I feel nothing. Numb. And I am so overwhelmingly downtrodden that I can't even make the argument to myself that I am anything but useless...and that's just part of what's going on inside my head. My mind has completely lost focus on anything real. I haven't spoken to anyone for hours. All I can manage to do is to lie here in my own filth and stare at the wall or the ceiling. Inside my head there is a monologue that keeps saying things like "help me" and "can't anyone see how bad off I am" all while I'm desperately trying to not go through with the several different irrational plans my head is insisting I follow. I am lost in my depression, and it feels like the comfortable darkness will finally win. And all I can think about that possibility is...finally.
I don't know why this happens to me, but it does, and it's very, very real. Something tweaks in my brain, and suddenly I am falling down a rabbit hole. And it's so weird because I don't have anything in me to motivate me to move, shower, nothing. People who know me personally know that's not who I am inside...I am a fighter. But instead I just lay here lost in my head, and I am not showing any signs of life except for breathing, which...c'mon. That really isn't normal behavior.
Nothing matters except not moving and staying lost in my head. I'm comfortable, believe it or not. To say that I am comfortably numb is not a cliche or a sign of my deep love for Pink Floyd. The sad truth is that I AM lost and mostly unresponsive. And the thoughts I am having, they make so much sense--even though they are so NOT okay. Plans to fatally hurt myself reveal themselves over and over in different scenarios. And they all make sense. That's the thing I want to stress. This suicidal thinking makes sense while you're lost in it. Insanity is a real thing. When I am lost I know...KNOW...that I am a failure. I'm useless. No one can help me, and besides that I don't deserve anything and certainly don't belong where people can help me and support me because I am, in actuality, ruining their lives. This isn't even close to what I believe when I am feeling okay and am able to focus on what's real, but it's the conclusion I always come to when I am captured in a severe depressive episode.
Why is it that my brain makes me want to kill myself so badly when I am like this? I don't understand what triggers my head to go there, but it does. It's done this to me for 30 years, but the last 7 have been especially difficult. The only weapon I have against this suicidal mania is this distant voice from deep inside telling me to hang on. It's an internal struggle, for sure...one that I have, in fact, lost several times. In those cases I simply can't hold on, and I try to kill myself. I have honestly lost count of how many times in the last 7 years I have tried to end my life, and that doesn't include the sporadic times before that. However, I will tell you that every single one of those times was one where I was lost in that extreme thinking. I have just been lucky enough to have someone show up or figure it out and save my life. It amazes me, really, because I'm always sure that I am not going to be found until its too late; yet, it never ends that way. Somehow someone close to me always finds me in time.
Anyway, the only thing I have found that I can do when I desperately try to hang on is to seek out the safety of my bed and close my eyes as I hug one of my pillows. Inside my head there is a wondrous and fierce battle taking place, and I am just a witness to most of it. I have all of the thoughts I described above, yet there is a part of me that is instinctively fighting to stop myself from carrying out these terrible plans.
And I do fight...it's just not obvious because from the outside view I am not moving or communicating or keeping myself healthy. I fight by thinking of my educational goals and my brother's new wife, Martha, and his new step-daughter, Andrea, who, of course, is now my niece. AND there is the forthcoming birth of Abby, my brother's first child with Martha. I love them and am excited that Abby will be here in less than two months. It's thoughts like this and of the friends that love me who would be devastated if I died that allow me to hold on. But again, this battle is all in my head, and it's not obvious which line of thinking is going to control my actions.
For example, one action I can't stop myself from doing, because my negative thinking forces me to, is to hoard selective pills that are given to me even though I am screaming to myself, "NO, NO! Don't do this!". But it doesn't stop me. There is some part of me that irrationally knows that this is important because if I do this consistently for a short amount of time, I will have enough to overdose again. It's as if I am fighting to hang on whilst ensuring that the next time I fall into a deep depression I will have the necessary amount of meds to overdose and finally end this battle. I admit, it's sick, and it sure as hell scares me.
Usually I end up in the hospital when I am like this, but since it started (a week ago today until now), I have just regained the ability to articulate what it's like...really like...for those that may or may not know. Obviously there are varying degrees of depression ranging from being bummed out to all-out suicidal, and they are all important to recognize and to get help. As you can see, my brain tends to go for the worst, and it takes me a while to go for help...if at all. A lot of times I am forced to go against my will, and most of the times I can't remember at all.
My therapist/counselor has noticed that my brain easily gets going on a negative thinking path. It's automatic for me to think negatively about myself now. And that's hard to process because I know...KNOW...that negative thinking is not fundamentally me. Until this accident, I spent every day, year, decade pronouncing that I know I can do anything. I set an example for more than one person who wasn't sure. And yet now I have to admit that she's correct. In the last 7 years I have been disappointed more and more by my limitations. My visions for the future have been bleak and scary, although sometimes a ray of sunshine would help me to see that my future wasn't over if I just fought for it. For all of that, though, the bottom line was that I had no choice but to find a way to (radically) accept a completely different body. One that hurts a lot, is fatter than I ever imagined myself being, and of which I am very much ashamed.
I don't know how long I will be like this. I can say that I am a little better today as compared to last Saturday, and certainly this past Wednesday where I was so, so lost that the comfortable darkness was winning big. Yet here I am today, and I am able to look back on those days and articulate what it's like to those of you who may or may not understand, instead of lying in a mortuary. I'm counting that as progress.
As always, thanks for reading.
I don't know why this happens to me, but it does, and it's very, very real. Something tweaks in my brain, and suddenly I am falling down a rabbit hole. And it's so weird because I don't have anything in me to motivate me to move, shower, nothing. People who know me personally know that's not who I am inside...I am a fighter. But instead I just lay here lost in my head, and I am not showing any signs of life except for breathing, which...c'mon. That really isn't normal behavior.
Nothing matters except not moving and staying lost in my head. I'm comfortable, believe it or not. To say that I am comfortably numb is not a cliche or a sign of my deep love for Pink Floyd. The sad truth is that I AM lost and mostly unresponsive. And the thoughts I am having, they make so much sense--even though they are so NOT okay. Plans to fatally hurt myself reveal themselves over and over in different scenarios. And they all make sense. That's the thing I want to stress. This suicidal thinking makes sense while you're lost in it. Insanity is a real thing. When I am lost I know...KNOW...that I am a failure. I'm useless. No one can help me, and besides that I don't deserve anything and certainly don't belong where people can help me and support me because I am, in actuality, ruining their lives. This isn't even close to what I believe when I am feeling okay and am able to focus on what's real, but it's the conclusion I always come to when I am captured in a severe depressive episode.
Why is it that my brain makes me want to kill myself so badly when I am like this? I don't understand what triggers my head to go there, but it does. It's done this to me for 30 years, but the last 7 have been especially difficult. The only weapon I have against this suicidal mania is this distant voice from deep inside telling me to hang on. It's an internal struggle, for sure...one that I have, in fact, lost several times. In those cases I simply can't hold on, and I try to kill myself. I have honestly lost count of how many times in the last 7 years I have tried to end my life, and that doesn't include the sporadic times before that. However, I will tell you that every single one of those times was one where I was lost in that extreme thinking. I have just been lucky enough to have someone show up or figure it out and save my life. It amazes me, really, because I'm always sure that I am not going to be found until its too late; yet, it never ends that way. Somehow someone close to me always finds me in time.
Anyway, the only thing I have found that I can do when I desperately try to hang on is to seek out the safety of my bed and close my eyes as I hug one of my pillows. Inside my head there is a wondrous and fierce battle taking place, and I am just a witness to most of it. I have all of the thoughts I described above, yet there is a part of me that is instinctively fighting to stop myself from carrying out these terrible plans.
And I do fight...it's just not obvious because from the outside view I am not moving or communicating or keeping myself healthy. I fight by thinking of my educational goals and my brother's new wife, Martha, and his new step-daughter, Andrea, who, of course, is now my niece. AND there is the forthcoming birth of Abby, my brother's first child with Martha. I love them and am excited that Abby will be here in less than two months. It's thoughts like this and of the friends that love me who would be devastated if I died that allow me to hold on. But again, this battle is all in my head, and it's not obvious which line of thinking is going to control my actions.
For example, one action I can't stop myself from doing, because my negative thinking forces me to, is to hoard selective pills that are given to me even though I am screaming to myself, "NO, NO! Don't do this!". But it doesn't stop me. There is some part of me that irrationally knows that this is important because if I do this consistently for a short amount of time, I will have enough to overdose again. It's as if I am fighting to hang on whilst ensuring that the next time I fall into a deep depression I will have the necessary amount of meds to overdose and finally end this battle. I admit, it's sick, and it sure as hell scares me.
Usually I end up in the hospital when I am like this, but since it started (a week ago today until now), I have just regained the ability to articulate what it's like...really like...for those that may or may not know. Obviously there are varying degrees of depression ranging from being bummed out to all-out suicidal, and they are all important to recognize and to get help. As you can see, my brain tends to go for the worst, and it takes me a while to go for help...if at all. A lot of times I am forced to go against my will, and most of the times I can't remember at all.
My therapist/counselor has noticed that my brain easily gets going on a negative thinking path. It's automatic for me to think negatively about myself now. And that's hard to process because I know...KNOW...that negative thinking is not fundamentally me. Until this accident, I spent every day, year, decade pronouncing that I know I can do anything. I set an example for more than one person who wasn't sure. And yet now I have to admit that she's correct. In the last 7 years I have been disappointed more and more by my limitations. My visions for the future have been bleak and scary, although sometimes a ray of sunshine would help me to see that my future wasn't over if I just fought for it. For all of that, though, the bottom line was that I had no choice but to find a way to (radically) accept a completely different body. One that hurts a lot, is fatter than I ever imagined myself being, and of which I am very much ashamed.
I don't know how long I will be like this. I can say that I am a little better today as compared to last Saturday, and certainly this past Wednesday where I was so, so lost that the comfortable darkness was winning big. Yet here I am today, and I am able to look back on those days and articulate what it's like to those of you who may or may not understand, instead of lying in a mortuary. I'm counting that as progress.
As always, thanks for reading.
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