My posts will eventually become more spaced out seeing as I'm averaging one a day now, but I'm rewarding myself from finishing some homework... so you folks get another post!
As usual, a little preliminary disclaimer.
This post is primarily geared towards suicidal depression. While I am talking about how it effects me, please keep in mind that I am in NO WAY trying to belittle or take away how hard it is to suffer from suicidal depression. I cannot even begin to imagine what it is like to live that way. So please remember the point of this blog and that I have the upmost respect for anyone struggling with suicide.
This is also something that up until extremely recently, I had not shared with anyone. I confessed to my boyfriend the fear I live in everyday a few weeks ago, and that was the first time I had uttered the words "I am afraid" outloud. So this is very new and still very raw even though I have been living this way for quite a few years now. Let's begin before I change my mind on writing about this so soon.
I am Afraid
Every second of every day I am afraid. Afraid of losing a loved one to suicide and not being able to do a god damn thing to stop it. Ever since my first experience with an attempt, I have been this way. At that time, I hated myself for missing the signs or just completely overlooking them as "how that person just is". Now I am constantly aware and searching for signs, from the smallest sideways comment to straight out asking them if they have thought about it or attempted recently. I don't want to be so naïve again.
My first thought when I wake up is to check my cell phone to make sure I didn't miss a text from a loved one asking for help or to talk them out of suicide (like I have done countless times before). Or a missed call from someone else saying so and so was at this hospital, or that it was too late. It is my last thought before I go to bed, wondering if I should reach out and check on them. While I'm at work, on a date, with friends.. it is my most constant, unwelcomed companion. I could be having a great time, and then suddenly I feel my stomach drop and I am reminded that at any moment, I could lose a loved one. Its ALWAYS there. Maybe not at the forefront of my thoughts, but lingering in the back of my mind.
My least favorite thing in the world is a phone call. No, not for the reason everyone else claims they hate phone calls ("I don't like talking on the phone for blah blah blah reason"). I don't mind talking on the phone. It's the part that my phone is ringing that I hate. Why? A text is safe, a facebook message is safe.. because any decent human being would not deliver awful news in that way. They call you. It may seem silly to those who haven't been there, but when my phone rings.. my first thought is "I wonder which mental hospital I will be visiting this time" or "dear god, did they finally actually do it". Seems irrational right? But when you've been scarred like I have, your mind jumps to the worst. There is one person in particular that when I see their name on my caller id, I know it must be bad. Because they have been the one to deliver the bad news every time.
I can remember a time when I got a call from this person (mind you, it was an innocent call about getting movie passes).. but I had to pull over before I answered because my heart was beating so fast and I felt like I was going to pass out. Once I hung up, even though the call was innocent, I stayed on the side of the road and cried for about 10 minutes. No idea why. It was just overwhelming I guess to relive those same emotions.
It never goes away
People can overcome depression and thoughts of suicide, but there is always that chance that they fall back in the spiral of hell. For that reason exactly, I never stop worrying. I am never not afraid anymore. The person can be deemed fully cured, off of medicine, and doing completely fine.. and I will still worry. Because what if something happens? What is something snaps and they commit suicide without ever having a chance to try to get help again?
During the most peaceful and happiest times for my struggling depressed, it is still all I think about. It is not that I do not believe they can overcome it... I believe and hope everyday they can... but that is not enough to actually cure them.. and make it stay that way for good.
To try to put in perspective... Someone has cancer and is in remission. They are cured! But they don't say they are cured... they say they have been in remission for x amount of time. That there is no sign of cancer in their body. But it can come back. They are not cured for good with a 100% chance of living a healthy life. It simply means that for a certain amount of time, they are cancer free. Like depression... they have been depression free for a certain amount of time.. but it can come back.
There is nothing I can do
There is nothing I can do to not feel afraid. As long as depression exists in this world, I will be afraid. and I hate every god damn second of it. I go in-between hating myself for being afraid (because I am focusing on me, not the person who is depressed) and doing the "Woe is me" (Why can't I be carefree like my friends? Why do I have to constantly have to have this cloud over me that I have no control over). and I hate all of it. It makes me feel stupid for feeling this way. But I do.. and its time I admitted it.
This may also explain why I am such an introvert. Why going out is such a chore and hassle for me. Confused? Okay.. so I spend so much of my day worrying and being scared of things that are not physically in front of me and that I have no control over. and it is fucking exhausting. So then having to go out and be around people and pretend that I don't feel this way.. well that's even more exhausting. Therefore, I usually opt to stay at home every second I can and lose myself in books and video games because that is the only time I do not feel afraid (sleep doesn't work either because I've been blessed at a very young age to have nightmares all the time). I can escape and pretend I live in these worlds that I am reading about. Or why I focus so much on school and work.. its a distraction that I control. So to my neglected friends and family - I am sorry. Its not really a valid excuse.. but maybe that helps explain a little bit when I only stay for a few hours and then say I need to go home or a break from hanging out.
This blog is extremely personal and was really hard for me to write. I decided to do it early to just get it out of the way. This may not make sense to a lot of you.. but it'd be nice to know that I am not alone. Or if I am.. well fuck it, that just means I'm crazy too (or according to Jack Sparrow, I can't actually be crazy because crazy people do not admit they are crazy, and I admit I'm crazy.. so I can't be crazy. Isnt that crazy?)
Ya know that phone call is the worst. You come to expect every time it rings that something's wrong. My least favorite time was when I was getting the phone call to let me know that no one could get ahold of the individual. As a result I tried and couldn't. I left work and drove to their place and began banging on the door. It took a good amount of time because they were asleep and the phone was dead... I just fear that the next time the phone won't just be dead. To be honest I'm not sure how I cope with it most of the time, I think I honestly just pushed it's affect on me aside until last year when I broke down pretty bad. I can't think of an easy way to deal with it besides just being there and trying to spread joy. Talking about it just seems to upset them more and that just makes me more terrified.
ReplyDelete-stay strong
This was a wonderful read...opened my eyes quite a bit. As a depressed person with suicidal thoughts, I didn't realize how it effected others. The moment it came apparent to me is when I was talking with you. You asked me how I as feeling, and I was probably too brutally honest. The look of fear/guilt on your face was easily noticeable, you also looked like you were fighting back tears. I felt so horrible, thought "How horrible am I for burdening her like this." You also are amazing at picking up signs of change from a text or a FB post. You have always surrounded yourself with what I call "the wounded'. How difficult this must be.
ReplyDeleteI want to give you an insight of how many us with depression with suicidal ideation feel. It's from a book I read yesterday about a psychologist suffering with this infliction. It's from the book Undercurrents. The author Martha Manning writes "I want to die. I can't believe I feel like this. But it's the strongest feeling right now, stronger than hope, or faith, or even love. The aching relentlessness of this depression is becoming unbearable. The thought of suicide are becoming intrusive. It's not that I want to die. It's that I'm not sure I can live like this anymore. I don't want to die because I hate myself. I want to die because, on some level, I love my myself enough to have compassion for this suffering and to want to see it end." craz
And no, you are not "crazy". Your feelings are absolutely normal.