Prequel: I'm not interested in hearing about other people's meds or holistic treatments for depression. Save your time and energy. Also, I am not truly suicidal and already have an excellent support team, so don't feel you need to offer your support.
Ok, writing that title freaks me out. I said it a few times and thought "I am ready" and then I typed it
and thought "Shit."
For years I've felt it important to be honest with my struggles with depression and anxiety (does that give me one mental illness or two? I'll ask my therapist next month.) I hate the shame and silence that surrounds mental illness. And I decided if I was going to be honest about the symptoms of my chronic illnesses: Crohn's Disease and Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease, (which is what we now call Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I know. It's a small step forward and yet it took thirty years to get there, but I digress) why should I be ashamed to mention a panic attack? I was going to take a stand and, while I took it, I stayed in denial about that mental illness term.
Today, after reading this blog:
https://hpwritesblogs.wordpress.com/2015/06/18/www-thesemicolonproject-com/
And thought, it's time for me to be more honest.
In 2009, my cousin, Matthew committed suicide. For a variety of reasons, I never got to really know Matthew. My loss. Watching my aunt and uncle and Matthew's four siblings grieve was agony. I kept wishing that Matthew had reached out to me--which is unlikely since we barely knew each other--but I could have talked to him about wanting to die. I've spent a lot of my life in that place.
As I've switched from one med to another and than back again at a different dosage, all the while weepy, panicked, anxiety to the point of terror, and pretty irrational thoughts (made worse by the fact that when my meds are off, I don't get enough sleep, so then I'm more irrational.)
Actually, as I described the latest flare with my therapist, she asked where I was on wanting to die thoughts and I said "Way more than usual." She replied," so, when the meds are working...." and I said, "Yep. When the meds are working the best, I still have my wanting to die moments, though I'm trying to rephrase those: "I'm exhausted,' 'I need help' 'I'm overwhelmed.' But almost every day I have a moment when I think longingly of death."
When the meds aren't working, I want to die violently. (Not by coincidence, we don't own any guns or sharp knives.) I not only want to die, but I want my blood and guts and brain spattered all over the floor and walls and ceiling as finally the tangible proof of my pain. Because often that's what depression is. It's just unrelenting pain to the point it incapacitates you and yet, unlike an arm chewed up by a lawn mower, I can't offer a doctor a glimpse of what part of me hurts so much.
And then there are the almost daily moments when I yearn for a gentler death. I imagine a moment when my work on this beautiful, but so crazed world is done and I will just let go. I imagine that, like Frodo in Lord of the Rings, someone will offer me a hand and I will take it with a sigh, look back at those I love and will miss but, knowing it is time, I will step out of this life, leaving behind me the illness and pain and find a place where I can rest for awhile..
