Content warning: This post contains frank discussion of my mental health and suicidal ideations. It includes the thought process that leads me to suicidal ideations. Please do not read this if you think it could affect your mental health. Take care of you. So much love to all of you.
Big just got off an almost two week vacation. It was glorious to have his undivided (mostly...everybody needs "me time," and he's no different) attention for 13 days. But while he was on vacation, I realized that I no longer have the control I used to have over my mental illness.
The short of it is that I've been fantasizing about suicide.
A little under 20 years ago, I was hospitalized for the first time for a suicide attempt. It wasn't the first attempt, and it wouldn't be the last. I've been to therapists on and off since I was 16, and my situation at the time had worsened, so it wasn't a total surprise. After a week in the mental ward of the local hospital, I was shipped off to an addiction treatment center to cure me of my alcohol and cocaine addictions.
But I've never been really good at telling people how I feel. In fact, I suck at it. And isolating oneself is a symptom of all of my diagnoses. So when I couldn't bring myself to talk about what was going on inside my head, and I stopped showing up for the center's therapy sessions, they gave up on me and sent me home. You can't help someone who won't help herself.
I don't blame them. It truly comes down to not knowing how to treat someone like me. To get better, you have to be able to acknowledge the problem(s), and I was incapable.
When I got home, I began seeing a dual diagnosis counselor, which is a counselor who specializes in clients who suffer from both addiction and mental illness. She was great, and I actually started being more forthcoming to help her to help me. But when I started explaining everything that was going on in my life, she became overwhelmed, describing my life as an explosion, and things never really felt right after that.
Of course, that's another symptom of my diagnoses. I trust someone, and then I decide I was stupid to trust them (with or without a reason), and I stop trusting them and pull away. So maybe things were exactly as they'd always been, and my stupid mental illness convinced me that they weren't.
Either way, I stopped seeing her after the third (and last) time I was committed, which was about a year and a half after the first time. I stopped taking my medication against medical advice, and I decided I was going to do this on my own. And for all the ups and downs, I've managed, with Big's help.
Quitting my medication was a good decision. I was on extremely high doses (maxed out on some) just to control the madness and make the shit stop, but I wasn't thriving. I no longer had that harsh internal monologue convincing me that the whole world would be better off without me in it, but I also had zero emotion, zero motivation, zero sex drive, and zero cognitive ability.
I couldn't read (a thing I've always loved) because I couldn't focus on anything, and I'd have to read the same paragraph a hundred times to retain it. I couldn't eat because I had no motivation to go to the store to buy food, and even if I did, I had no motivation to get up and cook. I couldn't relate to people because I couldn't access my emotions. I was taking multiple prescribed chemicals that were supposed to be making me a fully functional, well-adjusted human being, but instead, I was a living dead girl.
When I stopped taking meds and seeing a therapist, I began learning and avoiding my triggers (for me, triggers are things that can cause depression or a panic attack) and researching other coping mechanisms. Exercise, meditation, diet, ample sleep, and routine seem to do a lot of good for me. I was able to hold down a job. My relationship with Big began to blossom. I still had triggers, and sometimes they took me out for days at a time, but overall, I was thriving.
Please note: I am not suggesting that anyone stop seeing their therapist or stop taking their meds. If you need therapy, and it's helpful for you, keep going. If you need meds, and they're helpful, keep taking them. And for the love of god, do not just stop taking your meds without talking to a doctor. Some of them can kill you if you don't ween yourself off of them with the help of a medical professional.
Over the past year, I have managed to re-convince myself that the whole world would be better off if I didn't exist. There's a lot involved, some of which is my haunting past. I'm not sure whether or not I plan to go into detail about that on this blog. Every time I tell the story, I get overly emotional, and it comes out all wrong, and I leave out important pieces, and...
Someday, I am going to sit down and write the whole thing out, from start to finish. I don't know if I'll ever share it, but maybe writing it out will help me finally put it away.
The long and short of it is I used to be a really shitty person. I can sit here and point out a million things that inform my behavior (emotional abuse, domestic violence, and sexual assault, to name a few), but ultimately, I could have (should have) made different choices and I didn't. So because there's no way to atone for being a dick (because I don't know most of those people anymore--I try really hard not to be a dick now), I want to run from it. Make the shit stop. But where do you run when the problem is you? So why not just get rid of the problem?
The current climate on social media and in our government is also a huge influence on my mental health. Because before Donald Trump was elected president, I had no idea there were so many despicable people in the world.
Hell, I had no idea our government was so corrupt. I mean, you hear the rumors and conspiracy theories, but if you'd have told me even a year ago that two Republican senators would come right out and admit that their campaign donors are more important to them than the people who voted to put them in office, I would have told you you were nuts. Since then, Republicans have endorsed a pedophile for Senate over a man who prosecuted KKK members who bombed a church, listed women among other commodities they believe the working class is wasting money on, and voted against impeaching the president for crimes he's committed against the United States of America.
People are on social media praising them for "making America great again" and attacking anyone who disagrees with them, while outright ignoring any evidence that their worldview might not be reality. And I am baffled. I understand mean. I understand hate. I understand greed. I don't understand any of what's going on in the world right now.
Anyway...it's enough to make a person like me think there's no reason to keep going. My past was shit. The world is shit. Looks like if the GOP has their way, my future's shit. What's the point?
But here's the thing:
I'm not that person anymore. I can't change the things I did. I can't fix the things I broke. I can't get back the things I lost. But I can endeavor not to do those things again. I can get busy living. I can move on.
Everyone else did.
And I have tons of reasons to want to move on. I have an amazing husband who works his ass off so that we can live in a beautiful house in the country. I have the two best cats in existence (I might be biased). I have my mom, and my sister, and my neice. I have friends (mostly online...yay social anxiety) who mean a lot to me.
I have my writing, and my love for life, and my desire to see the world find its way to a better place.
I need to do a better job of holding on to these things when I can't see anything past the bad. Bad is temporary. Life goes on.
In the meantime, I've decided to take a break from social media (I don't currently have any social media attached to this blog...soon!). I deleted Twitter and Instagram from my iPad (I don't really use Facebook so it was never installed). I haven't decided what to do about YouTube. I don't really interact with anyone there, and most of the people I watch are crafters, beauty bloggers, or comedians, so it might be safe to keep for now. We'll see.
I don't expect it to be a magic bullet, but if I limit the amount of hate and pain I'm exposed to on a daily basis, maybe I'll be better able to manage the rest? Who knows?
It's been eight hours. Until Big told me about the House vote, I was feeling a lot better just from not taking in all the toxicity of the internet. Here's hoping this break makes a difference...
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
The short of it is that I've been fantasizing about suicide.
A little under 20 years ago, I was hospitalized for the first time for a suicide attempt. It wasn't the first attempt, and it wouldn't be the last. I've been to therapists on and off since I was 16, and my situation at the time had worsened, so it wasn't a total surprise. After a week in the mental ward of the local hospital, I was shipped off to an addiction treatment center to cure me of my alcohol and cocaine addictions.
But I've never been really good at telling people how I feel. In fact, I suck at it. And isolating oneself is a symptom of all of my diagnoses. So when I couldn't bring myself to talk about what was going on inside my head, and I stopped showing up for the center's therapy sessions, they gave up on me and sent me home. You can't help someone who won't help herself.
I don't blame them. It truly comes down to not knowing how to treat someone like me. To get better, you have to be able to acknowledge the problem(s), and I was incapable.
When I got home, I began seeing a dual diagnosis counselor, which is a counselor who specializes in clients who suffer from both addiction and mental illness. She was great, and I actually started being more forthcoming to help her to help me. But when I started explaining everything that was going on in my life, she became overwhelmed, describing my life as an explosion, and things never really felt right after that.
Of course, that's another symptom of my diagnoses. I trust someone, and then I decide I was stupid to trust them (with or without a reason), and I stop trusting them and pull away. So maybe things were exactly as they'd always been, and my stupid mental illness convinced me that they weren't.
Either way, I stopped seeing her after the third (and last) time I was committed, which was about a year and a half after the first time. I stopped taking my medication against medical advice, and I decided I was going to do this on my own. And for all the ups and downs, I've managed, with Big's help.
Quitting my medication was a good decision. I was on extremely high doses (maxed out on some) just to control the madness and make the shit stop, but I wasn't thriving. I no longer had that harsh internal monologue convincing me that the whole world would be better off without me in it, but I also had zero emotion, zero motivation, zero sex drive, and zero cognitive ability.
I couldn't read (a thing I've always loved) because I couldn't focus on anything, and I'd have to read the same paragraph a hundred times to retain it. I couldn't eat because I had no motivation to go to the store to buy food, and even if I did, I had no motivation to get up and cook. I couldn't relate to people because I couldn't access my emotions. I was taking multiple prescribed chemicals that were supposed to be making me a fully functional, well-adjusted human being, but instead, I was a living dead girl.
When I stopped taking meds and seeing a therapist, I began learning and avoiding my triggers (for me, triggers are things that can cause depression or a panic attack) and researching other coping mechanisms. Exercise, meditation, diet, ample sleep, and routine seem to do a lot of good for me. I was able to hold down a job. My relationship with Big began to blossom. I still had triggers, and sometimes they took me out for days at a time, but overall, I was thriving.
Please note: I am not suggesting that anyone stop seeing their therapist or stop taking their meds. If you need therapy, and it's helpful for you, keep going. If you need meds, and they're helpful, keep taking them. And for the love of god, do not just stop taking your meds without talking to a doctor. Some of them can kill you if you don't ween yourself off of them with the help of a medical professional.
Over the past year, I have managed to re-convince myself that the whole world would be better off if I didn't exist. There's a lot involved, some of which is my haunting past. I'm not sure whether or not I plan to go into detail about that on this blog. Every time I tell the story, I get overly emotional, and it comes out all wrong, and I leave out important pieces, and...
Someday, I am going to sit down and write the whole thing out, from start to finish. I don't know if I'll ever share it, but maybe writing it out will help me finally put it away.
The long and short of it is I used to be a really shitty person. I can sit here and point out a million things that inform my behavior (emotional abuse, domestic violence, and sexual assault, to name a few), but ultimately, I could have (should have) made different choices and I didn't. So because there's no way to atone for being a dick (because I don't know most of those people anymore--I try really hard not to be a dick now), I want to run from it. Make the shit stop. But where do you run when the problem is you? So why not just get rid of the problem?
The current climate on social media and in our government is also a huge influence on my mental health. Because before Donald Trump was elected president, I had no idea there were so many despicable people in the world.
Hell, I had no idea our government was so corrupt. I mean, you hear the rumors and conspiracy theories, but if you'd have told me even a year ago that two Republican senators would come right out and admit that their campaign donors are more important to them than the people who voted to put them in office, I would have told you you were nuts. Since then, Republicans have endorsed a pedophile for Senate over a man who prosecuted KKK members who bombed a church, listed women among other commodities they believe the working class is wasting money on, and voted against impeaching the president for crimes he's committed against the United States of America.
People are on social media praising them for "making America great again" and attacking anyone who disagrees with them, while outright ignoring any evidence that their worldview might not be reality. And I am baffled. I understand mean. I understand hate. I understand greed. I don't understand any of what's going on in the world right now.
Anyway...it's enough to make a person like me think there's no reason to keep going. My past was shit. The world is shit. Looks like if the GOP has their way, my future's shit. What's the point?
But here's the thing:
I'm not that person anymore. I can't change the things I did. I can't fix the things I broke. I can't get back the things I lost. But I can endeavor not to do those things again. I can get busy living. I can move on.
Everyone else did.
And I have tons of reasons to want to move on. I have an amazing husband who works his ass off so that we can live in a beautiful house in the country. I have the two best cats in existence (I might be biased). I have my mom, and my sister, and my neice. I have friends (mostly online...yay social anxiety) who mean a lot to me.
I have my writing, and my love for life, and my desire to see the world find its way to a better place.
I need to do a better job of holding on to these things when I can't see anything past the bad. Bad is temporary. Life goes on.
In the meantime, I've decided to take a break from social media (I don't currently have any social media attached to this blog...soon!). I deleted Twitter and Instagram from my iPad (I don't really use Facebook so it was never installed). I haven't decided what to do about YouTube. I don't really interact with anyone there, and most of the people I watch are crafters, beauty bloggers, or comedians, so it might be safe to keep for now. We'll see.
I don't expect it to be a magic bullet, but if I limit the amount of hate and pain I'm exposed to on a daily basis, maybe I'll be better able to manage the rest? Who knows?
It's been eight hours. Until Big told me about the House vote, I was feeling a lot better just from not taking in all the toxicity of the internet. Here's hoping this break makes a difference...
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
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