ETCHED into my VERY EXISTENCE

I haven’t done a blog entry or much writing since I haven’t been on my laptop that much. Lately, I seem to only get on my laptop for my weekly virtual therapy sessions via an online portal, thanks for the dumpster fire of COVID19 and the year 2020. And typically, after therapy isn’t my prime writing time. Nights, tonight 0159 is my writing time. 2am is the time for writers, painters, artists and poets, the ones that are a little bit off, a little different because this is the time our brain seems to like to think the most.

Funny that I used the term, “a bit off” as I tend to think I am way more than that. Even knowing that it negates the therapy work, brain rewiring, and that I need to take the negative cognitions I have and reframe them to be more accurate, I always use the term, “messed up” and “fucked up” for myself. Especially at 0159, 0200 in the morning.

What brought that terminology up for myself tonight was taking the prescriptions I had stopped at the pharmacy and picked up this past evening out of the bag to check them and put them with the rest of my medicines. But, as I am looking at my medicines, making sure I knew which ones they were and such, I looked at them and thought, “it is crazy how easily it would be to just take all of these…” So, of course I can’t help to think I am a bit off, messed up, fucked up for having those thoughts.

It has only been around 5 years that I have been professionally diagnosed with mental illness and going to therapy and being on psychiatric medicines. Of course, mental illnesses have been part of my life and biology long before that. Although, how I grew up, that just wasn’t something that existed or was mentioned or something… (that could be a different blog post..). In the past 5 years I have had at least 18 times where I was in the hospital due to mental illness, from different psychiatric hospitals for inpatient, intensive outpatient treatment, times I had to go to the local crisis center or had to be admitted and times where I have attempted suicide or had suicidal gestures. Not fun. There is a lot that I am thankful for about those past 5 years and a lot that has sucked. There are the ups and downs when it comes to mental illness and hospitalizations and therapy and being on medicine.

In those 5 years, what is sticking out to me tonight, after my thoughts while looking at my medicines, is the suicidal thoughts…

[I just had a thought that it was ironic that as I was picking up my medicine today, there was some car with a popular song by (I had to look this up) YNM Melly, “Suicidal” playing… ]

 …the suicidal thoughts…  one of the many negative aspects of mental illness. This month, September, is Suicide Awareness Month. For me, suicidal thoughts are almost always there. They pop up at the most random of times, they can be triggered by feelings, thoughts, emotions, things around me, an event…anything. When I am doing okay, I am able to treat them more like a passing thought, give no mind to it because that is all it is, a thought with no meaning or relevance to it, just part of my brain wiring over the years with mental illness and part of my mental illness struggles. Other times, when I may be struggling more, when those thoughts come up, they take a deeper hold, maybe cause that thought to hang on a bit longer, get me upset, make the thoughts of being “messed up” come up. The less stable I am, the worse my mental health is, when I am struggling more and more, the suicidal ideation worsens. What was once just thoughts become urges, images in my head, a struggle to keep pushing on and getting anything those things out of my head. Self-harm tends to come into the picture for me about then. And there have been times where I have attempted suicide.

The words “Suicide” and “Suicidal”: Words that can be so heavy, so sad, so scary, stigmatized and too often “brushed under the rug” or thought to be “attention seeking”, words people don’t want coming up in everyday conversation: cling to me and seem to be etched into my very existence.

I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I hate it myself. What came to mind earlier tonight as the words burned in my brain, was that they are part of my everyday life. That I have been told by mental health professionals that suicidal thoughts and urges may just be something that I will have for the rest of my life and are just part of my mental illnesses. One psychiatrist I saw always said something along the lines of “what if you take being suicidal/suicide off the table as an option” as if my brain, that I am told will have chronic suicidal thoughts and urges can do that, especially if I am in one of those very unstable moments. It bothers me that on one hand, I am told these thoughts are chronic and will always be there and they were telling me that I could just take it off the table. Maybe for a neurotypical that seems easy and possible. To someone like me though, it isn’t so easy.

There are tons of people who take medicines for a wide arrange of ailments, you will be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t take some sort of medicine at some point. Some people take their medicine(s) from the bottles they are in, some use the daily or weekly pill boxes. But to be looking at your medicine and just think… “I could easily just take these all” and “how many mg of these altogether would kill me or would I just pass out and be sick” or “between this and that medicine, if I took them all I could end things” or “if I took everything, would my body automatically try to save myself or would I have a painful death here by myself regretting what I did? But why am I thinking this? Because I am messed up” … is a terrible and exhausting thing.

I’m really working on turning those negative cognitions around to be more accurate, to not use the “I’m messed up” or “fucked up” terminology on myself. I will keep fighting the suicidal thoughts and urges that come up. I will continue to try to let the thoughts that I have while viewing my medicines pass on without thinking too much. Thankfully when it comes to some aspects of mental illness it is the actions that have the negative outcomes more than the thoughts and urges. I’ll continue on another night, another day. 0311.