I think about suicide every day.
That's what I told my husband last night. It's probably not the best way to qualify how I'm feeling right now but I needed him to understand that these struggles and thoughts are not out of the blue.
He did a stint in a mental hospital 10 years ago because he hit a bottom and had a plan and the materials to carry it out. He called his mother and off he went to the hospital. He stayed there 7 days, got on meds, had some therapy and straightened his thinking out. He did outpatient therapy for three months afterwards and discontinued his meds 6 months after that. And then he was all better.
So that's where he is coming from and he doesn't understand how I can feel like this all of a sudden when I'm on medication and already in therapy. I tried explaining things to him and he still didn't get it.
Finally I was over trying to make him feel better because I hardly think this is the best time to have to explain my feelings. They just are and they suck. So that's when I blurted out what I think about every day. He was shocked. So I described it like this:
His depression was like a brown paper bag. Sure, it gets a little dark sitting at the bottom of the bag but it's not stifling to exist in there either. He eventually wanted a way out and he figured it out with some help. He got out and the bag left in the wind.
My depression on a good day is like living in a straight jacket. I might be tied up but I can still walk and function in a limited way. And because I've lived like this for so long, I've grown accustomed to it and I can even free a hand or an arm on a good day. No, it's not pleasant to live like this so yes, I have thoughts of what it would be like to be free. That seems pretty normal to me.
But when this hits it is like being thrown in a trunk and buried. Still with the straight jacket on. It's dark. I can't move and the air begins to wane. I twist and fight but then I feel panicked and then I really can't breathe. So I get still and almost peaceful. That's where I am right now. That's also when I know that I need help.
That help doesn't include explaining the why's that support my feelings because those got buried along with the fucking trunk. I'm still trapped and need that last bit of air to free myself. Maybe then I can figure all this out.
Because it's a lot easier to breathe in just a straight jacket.
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Hello darkness my old friend,
4 months ago
3 comments:
Years ago I described it for me as being a panther locked in a cage in a tiny locked closet in a room with no windows.
Only I could breathe, so it isn't the same. But I do not know how many years I walked around appearing relatively "normal."
But my life was not yours. And I had more along the way that I could store like little air tanks around me.
And I wish I had words or something to help. And sometimes being there just wishing does no good. Or hoping for your sake. It doesn't help you.
And, YES. One thing that drove me further to the edge in the years where suicide plans were my companions, were people who needed ME to make THEM feel better because I was not right.
Your words are powerful and if someone writing as you have written since I've followed you (and before) can help someone who is feeling like you--if the knowing they are not alone helps even a little bit--my guess is that is a world of help.
But whether or not it helps you, even for a couple of blinks of an eyelid, I hope for you every day. For you to get to breathe yet again, for you to get to reach BOTH arms out of the f-ing straight jacket, for you NOT to have to keep looking at the whys. And I do hope for you. Loudly, some days.
That's all for now. If there is Something Bigger that senses pain and shelters where Its shelter is needed, then, It will be flying to you around now.
Thank you for having the courage to write in you. May you realize that there is a poet and artist of words in you, and that your way of telling your own, UNIQUE life is magnificent.
Love, Jeannette
Jeannette,
"And, YES. One thing that drove me further to the edge in the years where suicide plans were my companions, were people who needed ME to make THEM feel better because I was not right."
This is the unexpected hardest part and precisely my fear with expressing this in the past. I guess it shouldn't surprise me really... but it still does.
Thank you for hoping for me too.
This was also my experience through the nine back operations and my gradually worsening health issues. Other people around me got sick of it. Right. THEY were sick of it. As if I was vacationing in Hawaii, not in the hospital for weeks on end.
So many do not know how to help or to simply be honest and love us WITHOUT being able to help. So they want US to reassure them that all is well... even when it isn't.
I will not pretend with you. That would do nothing for either of us. I never "got used" to it. EVER. I simply learned to tolerate it, and eventually found some people through the years who"got it" enough NOT to offer advice or meaningless comfort, and who did not look to me to reassure THEM in the midst. These friends were and are my true family.
I am so lucky now, at Sixty. Yes, I am alone, but not really.
And you BET I'll keep hoping for you, and admiring how much of YOU you put into YOUR Blog.
Thank you for your words about my art, by the way. It matters to me more than you know. Not everyone truly sees how much of me goes into this--or that it is NOT always easy for me to reveal myself.
I need to read your entry for today now.
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