miércoles, 6 de febrero de 2019

"Just" suicidal thoughts.



Hi there,


I’m Mariana, and I have frequent thoughts about suicide and ending my life but… (Plot twist) I don’t really have the desire to do so, neither do I have an elaborate plan to take those thoughts into action. I just think about suicide in a much frequent and intense way than most of the people do. Spooky, right? Let me try to explain this.

I must say that my many, many attempts of explaining this “condition” are not clear or complex enough, because I don’t truly comprehend the extent of this situation. It’s certainly not easy to admit, and much harder to live with the fact that suicidal thoughts are intrusive visitors to my mind. Because we are used to link, in the case of suicide and self harm, that a thought or an idea are directly related to a particular action. If someone dies by suicide, one of the first question people ask is “But they thought or talked about suicide before?”. If there’s an affirmative action, things make sense. If not, the situation (as hard as it is by itself) is much, much harder to digest.

Over the past 8 years of living with chronic depression, I’ve found myself in desperate scenarios in which death is the absolute best answer. Because life feels way too heavy, things are absolutely overwhelming and the road ahead seems like a black pitch. And I’ve had thoughts that lead into actions, thank God they’ve never had fatal consequences. But that isn’t the scenario I’m discussing, because (as painful as it sounds) that’s the scenario we are most used to face when it comes to suicide.

I’m talking about the ideas. The thoughts. The mere state of mind. The what if and how to and is it possible. The mere mind games that haven’t been taken into a tangible reality and probably never will.

And I’ve realized that since forever, I’ve had those. I’ve stood on the edge of the Eiffel Tower as an 8 year old to wonder “What would it feel to end it all here and just fall down towards the ground?” I’ve stood on the kitchen while cooking and saw all those knifes and thought… you know how this sentence goes. I’ve heard cases (way too much, way too often) about how people died by suicide and immediately thought about how I could’ve done it. But I’ve just recently started talking about it, because it felt (andsometimes still feels) like something is broken with me, that I’m a walking, breathing danger. How do you explain to people that you can still do you daily activities, that you can still accomplish stuff while having these suicidal thoughts in the background, like the music in an elevator? Thanks to an amazing and extensive therapy work I’ve learned how to monitor myself in order to differentiate which thoughts can lead to a potential danger, and which are just thoughts who will remain as that: thoughts inside my head. And I know, I feel it, when I’m in a dangerous territory and when I’m safe and sound. But how do you explain that to others? How do you remain honest about your pain and your journey without alarming them?

Because I’ve been doing this so much, from way back, that I’m used to it being part of my reality. I’ve never thought it could be possible, but you kind of accept that you have frequent suicidal thoughts that don’t come into a plan, or that if it wasn’t for therapy, wouldn’t even be discussed. I don’t have them 24-7 all year around. They just come and go, like that family member you certainly don’t like but are forced to see every now and then, so you put on your big girl pants and deal with them in the kindest way possible. Because you know than rather sooner than later they’ll be gone, but you’ll run with them again some time in the near future so you can’t just act upon your hate towards them.

I cannot act upon my hate and fear of having suicidal thoughts. Because I know that would make life basically impossible. Because I’m way too aware of the consequences it would bring. No one likes living this way and quite frankly, it doesn’t make even the slightest sense: thinking about suicide while still being excited and enthused about life and the future sounds like something that does not compute. But it’s a reality and I know I’m not the only one who feels it. You just have to know that as these thoughts came, they’ll go away. You can’t live with the fear of when are they coming back. The people who freak about when you tell them what’s on your mind? They are just as afraid as you are, they care about you and you have to understand the stakes we are talking about when suicide is brought up to the table. And most importantly, you have to keep in mind that not every single thought, not every idea represents a reality. The mind is a tricky liar, and life goes beyond it.

El 2020: Caos, incertidumbre y cosas que no hemos perdido.

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