in the loonie bin (a fate worse than death, in my book). Plus, my stomach usually rejects alcohol, quickly and violently, whether I want it to or not. Hmmm.

Little Hawk is right. This IS damn depressing. Enough already! So to lighten things up a bit, I offer you all The Suicide Guide

Found it yesterday. Seems to be geared toward the under-25 set (statistically, the age group most likely to suicide). It's well-informed, non-judgmental and witty too. For example, here's the author's thoughts on what awaits a person in the afterlife post-suicide (he gives both religious and atheistic versions):

His [Dante's] picture of Hell is about what you'd expect, in that there are different levels of hellness depending on what kind of an asshole you were. If you're surprised that suicides wind up in Hell at all, you have to understand that the bitch about suicide is that under the Christian scheme, it qualifies as murder. Dante's Hell has the suicide cases living in a suburb of murdererville.

This may sound unfair, but remember that murder isn't a horrible crime because of what it does to the murdered. That person is gone, what do they care? No, the crime is against the murdered person's Mom and brother and sister and best friend and all their coworkers and the people he or she owed money to. All of the people who depended on that person or would have depended on them in the future had they been allowed to live, all of the people who will feel the crushing waves of misery and loneliness due to their abrupt absence, they're the victims.

And since suicide creates the same real and emotional devastation as homocide, the two are treated as the same crime. I know, it sucks. But remember you're not being punished for what you did to yourself, but what you did to those around you when you pulled the trigger. That's the thing, suicide has a way of only hurting the people who liked you. The people who hated you will forget your name in a month and, in fact, the evil bastards who tormented you and drove you to this will actually be a little happier with you gone.

Suicide is like a bunch of your friends saving up money to buy you a car and then you taking the car and running them over with it.

So be prepared. If whatever afterlife is coming involves justice of some kind, you'll still have to answer for the fact that you ended this life by emotionally devastating all of the people who have helped you up until now, while simultaneously having bailed out on all of the people you were supposed to have helped in your remaining decades of life. From the friend who would have needed you to talk them through a tough time a month from now to the sweet girl who you were supposed to marry six years from now, all will be waiting to kick your ass in the afterworld...

Honestly, if I knew a teen struggling in this manner I'd try to get them to read it! :-D

ANd notice too, he doesn't say "you are not being punished for what you did to yourself when you stuck your head in that plastic bag" or "when you swallowed those pills" but "when you pulled the trigger". As if it's a given that a gun would be used. Something to think about ...