I have read so much over the past few days about depression and suicide. It has long disgusted me how we, as a people, will band together over a situation short-term, yet go back to our petty ridiculous squabbles so quickly. I most certainly have my own very strong thoughts about both depression and suicide, as I have survived depression so long, and have known so fucking many people who have killed themselves.

I cannot tell you when I was diagnosed as bipolar, which used to be known as manic depression, which used to be known as blah blah what the fuck ever. A lot of people have it. So what? Every person on this planet goes through periods of depression. It is a part of life to have high and low points. Some of us are lucky/blessed/whatever to have more highs than lows, some of us are unlucky/cursed/whatever enough to have more lows than highs. Some of us are intelligent enough to realize our perspective changes the situation for our own good, regardless what happens. I cannot tell you when I was diagnosed because, as with most things in my life, I simply do not remember. Head wounds, what wonderful things.

I have been to more psychiatrists than I care to recount, been on more medications than I can remember the names of, and have had damn near every reaction pharmaceutical companies are legally bound to warn you of at some point. Thanks to a high metabolism, drugs cycle through me too quickly and I also need higher dosages quicker than your average person. Oh, yay. I also wake up during surgeries. Did I already mention fun? So I decided 7 years ago “fuck this shit, I’m done trying to find a chemical cocktail that will work for me”. This was, by the way, after a forensic psychologist tried to put me on a drug I TOLD him turns me homicidal, after I started having heart failure on another, and after I accidentally left my medicine that *seemed* to be working “okay” behind when I flew to Phoenix last-minute. Why did I forget? Oh, right. Because my father put a nickel-plated Ruger .45 between his eyes and pulled the trigger.

Yeah. I have a little bit of experience with depression and suicide.

2014 has been fraught with…so much emotional and mental nastiness, I do not even know where to begin. I cannot begin. This has been the only year, the only time, I have ever uttered the words, to anyone, any time, ever, “save me. I can’t do it myself this time.” This has been the only time I have said to anyone “Please. I am too far gone. Help me.” I have given too much of myself and I guess I stepped a little too far to pull myself back this time. And I took a step back, out, of the situation a little late. I’m usually one to bounce back in a few days, a week at the very most. It’s been weeks. It’s been over a month. I can’t tell time any more; has it been two months? Three? I don’t know. I’m not getting better; I’m getting worse. That is definitely a new one on me.

My dad’s suicide is not the only one I have ever dealt with. Granted, his was the only one where I had to clean up the mess quite so personally.. Hell, the cops left the trash can full of bloody paper towels with brain matter in the fucking bedroom. I have rarely in my life been so angry. Of all the things I have forgotten due to the head and brain trauma, walking in to his bedroom to see what was left is something I have never forgotten. One of my best friends from high school’s parents killed themselves in the same year over a decade ago. My first “real” boyfriend out of high school killed himself. I’ve had several friends who have killed themselves over the years, a few other friend’s parents. Suicide has never NOT been real to me. Robin Williams’ death does NOT drive it home any more for me than it has ever been. It does not drive depression home any more for me than it has ever been.

I fight depression nearly every day. Especially lately. This year has been a test of my nerves, my strength, my courage and fortitude to get up against all odds. To do what I must when all I want to do is.. nothing.

Something in me snapped earlier this year. It broke entirely, and it has not been fixed. If it had not, I never would have asked, begged someone to save me, fix me, help me. I am not suicidal, in the least. I’ve no desire to kill myself, at all. To say I never THINK about suicide would be a lie. Anyone who says that is a fucking liar. It crosses ALL our minds sometimes, even if the thought is as fleeting as a blink. But I still say to kill yourself is a pussy move. Yes; though I truly understand with all my heart WHY someone would do it; I still say it is a pussy move. It takes strength to stay. Yes, it takes some strength to choose to die and go through with it.. but it takes so much more strength to stay when you do not want to. And I do not want to. I do not want to be here. I want to stop hurting. I want to stop crying all the fucking time. I want this pressure in, on, around my chest to just. Go. Away.

I want Atlas and his fucking world to quit crouching on top of my sternum and let me fucking take a deep god damn breath and let me smile and feel..

something besides this desolation and hopelessness. I want to feel that spark going again. I want to quit feeling this god damn scream clogging my fucking throat every hour of every day. I want to quit falling asleep only to jerk awake from a nightmare and that same fucking silent scream less than 30 minutes later, only to be wide awake for hours, several times every night.

I want to quit feeling my hand tingle with a heart beat that isn’t there.

I want my stomach to quit churning and feeling heavy.

I want to quit feeling nothing. Because that’s what all this comes from – fucking nothing. Because when whatever snapped, everything else poured away in to some locked god damn box that apparently I gave the key to away. And when I asked, begged to be helped..well, I did not get the help I asked for. And I’m not the sort to ask unless I really actually need it. So I guess it was taken as a joke. Or maybe I am just seen as being strong enough I don’t “need” the help.

Yeah. Guess what? We ALL need help sometimes. If someone asks for help, but isn’t a “cry wolf” motherfucker who does it all the god damn time, give them the fucking help, motherfuckers! If they cry wolf, well, maybe be wary, but at least see if they’re for real, if you actually give a fuck. Or maybe someone will just be sitting there dancing with their demons, trying not to let them take the lead, wondering if you ever DID give a fuck and realizing no.. no, you never did. Or thinking yeah, maybe, but.. I don’t see how.

Yeah. I realize I am probably not making much sense. {{sighs}} Writing used to be an escape, of a sort, for me. It is not any more. It used to be my “ear to listen” when I didn’t have anyone else. I’ve found, in the past year and a half or so, it doesn’t do the job for me any more. Go figure. And I don’t have that deep connection person to talk to. Because I gave too much. I stepped too far. And I stepped away too late. And I would give nearly anything I have left, which in truth is not much, to be fixed..unbroken..trusted..believed..whole. But wish in one hand, shit in the other, right?

I’ve often said you have to risk. You can never know how much you might achieve, how far you might go, if you don’t risk. Well, risk, of course, comes with its chance of failure. And that’s the part so many seem to focus on, when they should focus on the possible rewards. People focus so much on the possible failure, they CREATE the failure. I focus on the possible rewards. But it’s impossible to create the rewards if you’re the only person focusing on them. And sometimes, when you jump off that cliff, you want someone to catch you. Actually, before, I just looked over the cliff’s edge and said “fuck that shit” and kept walking. This time.. I was scared fuckless. And I jumped, arms wide, any way. And fell face first in to the fucking ground.

Fear is one of the strongest emotions you can feel. I very rarely feel it. It is hard for me to feel it, after my ex spouse. One could say the fear responses were beat out of me.. Very literally. And honestly, he didn’t really scare me beyond a few minutes one night. I was more calculating as far as “okay, if I do XYZ, I can survive ABC, then I can GHI”. Fear, jealousy, hatred, they do NO fucking good. None. Nada. Zilch. NONE. If you can take those responses, flip them and turn them in to something positive, you can do so much more. My fear is easily turned in to protection, anger, honed survival calculation. If it weren’t, my ass would not be alive and typing this bullshit today. As I said earlier.. I am not a suicide risk; I may not want to live, but I don’t want to die, either. I AM a survivor, even when I don’t want to be. {{sighs}} But I won’t go quietly in to that good night. Though at this point, I can see me going out not with a bang, but a whimper.

It has really…really..been a bad year.

And I have no idea what to do. I am lost in a sea of hurt and tears and broken pieces and swarming memories and.. what now? So I am stuck in a deeper depression than I have ever known, unsure how to get out of it… trying to share with people, but talking about it doesn’t do one god damn bit of good. I have tried. I broke down on the phone with a friend. Didn’t do anything to help. I have talked, texted, instant messaged, emailed, talked in person… nothing. If I don’t talk to a person I FEEL I can really SHARE with, the shit is just me relaying god damn information. Which is why I used to write this shit; I could get a little alleviation. But even that doesn’t do anything now.

So the depression sinks its poisoned fangs deeper in to my heart, deeper in to my soul, deeper in to my mind. It settles in like a cancer and eats its way out, slowly at first but now with more fervor, like a forest fire licking first at the roots of a single tree until it consumes the entire forest.

And yet I still say to suicide is a pussy move. And I will explain deeper now why I say that, because I KNOW I will be attacked for that statement. {{takes a deep breath}} I have often been told I am one of the strongest women blah blah. I shrug it off. I have HAD to be strong because when I NEEDED someone, I was thrown the fuck out, cast the fuck off and left the fuck alone by everyone a couple times. Not because they MEANT to in every case, but because that’s how the fuck it happened. Families, school, life, etc. Shit just aligns where, when I actually need help, well, LOL, sorry. {{sighs}} I am used to it by now, but at the same time…

I rarely fucking ask for help. This last time, I asked one person, in fact. The one person who should have, with everything he had in him, done everything he could to help me.

Every day, I have to make a conscious CHOICE to get out of bed. To make myself do anything that involves more than lying down and crying. Every day, I have to make myself do my job, put on my happy voice, deal with the bullshit of people in the real world, deal with people at all. I made a choice to reactivate my Facebook account after a friend’s insistence I need to quit isolating myself. I am still not sure that was the right move for me. I am still thinking about deactivating that, Instagram, whatever social media. But I also do not think working from home and ONLY talking to people at work is a good idea. But the point is, every god damn day, I make a CHOICE to be part of the human race, as opposed to choosing to lie in a depressive state and fade away, or choosing to end my life. And fuck knows I have enough guns to do it with; but I am not going to kill myself. I am not going to kill anyone else. I am not going to put anyone who might maybe care about me through what I’ve been through so many times. I am not going to make anyone wonder why I couldn’t hang on just a little longer. I am not going to make anyone ask why I couldn’t see the light around a corner I can’t even fathom existing yet. I know the corner is there. I know there is a light somewhere, some place in the distance. I just have to get there. Even if I have to crawl by myself again, I just have to get there.

The choice to kill yourself is not an easy one. Reaching out to someone to stop yourself is not easy. The choice to stay alive is not easy, either. Each decision is hard. I still believe that the choice to stay alive and keep striving through the hurt is the hardest choice. To keep that happy note in your voice for your job, to keep trudging through the murky waters of each painful day, to get up, go out, and DO each day is just… it fucking sucks. When I know today is going to be like yesterday is going to be like tomorrow. When I know last year is gone, and what I gave will never be returned, when I know the past is the past and I don’t even want a fucking present.. it makes it hard to get up in the morning. It makes it hard to go to bed at night when I know I’m going to have nightmares that wake me with tears and screams. It makes it hard to stop reaching for the phone for a call or text that will never be there. And it makes it hard to stick to a fucking decision that never felt right OR wrong.

But I still say to kill yourself is a pussy move, because it takes ALL your pain and gives it to anyone who cared about you.

Granted, death is easy. Death is one of the easiest things in life to get over, because we KNOW death is final. We KNOW death is coming. Even though it hurts, we all know it will happen one day. Death is the one thing we are all, each of us, guaranteed, absolutely. Living is the hard part. Not just existing, but living. Choosing to live, making that active choice is so fucking hard to do. To actively and thoroughly live is such a strong, worthwhile and hard choice.

There are so many ups and downs in life. I will never understand how some people profit – whether financially, emotionally, mentally or otherwise – off the ruination (whatever type) of others and seem to have good lives they neither worked for nor deserve while others bust ass for something better only to be stomped down each time. I will never understand why some people run in fear for the very things they say they want. I will never understand why people let fear or jealousy or hatred take the driver’s seat. I will never understand people.

I understand suicide.

I understand depression.

But I will never fucking understand people. Mostly, I am okay with that. In one instance, however..I wish I did. I wish I could do something about it. I wish.. I wish a lot of things. But wishing does no one any good. So time passes, I lose weight, I work, I get up, I make the CHOICE to not remove myself from life, and I keep wading through this cesspool of hurt.

Does that make me better than anyone else? No. Does that make me stronger? Maybe. Probably not. It probably just means I’m a more stubborn cunt.

“I’ve already told you: the only way to a woman’s heart is along the path of torment. I know none other as sure.”
– Marquis de Sade

“I am not fearless; I simply face my fears every day.
I am not full of love; I am simply bereft of hate.
I am not wise; I am simply full of experiences.
I am not strong…. I simply refuse to be defeated.”

– Me

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
– Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

“Love is the only disease I know for which the lone treatment is also the cause.”
– Me