I have suicidal thoughts every now and then.
They don’t necessarily come out during bad times. It’s rather random. And it’s not like these thoughts involve planing how I’m going to do it, I just think of how much simpler things would be if I weren’t living. A line from Being John Malkovich comes to mind:
[Consciousness] is a terrible curse. I think. I feel. I suffer.
I think the root of my “suffering” is the anxiety I harbour. Anxiety about social situations, the state of the world, and other trivial details that make life seem complicated. I don’t want to have these thoughts, but I do. Then life gets even more complicated, and I get more anxiety. It’s a vicious circle, until it becomes not about the anxiety itself, but anxiety about having anxiety. I didn’t really identify it until I was in the car with Julie, feeling sick and sicker until I almost asked her to pull over on the highway.
All I want to do is stop thinking. Suicide would be such an easy solution, and as much as I disagree with the reasons for suicide in the first place, I honestly believe this is true.
I know I have a good life, I know how illogical these thoughts are, but that doesn’t stop them from reoccurring on a monthly basis. I remember having these thoughts as early as high school, although they were much more common back then.
More frequently, I have thoughts of mutilation, about once a week. Not self-mutilation, because there’s never anyone specifically doing it to me. It’s just me in blackness, then a floating knife flying into my windpipe, or an axe splitting my head down the middle, or an ice-pick in the back of the neck, or…well, you get the idea.
I’ve never told anyone about this. Not because I’m ashamed of it, but because I didn’t want anyone to worry. Not even my closest friends know.
But harbouring this fear and anxiety, I’m slowly realizing, is difficult. It’s preventing me from enjoying life. I’ve decided to get some help; my first appointment is in three days.
I’m tired of living with this.
@Uncle Joe — That makes sense, and makes me realize that I’ve been fighting these dark feelings instead of embracing them. I’m not sure if I want to embrace them though, perhaps because I haven’t decided if it feels “right” or not. Even I don’t understand my situation, and I self-analyze almost every hour of every day.
@Pearl — It does make sense, although I’ve never met someone who’s felt “threatened” by such things, only concerned. I’m very glad that my friends fall into this latter category too. Being threatened by such things sounds rather ignorant.
Jeff, I know what that’s like.
I’m seeing help now. It’s amazing how wonderful it is to be able to see someone who can give you clear cut solutions, and to once a week feel refilled and revivified, and prepared to face the coming week.
And the revivification process begin to add up positives slowly that help things turn around.
Anxiety is crippling. It made me almost drop out of college at least four times the first two years of school, almost made me kill myself, made me ruin relationships… and it was tough going through the panic attacks and loneliness and heartbreak alone, even when I was with a man, because no one understood what i was going through. My parents–the people whom I needed the most–denied my illness and revoked my prescription coverage so I couldn’t get meds because they said they weren’t necessary and they didn’t want their daughter to become an addict…
I know what it is like to suffocate from all that.
You are taking the right steps. I send you my good thoughts.
-MK
PS. No matter how long it takes, I’d still like to hear your opinion on what I wrote you about.
Thanks for your support. I have to ask though: if you say that that going to therapy helps, why do you need to do it on a weekly basis? Is it something that isn’t cured?
Because the damage my parents inflicted on me so that I suffer from anxiety and low self-image takes years of working at it to make it all better.
It does make a difference, but it’s not a one time cure-all. It’s a process that rebuilds what years wore away (like erosion). Something lost takes time to be regained. Going constantly to therapy is a lot better than trying pills. I had to combo it for awhile, but right now just the counseling helps. Talking to someone totally objective and unrelated to my life and someone who’s trained to see these sorts of problems in other people and give them suggestions and homework for fixing them.
Yes, I have homework. And yes, it does help. Am I cured? No. Am I fighting for a better me? You’re damn right.