Tag: suicidal thoughts

Thanks, December

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I want to die again

Thanks, December. 

The year weighing heavily on me;

The new one even heavier. 

The sins of the past,

The mistakes of the future. 

Digging myself out or digging myself under? 

Time passing me by, 

Life drifting on its way. 

Here I stay,

No longer moving forward. 

Always looking behind, 

Stuck dreading ahead. 

Trying to breathe through the fog I feel in my soul. 

Maybe next December. 

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Hope this finds you well,

-L

If you are thinking of suicide there is help available. In Canada call 9-8-8.

Glass House

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I feel like I’m living in a glass house; like everyone walking by me can see me falling apart, can see the hole in my chest, and can see how much of a wreck I am.

Because of you.

I can’t let people close to me, I can’t let them in.

They might take one look at my tired eyes and see right through me.

They might see all this pain,

This turmoil,

These crashing waves.

They might see it all.

The hopelessness of never seeing dawn again after this darkness.

The wishing, the waking, the wanting.

The waiting.

Waiting for this grief I live in to overwhelm me for good and to take me away,

Away from this glass house.

Hope this finds you well, 

-L

Even in the Night

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Darkness recognizes darkness.

That’s my theory on why I can’t seem to sleep until it’s light out.

While lying awake at night, I relish the thoughts of just going for a drive, going for late night/early morning McDonald’s, going out and about in the stillest of hours. At night it feels like I can do anything or be anyone.

Yet, as much as my bed often feels like a refuge, it feels like it has walls closing in as soon as the light begins to fade. Walls close in as the darkness quickens.

Sleep never comes easy at night but as the dawn breaks, I’m able to drift away securely.

The darkness in my mind and in my heart recognizes darkness and waits to conquer me once I close my eyes.

Half of this battle is working my entire life around this. In that, I have succeeded. I have worked one entire year of night shifts and have slept soundly during the daylight.

The darkness has all but put out my light.

How can darkness be at once still and freeing, yet heavy and suffocating?

I’m tired of the dark but it still feels safer, though only while awake.

I wish and wish for that eternal darkness where there is no need to worry about waking or sleeping; about dawn or dusk. For that I would go to sleep gladly, even in the night.

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Hope this finds you well,

-L

If Not Love

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Spending time with family used to bring me a little slice of contentment and peace, just knowing they were safe and happy was all it took.

Now it slowly slices off pieces of my heart. They are happy and safe, and they feel contentment and peace. I feel years removed from them. Their joy is no longer my joy. Time spent together is like rubbing salt in a wound, like hand sanitizer on paper cuts.

I spent so much of my life protecting them and shielding them and all I get for it is pain and faked smiles.

I was invited over for supper and by the time I got there, everyone had already eaten and the supper was cold. Their uncaring sliced deep. They were a family without me. I had worked thanklessly over Thanksgiving while they all spent time with loved ones but I did not get the same courtesy.

I spend so much time picking out presents for them that they will need or will find useful and I get not a one in return. My only gift this year was a jar of lotion in a scent that makes me nauseous, from my mother who doesn’t even like me.

It’s just one thing after another. There’s been times where I haven’t felt loved, but I’ve never felt so unloved.

I’ve always hoped to feel love from my family; true unconditional love. Now I don’t think I ever will.

I’ve loved them with my whole heart for my entire life.

I suppose I stuck with life partly because I always hoped I’d eventually feel love and that my family would feel like warmth and security. Family has been my safety plan for 20 years.

That’s what the books say, isn’t it? Have a safety plan. Create a safety plan. Have your friends help you make a safety plan.

Mine has been crossed out, scribbled over, crumpled up, and now it’s finished.

What is there left to live for, if not love?

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Hope this finds you well,

-L

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If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Someone You Know

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Trigger warning: sexual assault, suicidal thoughts, depression, self-harm

It has happened to someone you know. Someone you know has done it.

There has been a lot of talk lately of sexual assault and the violence women face on a daily basis. Every woman knows, every man does not.

RAINN has statistics explaining that every 73 seconds in America someone is sexually assaulted.

It happened to me.

It was St. Patrick’s day. I had gone out with two friends of mine and friends of theirs. We went to a fundraiser for a mutual friend and then to a bar. I had had a lot to drink. At some point in the night, my friends decided that their friend “J” and I would be a “good match”. My two friends had decided to call it a night and left the bar without me after “J” told them he would bring me home.

I did not know they left me there or I would have gone with them but that decision was taken from me.

“J” told me that my friends had left but that he had to take me home. He then told me that his roommate needed a ride so we would be going to his house. He then told me that I could spend the night and sleep on his couch. At 2am, drunk, couches sound pretty appealing. We got to his house, we visited in the kitchen, and we decided to go to sleep.

There was no couch.

I was 19.

At this point I was so tired and I just wanted to sleep. He said that I could just share his queen bed and he would take me to my friend’s house in the morning, and drunk me agreed.

Rape doesn’t just end when their hands leave your body. The feeling of those hands has stayed with me.

I have chronic insomnia, I have attempted suicide three times, anxiety and depression are my constant companions, I have disordered eating, and my self-esteem is on shaky ground. It has been 9 years since that night.

It wasn’t until my counsellor at university pointed out to me that good people don’t lie about having couches for drunk friends to sleep on that I started to let myself off the hook a little bit for everything that happened.

My favourite colour used to be green but for years after I said it was blue because the thought of green made me feel sick.

I can’t tell you how many nights I have spent up all night, waiting for morning to come so that I can feel safe enough to sleep in my own bed, or how many days I’ve showered more than three times trying just to feel clean again. I have a very good memory and my subconcious used that to my own detriment to create hyper-realistic flashbacks for me to relive when I closed my eyes.

St. Patrick’s day will maybe never be a celebration for me. Having your air cut off by your own shamrock necklaces can have that effect on a person.

I’m not telling this because I want your pity or your well wishes. I’m telling you this so that maybe you no longer see rape and sexual assault as one moment in a person’s life. It’s not just a physical recovery. I’m still feeling the ripple effects of that stone thrown in the pond.

I don’t feel safe at night out walking. I don’t go to bars alone. I don’t drink alcohol on dates.

Sexual assault is any non-consensual act. My story is not the only version, but there are countless similar ones out there.

If every 73 seconds someone is being sexually assaulted, then every 73 seconds someone is sexually assaulting. Don’t be that someone.

Be an ally: No means no. Practice explicit consent- only yes means yes. “Maybe later” is not yes. “Not now” is not yes. “I don’t feel like it” is not yes. Teach your friends; teach your children. Call out the behaviour when you see it. Rape jokes are not funny. Believe people when they say they’ve been assaulted. “Not all men” is not a valid argument. Don’t assault people.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Crisis Services Canada

RAINN

Daunting

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Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts

From where I stand, the future looks nothing but daunting. It’s hard to remember the good at the end of such a terrible year. Each disappointment and struggle seems like a heavy stone in the backpack of life that I insist on carrying around.

The weight has pulled me off the podium I stood on at the start of the year and dragged me to where I teeter on the edge. Will I be just one more casualty of this year? It seems more appropriate to close my eyes for good when it’s still a terrible year, instead of souring a new one.

People are looking toward 2021 with hope, so much hope. All I feel is dread. Once the new year starts, my life has nothing left for me to do but to be tugged along with the passing of time. I have a degree, a license, a job, a life, and a home. I’ve lived so much life in these years, I don’t feel accomplished, I just feel old.

My friends are all moving on. They have their own lives. They have relationships, pets, children, homes, and triumphs. They look forward to adventures, to new beginnings, and to a future. Joy and love fill their lives with so much colour. I’m glad for them and envious at the same time.

I can’t feel the colour in my life anymore. I’ve learned how to avoid disappointment by avoiding expectations and hope. Each day is a consistent defeat in itself, why add to it? Food is bland, tea is lukewarm, sleep is fitful, and warm is never warm enough.

A bleak winter’s day with thin sun and glaring brightness is my reality. Nothing has colour and everything is too bright to be enjoyed. The trees are bare and the wind whistles enough to chill my bones. It is silent except for my trudging foot steps. I pass houses with warm light shining from festively decked windows and see smoke from what I imagine to be a warm fire inside. These houses are not for me. I have never been inside one, nor will I ever know the love and joy bottled within them.

My chest aches with the cold, the emptiness, and the loneliness. It is as familiar to me as my breath and the beat of my heart.

Despair.

Sorrow.

Hopelessness.

I used to long and now I find myself longing no more. I don’t want to find the energy to enjoy life. I’d rather fade away into this bleak winter’s day and never trouble the sunniness of a new year.

Maybe in another lifetime I’ll see colour again and find the warmth. That, too, seems daunting but it’s the only hope I cling to, the hope that lies in death. Hope that death will be kind to me as this life hasn’t been.

I’d like to fade away in sleep, though rest is something I never find at night. Perhaps that is the secret to the kindness of death. Dying instead of sleeping doesn’t feel so daunting after all.

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Hope this finds you well,

-L

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Lonely or Alone?

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Holidays and family are supposed to bring joy, love, and hope. They are known for gatherings and good company. This year, people are going to extraordinary lengths to connect with loved ones from a distance to maintain any sense of normalcy.

Here I sit, surrounded by my little family, and I’m feeling more alone than maybe ever before.

Oh, the scorn I would feel if people knew how I was taking being able to gather for granted.

There’s so much pressure when you come back to family; pressure to assume the same roles and to put on the same shoes, to live behind the same façade, to do the same pretending.

“I’m happy.”

“Everything is fine.”

“I’m glad to be here.”

“I love the holidays.”

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

When you celebrate with the same family in your broken childhood home, it feels different as you get older. Everyone pretends they’re the same and that we can’t see all the cracks.

I’ve never felt so lonely- pretending I’m the me they know, when I’m the me that I know. I don’t feel comfortable around them. I don’t feel comfortable with myself. I am not happy. I’d rather be with people who love me for being me, who would love me if they really knew me.

I want to die but here I am celebrating trivial things and faking a smile.

My heart aches and my chest hurts from pure loneliness.

The forced joy of the season makes this feeling so much worse. Don’t get me wrong, this is nothing new to me. The global circumstances just make the guilt bigger too. How dare I feel this way when I’m so fortunate?

I’ve come full circle to where it’s truly a pain to live again. I’ve been here before. It’s almost as if all the work I’ve done to leave this place never happened. I’m stuck going in circles; the struggle is perpetual.

Am I lonely or am I alone?

Lonely. Always lonely.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Crisis Services Canada

The Future I’ve Never Wanted

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Trigger warning: suicide, depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation

 

 

It’s hard walking the journey of life while suicidal. I generally refer to myself as being “passively suicidal” so as not to worry the ones I love but the thoughts are always there. I can be smiling at you or laughing at the story you’re telling me but still be thinking about the poem I want to be read at my funeral or which day of the week I’d like to die.

I had my first suicidal thought when I was 15 and have had them off and on ever since. I have many thoughts swirling around in my head at all times and one or more is always about my death. When will it be? Who will miss me the most? Where did I put my funeral planner? Did I remember to write down the latest version of my passwords? Is my house clean enough for people to come and pack up my things? What if I just walked in front of that car? Should I just jump off this overpass? Who do I want to connect with one last time before I go? These thoughts are there all the time. I dream about them, I wake up with them, I contemplate them through the day, and I fall asleep to them.

Nothing quiets my mind like planning my funeral. I have a planner filled with names of who I want to be contacted specifically and invited to my funeral. I have written my eulogy. I have the playlist I want to be played while people are coming in and leaving. I have the name of the funeral home and their contact information. I have my cremation plans and suggestions for my headstone. I have a letter written that I would like to have read at my funeral. I have suggestions for catering and for location. I have all of my banking information together, my student loan paperwork, and copies of my driver’s license and health card and etc. I don’t want to feel like a burden, even in death, and these choices can be overwhelming for others to make in the midst of grief.

I would love for people to be able to gather, to spend time missing me while being able to grieve in a safe space surrounded by people who are all feeling the same. I hope that my funeral is able to be streamed as I have far-away friends and for many, attending a funeral gives closure, which can be hard to come by in deaths by suicide. I hope that they can find the time to laugh and to reminisce while together, near or far. I hope they tell stories of me. I struggle with feeling loved and imagining my funeral makes me feel like I’d be loved and missed and that is why I cling to the planning.

The general assumption is that as kids grow into teenagers and teenagers mature into young adults, they will have imagined a future. In this future, they have an idea of their ideal career, ideal home, ideal partner, and ideal lifestyle. The classic “house with a white picket fence” dream. I have never planned a future for myself. I have spent my entire life hoping that I wouldn’t have one.

 

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Crisis Services Canada

 

Hope this finds you well,

-L

 

Note: I wrote this months ago. Since then my mental health has taken almost a complete 180 turn for the better. I have more good days than bad days. I can now say that it truly does get better.