Suicide… and not quite suicide

Tags

brain gremlins, depression, despair, how it feels, invisible diseases, invisible illness, suicide, talking about depression, you are not alone

Again, this post may contain triggers. I’m sorry for anyone who is upset by the title popping up in their feeds, but I felt it would be best to make it clear from the outset what I would be discussing in this blog entry.

So here goes.

I have spoken about suicide before here: https://notaloneinthere.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/thoughts-of-suicide/
It’s a hard feeling when you’re so desperate and so low that killing yourself seems the only way out, and it’s important that that feeling and that desperation is talked about. But that’s not the only feeling that’s out there. There’s another one. A far more subtle one. There’s the longing for not-quite-suicide. And that’s dangerous too, because it’s so much easier to deny its existence.

What am I talking about? What is not-quite-suicide?
It’s where life is a drag and a chore and a long empty corridor of fog and pain. It’s where you don’t think you’re that bad, but you know you’re not that good. It’s where you feel like everything you do is a string of desperate patches on a fraying coat. It’s where you don’t want to kill yourself… but you wouldn’t mind if you died.

Not-quite-suicide is the thought that makes you want to lie down and never wake up again. It’s the bit that makes you wonder if you could just float out to sea and never be seen again. It even dresses itself up all noble as a willingness to die for someone you care about. Because killing yourself is an extreme step (you think to yourself) but if you were to die heroically in some kind of grand gesture… well, that wouldn’t be too bad.

I’ve sometimes been deep enough in depression that killing myself seems a viable solution, and that’s bad. It’s a big bad scary warning sign. It says “this person is in trouble“.

On the other hand, I’m only occasionally well enough that I wouldn’t be tempted by the chance to die heroically for a flimsy cause… and somehow that doesn’t seem to ring as many alarm bells.
Hell, I’ve fantasised about hostage situations where I’ve talked the shooters into killing me instead of the other people in the room. I’ve had Mary-Sue stories in my head where I’ve bravely given my life to save a friend, or a family member, or a complete stranger. And once I copped on that this wasn’t a case of “sacrifice” so much a case of something I wanted to do anyway… well it didn’t change my attitude at all. Hell, these days my tactics in the imaginary hostage situation involve explaining that I suffer from depression and even if I survive this I could fall deeply enough to kill myself at any time, so I’m really the logical choice to die as I have no guarantee of being saved anyway, not really, not ever.

And this doesn’t set off alarm bells.

Now, maybe it’s just me who took so long to see how scary these thoughts are, but I’m willing to bet that’s not the case. I would hazard a guess that I know at least a half dozen people who frequently think that it wouldn’t be so bad to just drop dead right now, or to take the place of someone who desperately wanted to live. And I’d hazard a guess that a lot of those self same people would hum and haw about whether they were “really depressed”. I think there are people out there every day to whom dying (note: “dying” NOT “killing themselves”) seems like a far more pleasant option than living. And I think that hundreds and thousands of them believe that “it’s just the way life is” and they “have to just deal with it” and it’s “just them being weak and not coping” and a whole load of other brain-gremlin nonsense involving the word “just”. Furthermore I think they often don’t feel that they can look for support because there are so many people out there who are worse than them.

Can you imagine that? Especially those readers who don’t know how depression feels like? Can you imagine thousands of people going through their lives thinking that death might actually be kinda easier than going on living… and thinking that THEY’RE NOT REALLY THAT BADLY OFF?!
Can you imagine thousands of people that are so fed up of the struggle of living that they can’t seem to care anymore, and who won’t tell anybody because they don’t want to be a bother, or bring down the mood, or act like a “drama queen”?
Can you imagine thousands of people who think “I could tell my friends that I don’t care about living anymore… but it’s not as important as their problem with their car breaking down and I don’t want to be a drag”?

I can.
It makes me very sad.
It makes me think that even if I don’t want to be a drag to my happy friends who are coping well… perhaps I should tell people how I feel anyway. Because perhaps if enough people do it then it will become normal. And perhaps some day when someone confides that they can’t cope with living anymore the response won’t be shocked silence, or uncomfortable attempts at comfort, or plain not knowing what to do… perhaps it will be “well let’s see what we can do about that”. And perhaps if it’s normal enough then people like me will be able to let themselves be helped without feeling like we’re just a drain on society.
That would be nice.
I’d like that a lot.

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“I’m not that bad”

Tags

coping, depression, invisible illness, mental-health, self-criticism, suicide, take care of yourself, you are not alone

First off, I want to say that I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything lately. Moods have been up and down, and I’ve had whole weeks where I’ve pretty much withdrawn from the world. This happens. I cope. I just can’t cope with some other things at the same time, so I let them slide. This time my blog was one of those things.

That said, I now want to move on to the topic of this entry, which is the phrase “I’m not that bad.”
I’ve heard it time and time again, in many different situations. I’ve heard it used by people to deny that they’re depressed. I’ve heard it used to re-assure others that nothing’s wrong, even if it is. I’ve heard it used by people to re-assure themselves by comparing to others in worse situations, or who aren’t as good at coping. Those, however, aren’t the situations I want to address today…

My last post was about suicide, and about all the people out there who’ve considered it. I got a lot of responses from people who’d felt that way, but I also got responses from people saying that it made them feel guilty, or like frauds, because they’d “never been that bad”. That’s what I want to address today.

I want to look at this idea. I want to examine it. Then I want to yell “BULLSHIT!” and throw it out a window. Because how you feel and what you deal with doesn’t have to be measured up against anyone else. The fact that someone out there feels suicidal doesn’t make your panic attacks any less relevent. The fact that someone has panic attacks does nothing to relieve the torment of facing yet another day without joy, or sorrow, or anything resembling emotion. The fact that someone out there has a different problem from you doesn’t mean that your problem doesn’t matter too!

Now don’t get me wrong, there are some places where it’s important to take into account that other people have worse (or different) problems to you. One such situation is when you’re actually talking to the person in question. I generally find, for example, that complaining about my bruises to someone with a broken arm isn’t the best idea. Sympathising with them, and complaining about my bruises later with someone else is often a far better course of action. Another example would be where choices have to be made. Perhaps someone who offers you support has too heavy a load at the moment, and has to choose between being there for you and being elsewhere for a more severely depressed person. In that situation “I’m not that bad” can be a reasonable and helpful comment. (So long as it’s actually the truth, of course, but that’s a topic for another day.)

The important thing about the above situations, however, is that none of them involve you not getting help or sympathy. At their most severe they involve you understanding situations and looking elsewhere for support. And it’s important that you do that. It can be easy for “I’m not that bad” to morph into “I’m not worth the support” and that’s where it gets dangerous. That’s the crack that lets the brain gremlins get in, and once they’re in… well, you know what jerks they can be!

So when you next find yourself thinking “I’m not that bad” stop for a moment and think about what you mean by it. There’s nothing wrong with taking comfort in the fact that things are not as bad as they could be, and there’s nothing wrong with feeling sympathy for those who have it worse, but when you stray into thinking that your own illness deserves to be dismissed because “it’s not bad enough” then you’ve hit a problem. Because if it’s bothering you then it deserves to be dealt with. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be helped. And you deserve to be well.

Thoughts of Suicide

Tags

asking for help, brain gremlins, depression, fear, for non-sufferers, invisible illness, scared, selfishness, suicide, you are not alone

WARNING! This post may contain triggers.

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Hello. My name is Aoife Brown, and today I did not kill myself.

I suppose it’s a lot like other days, in that way. I mean, a lot of other people went through today without killing themselves too.
I could go on a nice little speech about how hopeless I felt, and how useless everything seemed, and how, even though I knew it wasn’t true, I still couldn’t believe that there was anything in me worthwhile enough for me to deserve another day on this planet. I could try to make you understand the intense crushing despair of it all. The feeling that no matter how hard you try you will never be good enough to deserve anything. The conviction that deep down all of this despair is due to an internal fault in you and is so somehow “your fault”. I could even try to explain how everything bad in the world is somehow your fault too. As if you could have fixed it all but you didn’t bother. The world is crap because you are lazy, and need to do better, and should have worked harder…
I could try to explain all of this to *you*, my reader, but the truth is that I don’t understand any of it myself so it would probably be a wasted exercise. Instead, I’m going to focus on something else:

Today, I did not kill myself.
I suppose I’m like a lot of other people that way.
But the question I’m asking myself is, how many other people didn’t kill themselves today?
Not the people who didn’t think of it, but the ones who really, truly, made an effort not to kill themselves?
How many people felt like it was the only way that they could stop feeling this horrible feeling that follows them day after day… and didn’t do it?
And how many of *them* does anybody know about?
How many of them did the same thing yesterday, and the day before… last week… last year…
How many of them hide it from everyone in their lives, and put on a brave face, and go back out there and try again. Day after day. Like me.

Because, you see, today I didn’t kill myself. And it isn’t the first time. And every time I put the smile back on, and pull myself together, and brush it all under the carpet. Because it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair of me to even consider suicide. It wasn’t fair of me to look for a way out. I’m the way I am, and I need to deal with it.
Sometimes I try to leave hints that I’m having difficulty coping. I say things I hope people will pick up on, or announce that I’m feeling “really pretty bad” as if that’ll somehow give it away. And then I cop onto myself and cover up any hints and re-assure everyone, because it wouldn’t be fair of me to worry people. Well I’m sorry people, but I’m not going to worry about what you worry about any more. If you’re worried that I’m in a bad state then I’m going to say “Thank you for your concern. I appreciate it.” and I’m going to keep on going. Because I *am* in a bad state. And I *do* appreciate that people care enough to care.

Today, I’m not going to put the smile back on straight away. And by Gods, that’s hard. I feel embarassed about how I feel… how I felt. I feel like I don’t want people to know. I feel like I should delete every reference to it, and act like it never happened. I feel like I was weak even to consider it, and that talking about it is only going to put the people I care about through even more hardship. I feel like even bringing it up is me “being a drama queen” or “looking for attention”. But I’m not going to listen to those brain gremlins right now. I’m going to ignore what they’re saying, and say something of my own:

I know how to get attention. I could get all the attention I want with far less effort and guilt in other ways.
I know what makes people upset. And one of those things is people they care about hiding things from them instead of letting them help.
I know what weakness is, and TRUST ME: If you feel the same desperation that I do then YOU ARE NOT WEAK! No one could get as far as this if they were weak. No one could have coped this long. If you’re depressed enough that suicide seems so tempting, and if you haven’t gone crying to everyone who’d listen long ago and begged them to please, please, PLEASE, make this feeling go away. If you’ve been strong this long… then weakness has nothing to do with it.

No-one deserves to feel this way. It is not normal. It is not “just part of being human”. It’s something horrible, and if you feel this way then you have EVERY RIGHT to be upset and miserable and scared. It’s not something to feel guilty about. It’s not something that you should have to hide. It’s a perfectly reasonable reaction, to a completely unreasonable feeling.

Today, I didn’t kill myself. And I’m going to celebrate. Because it’s a big deal, and I deserve it. I’m going to get myself a pizza, and pour myself a drink, and raise a toast to all the people who did and say “I’m so, so, sorry that you ever had to deal with this. And I am so, so proud of you for getting as far as you did.” And I’m going to raise a toast to all those people who’ve made it one more day and say “I’m glad. Good luck. And I hope to toast you all again tomorrow.” And I’m going to raise a toast to all those people who have no idea what it could ever feel like, and I’m going to say “I hope you never do. But thank you so much for trying to understand me anyway.”
And most importantly, I’m going to raise a toast to me, and say “Go you! You did good.”