I cross lines. That is to say, I often have something that I will not do (like cutting) and, after some time reminding myself that it is not an option (in the case of cutting my last feeble argument with myself was that, if I started to cut that would mean there really was something wrong) I find I have crossed it. This is how it was with suicide.
There was no line I needed to cross as far as suicidal ideation was concerned. That was something that I really could not controll. Several times a day the thought that I would like to be dead, that things would be better if I was, would flit through my mind. Distressing as those thoughts could be (depending on how alert I was to begin with) it was not something I could not live with.
I do not know how or when exactally I got to the point that I saw suicide as a viable option. Perhaps the continuious parade of suicide related thoughts made it impossible to tell when the shift happened. I just know that it did. Slowly I began to realize that I could kill myself. Not only that I could but that I desperatly wanted to. I became aware that I was no longer as concerned with the affect my suicide would have on those who loved me. Instead (as at least one of my previous posts shows) I began to turn the anti-suicide argument of 'It's so selfish' around. Was it not just as selfish of these people to ask me to live like this?
I had a detailed plan: where I would do it, how much time I would need, what the optimal time to do it would be (as in, when was my roommate going to be out the longest). I knew who I was going to include in the note I would write nad about what I would say (I would keep the note with me so I would not be found before it was finished), the note I would leave on the door for my roommate (in which I would tell her to call someone for support, then call the police, and most important of all do not try and come in the bathroom. Suddenly suicide was not just another fleeting thought that ran through my head but a viable option, one that was looking more and more 'appealing' the worse I felt.
I'm not at that place any more. I think I can (almost) honestly say that I do not even have those fleeting thoughts of suicide daily, much less several times a day.
But... I do not think I can go back to the way it was before, when it was only a thought flitting through my head. I just have this feeling that it will never be the same, that I will always, even if it is just in the back of my mind, see suicide as a viable option. Once having come to the conclusion that death, for me, is 'no big deal' (in my words to my last therapist... don't fess up to that by the way, they tend to freak out ;-))... I am not at all sure that I can go back.
5 comments:
I've felt something like that too, that suicide seems like the right option and once you think that you can't go back to the days when it wasn't an option.
I really hope things pick up at least a bit for you soon, talk to someone (your therapist even!), maybe that would help.
Thanks Hannah. Part of me is glad that I am not the only one who has felt something similer... but I really wouldn't wish that on anyone so for what you have experienced, I am sorry.
I've talked to a friend about it a little actually (a gal who was in the psych program the same time I was at Uni) but friends can only do so much, are only so comfortable with it. I think that just hearing some of those things I mentioned makes it difficult to know what to do, what to say when it is coming from a person you care for. *shrug*
*sigh* No therapist for me (not since last August), though I am wishing I had one at this time... with my insurence it's hard to find someone, therapist, doctor, anyone, in this tiny town.
Anyway thanks agin.
There are differences between "I'd rather not be living." "I can commit suicide." and "I will kill myself."
I am proud to say that I do not want to die right now. But if someone asked, I'd have no choice but to admit that I will always see suicide as an option.
I know I'll never see death the same way.
Thanks for your honesty Mariah. I agree there is a difference between the three. For me, I kind of went through those three like they were stages, 1, 2, and 3. I would very much like to have not reached that last 'stage' because, as you said, "I know I'll never see death the same way." ... it doesn't worry me, it doesn't bother me, I do not even see it as a big deal... death, now, is just 'death' *shrug*
I don't think I could ever really walk it back either. But I know I can unpick the thought process... try my damnedest to maintain the kind of awareness necessary to have other thoughts, memories, moments remain more important to me. Or at least equally valid.
I suppose, in the end, I reckon that the arguments we can convince ourselves of are only really a threat when we have no other mental/emotional resources left with which to combat them.
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