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Thank you so much for your response. It means a lot to me
You’re right about me becoming mad and frustrated with myself for all of the things I feel. It just feel so horrible for being so consumed by my internal world when, like I said, there are people out there with real problems. I should be contributing something to the world, but instead I’m stuck in my stupid mind.
Yes, suicide is on my mind. It’s always on my mind. Everyday, all day it’s there. I don’t have any real intent though. I have a strong belief in change, and I’d rather gamble on continuing to live which holds the certain possibility of change than on death which holds the possibility of nothing. I’m almost frustrated with that though. I wish I could just give up the control, stop thinking reasonably, and make an attempt to kill myself. Chances are I’d probably fail anyway. Sometimes I scare myself with my impulsiveness, especially when I’m drunk. All of a sudden I will feel so ready to take a chance of dying. I don’t though, and I’m feel far too in control to ever do that.
I want to rant about something that is often on my mind. It’s about other people and their problems, and how it pertains to my own interpretation of my “problems.”
Please imagine me reading parts of this rant with as much sarcasm as possible infused in my tone of voice. Because truly, I feel quite bitter about much of this inside, and I need to let it out.
My best friend struggles with an anxiety disorder and ever since she got diagnosed late last year, the topic of mental health is constantly turning up in our conversations. Her medication, her therapy, her difficulty with this and that,and so on, and so on, and so on. She talks so openly about it and has no problem at all accepting her diagnosis. She tells me that she has anxiety, and panic attacks, and OCD, and now ADD, and that she has periods of mild depression. And there were a couple days after she started taking new meds that she had suicidal thoughts, and thought the world would be better without her. Oh my god, call in the marines. She talked about that like it was some serious thing.
The problem isn’t my friend. I think it’s great that ashe is able to get help. The problem is me. Me and my stupid relationship with mental health.
When she says that she has periods of “mild depression” in a clinical sense, I think, what a bunch of bullshit. Who is the person that is feeding this to you? Who doesn’t have periods of mild depression? It bothers me because I have been diagnosed with what was called “depression at the more severe end of the spectrum.” Severe? Really? I struggle to accept that I could even qualify for a diagnosis of mild depression. I am constantly doubting the validity of my problems. My friend can’t have clinically significant “mild depression” because I am way more depressed than she is (yes, I know, I can’t really assume that I know how she feels, but for the sake of my rant I’m going to.) so if she’s going to tack on “mild depression” to her list of diagnoses, then what does that mean for me? I guess it just pisses me off that she can so easily accept the word depression into her life, while I struggle with it so much.
Same goes for her few days of suicidal thoughts. Few days? I’ve had suicidal thoughts all the time for well over 2 years. There’s other people that have experienced that for way longer than that. How can she view a few days of suicidal thoughts as serious? Again, the problem is the implication for me.
Here’s another thing with my best friend. She met someone at university this year that has struggled with depression, suicide, and self harm. So my best friend is telling me about this girl and says to me something like, She had a hard time in school…depression mostly… cut… has scars…pretty intense stuff, I thought I had no stigma around suicide, self harm…but I guess I always thought it was only a certain type of people who did that. Intense stuff? By this point to me, it seems so normal. Scars? Yeah, I’ve kinda got quite a few of those. A certain type of people? Ummm, yeah, one of those “types of people” is sitting right in front of you right now.
One more thing…my friend tells me that she like therapy, that therapy is fun. Me? Therapy is the most terrifying and difficult thing in the world for me. I’ve been challenging myself to try it and see if I can get something from it, but it sends my anxiety levels through the roof.
My best friend and I are opposites in a lot of ways, and it turns out that this is another one of them. It just pisses me off sometimes.
Thanks for reading
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Hey indigoskies,
I can hear how affronted you feel by the way your best friend defines and talks about her mental illnesses, especially when you both recognize similar struggles in you own life AND have such a tenuous connection to formal diagnoses and mental health. It seems as though you are comparing your ways of coping with hers, and beginning to wonder whether the “grass is greener on the other side of the fence”….or if her grass only seems greener because it’s painted fluorescent green with titles and medications, where as yours is brown and dry and real and raw. Have you ever been able to share with her your side of things? Does anyone else know what you’ve been going through?
I get a sense that thoughts of suicide have built a nest at the back of your mind, to the point that you would feel strange to go a day without thinking in some way about ending your life as an option to ending your torment. I really like the way you’ve said that suicide only holds the possibility of nothing, that’s given me a creative reframe on my usual line: “suicide is a permanent end to a temporary problem.” I would guess that sometimes the thought of “nothing” is tempting at your lowest points, but I can also hear how your conviction that change is possible is keeping you strong.
I am scared to hear how close you have come to acting on your thoughts of suicide when you’re drunk. I wonder whether there’s anything you can do before you drink to make suicide less accessible to you in those impulsive moments, like lock away any means to end your life or promise to check in with a friend at the end of the night?
Thank you for your eloquent expressions of what you’ve been going through, indigoskies. I hope you’ll keep checking in
the Support Team
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