I woke up this morning and my mood was absolutely rock bottom. It took forever for me to wake up. I felt like I was walking in mud and by the time I actually made it out the door for therapy, I was exhausted. So I had this session with a crazy therapist that wants me to live despite feeling like an asswipe. I don’t know really what happened today. We were sitting there talking and I was overwhelmed with all that I have to do for my research job and then go into my clinical job and I just felt the intense urge to die and told her so. She says no which pissed me off more and I told her I wasn’t going to see her again. The exhaustion I have been feeling the past three weeks, overwhelmed as I was sitting there pondering what to do. Should I call out knowing that my supervisors are going to say something as this is the 3rd time I have called out on a Monday or go in and tread the mud and anguish of a 4 hour shift. I chose to call out and went home. Didn’t do a thing but couldn’t really sleep as I felt guilty about not working. Then to make matters worse, my boss called me around 5:30pm for something I do not know about. I totally forgot about the lab meeting this morning but getting up early is always hard for me, especially when I work till midnight and stay up till about 2 am to get to sleep, if I can.
I also tried to call my friend in South Africa as he is having a difficult time right now with his nerve injury. He is the bravest man I know who has a good heart. He is from Scotland and grew up in England. I love his accent though sometimes it is difficult to understand when he talks fast (sorry Guy). I was finally able to reach him and text him to let him know I am there for him. For some reason whenever I am in this hell of psychache, reaching out to someone helps ease the pain. I know my friend is worried sick about his future. I had helped him years ago through a crisis and he is grateful that I was able to help him. He calls me his therapist, which I get freaked out about because I am not licensed or trained. I just have enough experience with this bullshit to get to the heart of the matter without talking a lot of jargon. I have always like the word jargon…it makes things sound more complicated than it is yet that is the true meaning of the word.
Anyways, it’s 1:30 am now and my meds still have not knocked me out. I hope I am not going through cycling, where I am hypomanic and then depressed and then hypomanic and then crash deeper into depression. That will fricken kill me.
Tomorrow I really don’t know what I am going to do. I might take another off day but I don’t really know that I can.I just want to get these projects done yet I am so fricken overwhelmed by them it freaks me out and I can’t prioritized, focus, or get the motivation to do what I have to do. I am stuck in limbo with my feet in cement trying to walk and talk and appear all happy to others because if anyone knew just how suicidal I truly am, they most likely would laugh or not take me seriously. All the more reason why I should make an attempt. I just want to get it out of my system. If it works then fine, my worries are over but if not, then I am truly a failure.
One of the members of the support group that I have talk today about how suicide wrecks families. But would the feelings be the same if the sufferer were dying of cancer? Would you want that person to continue suffering just so YOU don’t have to because they are going to die? People with serious painful depressions don’t have the luxury of their own bodies to say ok heart muscles, I have had enough stop working. Or to tell the brain stem to stop the lungs working because they have had enough pain, anguish, and despair to keep forcing air into their lungs when all they want is to stop it. You want to know why a person kills themselves, I’ll tell you, it is because they are in so much friggen mental pain, anguish, shame, guilt, despair, and agony that they just cannot go on anymore. Maybe someone left them, maybe they lost their job and so they are losing their house. Or maybe things appear to be going well in their lives but it is all built around the façade that if they truly knew what was going on in their heads, they would be locked up. President Lincoln was a good example of this. Most of his closest friends, which were few, knew that he had a darkness that he couldn’t control. In one of the books I read, it said that he often thought of hanging himself on a tree outside the white house because the war was going to badly, his Union was dissipating into nothing and people were dying because of the separation. Yet he didn’t go through with it. But, unfortunately or maybe fortunately, John Wilkes Booth was able to end his life. That was tragic, but would it have been more tragic to see a man suffer all his life with this illness and see no possible end to it. To be forced to live against one’s will just so other people not feel sad at their death?? Death is a part of life. It might come natural, tragic, or self inflicted. Every time I hear about a suicide, I feel a little but happy for that person because I KNOW they are no longer in pain. They are free.
OK, I have to respond to this one!!! You ARE my therapist...& there is no need for that to freak you out. i only talk to you, because you understand this shit that we have to deal with. Your call was perfectly timed...although i do not have an accent!!! this is the way that English should be spoken...i mean...have you listened to yourself??!!! oh and for the record: i am NOT brave at all...
ReplyDeleteYes: I am going to call you back as well. My shit continues: surgeons are too scared to operate now due to the arachnoiditis. it is already multi-level...and god knows what would happen if it spread to my neck...or further... So i have 1 more week in hospital, & then 3 more weeks recuperation at home & then they re-assess. no-one can tell me if the damage to my hand will be permanent.
i know you are battling yourself...and that makes your own action of reaching out to me even more special. i cannot begin to tell you how grateful i am. here, i am the clown...painted smile. there are many old ladies here in recovery after all sorts (hip replacements, knees, strokes, etc.). i roll around giving them chocolates & acting the fool...telling jokes & making light of our situations...but the nurses know that all is not quite as it seems as i do not sleep much at night...Well, I sleep for about 2 hours - enough to start dreaming...and wake up in abject terror. Pathetic really. I was playing monopoly on my iphone with the night staff for hours last night...
OK, here's my comment & question on your last paragraph...& yes it is a loaded question. i have read that great book you sent me inside & out many times...and the startling thing for me is the profound effect that the suicide can have on family & friends left behind. You (& to an extent me) can view a suicide as that person finally escaping the torment...but most people cannot see or understand that. Lincoln didn't kill himself...and surely in the broader context it was good that he did not, as he had so much to give to the world. Another leader, Churchill, was suicidal at times in his life. World history could have been quite different if he had given in to the black dog. OK, maybe they both had miserable lives beyond our comprehension. but they had so much to give. they each gave millions of people better lives. you give me a better life. which is why you are a therapist & have to write a book.
don't write a beginning just yet. maybe do what i have done with my own book...make it a novel. come back later to write the beginning... stopping now - arm tired