Tag Archives: why

The Whole Being Dead Thing

August 3, 2020 By in Say It Somehow, Soliloquy Tags: , , , , 1 Comment
The Whole Being Dead Thing

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 
1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255)
Support and crisis resources for yourself or someone else

Crisis Textline: Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a Crisis Counselor

Today’s content includes a frank discussion of depression and suicidal ideation. Resources are available.

I’ve carried depression with me my entire life. Sometimes I wave it proudly like a flag – parading it up and down the block for all to see that I’m not ashamed of it. I openly talk about therapy at work and encourage it with my friends. I share the skills I’m learning in therapy with my family. Therapy is effective and everyone should be taught the skills learned through therapy.

Recently however I’ve buried it deep in the heels of my feet – out of frame for the upteenth zoom meeting I’m attending. As if I can compartmentalize it and, like Cinderella’s step sister, cut off my heel so I fit into the shoe.

Intrusive thoughts are not new to me but the frequency and severity of those thoughts has sharply increased over the last few months. I know I will not act on the ideations and at the same time I also hold the thought of them for prolonged periods of time. I have recognized that holding these thoughts, instead of acknowledging them and then letting them go, is a form of self-harm. If anyone talked down to me the way that I talk to me I would knock them out.

Normally I (like many people) take a sadness and I learn and grow from it and it’s valuable, on some level. You emerge stronger. There is at least a trade for the grief. But this year is just a constant parade of horrible shit that didn’t have to happen. This isn’t “sadness was inevitable but it led to growth”, this is “the country I live in is led by venal, incompetent idiots and everything is worse as a result.”

@eachapm’s shit from the internet newsletter 6.24.2020

It’s helpful to have visibility of others who are fighting this same demon. Thanks in part to Emily, I recognized that I have active depression with a side of passive suicidal ideation. I’m not going to act on it today or tomorrow or the next day, but damn if I don’t think at times ‘well, at least I wouldn’t have to deal with *gestures wildly* all of this if I go now. I’m right with G*d.‘

But I won’t leave quietly. Not when there’s so much work to do. It’s the same criticism that I have for Americans who proclaim they are moving to Canada if DJT is reelected. Nah, bitches. It’s your responsibility to stay and reckon with the consequences of your collective actions. No, you didn’t vote for him but the systems you support enabled him to be successful in the first place. You share that responsibility with those who did vote for him. You can’t just punch out, bitch. Stay and do the work.

So I’m staying. I’m doing the work.

I wrote the first half of this post in June. Here, in August, I have added a psychiatrist to my support network. I started meditating. I started medicating. I’m being kind to myself. I’m winning the battle.

Depression is too big to fight alone. Suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune because at the end of the day, it’s better to be alive. Some days are better than others. The chance, the mere hope, that tomorrow will be better will make the fight worth it.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Rainer Maria Rilke “Go to the Limits of Your Longing”

Make Me Stronger

February 22, 2014 By in Soliloquy Tags: , 2 Comments

Sometimes I start to blog and then ask myself “what do I really have to say?” Narcissism can be the historian’s curse (Gag!) I know that sounds self-inflating, but hear me out: I journal/blog/what-have-you because I’m obsessed about history and my own place in it. I want a legacy. (as if a blog is a legacy, hah!)

I’m not sure if this is healthy or not, but it keeps me motivated and I don’t see any direct harm in it.

However it means I often feel the need to fill silence with my own voice, and it’s a habit I don’t always admire. It’s nervous chatter most time, adding nothing to the conversation or the matter at hand. I want to experiment in allowing silence to be natural.  So this next week I’m going to focus on active listening and observing. I’m curious to see what, if any, changes occur.

I have a theory. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Cross the Line

January 31, 2014 By in Soliloquy Tags: , , , , 1 Comment
Cross the Line

In the interest of my own sanity, I present the following. I felt like I would like to share the following thoughts I’ve been pressed with. Allison et. al. would tag this post as one of my many debbie-downer moments, but I don’t think anyone I know/love would discount wanting to voice the following concerns.

I sat with a girl on the rush-hour bus who looked EXACTLY like Dallas, a high-school friend who died after a drunk driver hit her car many, many years ago. This woman could have been her twin, it was strange to be reminded of my old friend and come face-to-face with her memory after all these years. What would she be doing now, I wondered, where would her life take her if it weren’t for that awful accident? And then, a deep seeded guilt came to me – who am I to consider these things? What am I doing to make my own life worthwhile?

I won’t go too much into the gory details but the silver lining about thoughts like this is that they have the power to motivate me to correct past behavior and really do something.

It starts with me cleaning/organizing – which is the best way to procrastinate in my opinion, because afterwards you get a feeling you actually accomplished something and you have a happy work space to complete other goals. So then you work a little on your resume, while simultaneously responding to job postings and writing cover letters. Send a few out, look for more postings, send out a few more, look for more postings… Being unemployed is a full time job if you’re doing it right. Pound the pavement, bring in more applications, rinse and repeat. Take a yoga break every now and then and then make more coffee.

After it all is said and done, what else can you do?

I just remind myself to be thankful that I’m still alive. What are the odds that I was even born in the first place? It is okay to feel small sometimes when reminded of the sheer impossibility of our existence, but you cannot allow that feeling of insignificance to make you retreat – then you just assure the feelings of futility. And here’s a secret, everyone feels that way every now and then.

But I am here, world. I’m not dead (yet) and I’m happy to be here for as long as I possibly can. I’m happy you’re here with me too.