Well, I slept part of the afternoon and most of the evening after getting home from my regular doctor. I woke up about a half-hour ago and almost immediately wished I hadn’t.
Waking up is such a killer because of the way everything feels nice and normal during that first little ray of consciousness. Or, as Homer Simpson said, “Ah, the sweet couple of seconds before I remember why I’m sleeping on the lawn.”
For some reason, it’s slightly comforting to take the worst aspects of this whole thing and spin them into (often tasteless) jokes. I had to explain the concept of gallows humor to my wife because my lighthearted comparisons of the efficacy of various suicide methods were really worrying her.
I’ve also been listening to a lot of songs that are incredibly depressing and/or related to suicide. My playlist includes stuff like “Electro Shock Blues” by the Eels, “Asleep” by the Smiths, and “Hollow Years” by Dream Theater. Right now, “Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)” by Don McLean is painting tragically beautiful pictures in my head. I’m too frazzled to even know if all this is comforting or just making things worse, but I feel compelled to do it, and I guess it beats staring into space.
Now, I really don’t want anyone to think that anything I just said was some sort of slightly opaque hint that I’m going to do something stupid to myself. That’s something I’m absolutely positive I won’t do in the near future, and probably could never bring myself to do even after exhausting every option (including ECT, institutionalization, and any kind of extreme or experimental treatments a doctor would be willing to try).
I guess this is just some bizarre sort of coping mechanism, and I don’t know if it’s healthy or not, but it just feels like the natural thing to do and I drift towards it because I’m pretty much on autopilot.
It’s the same kind of thing I did when I was really low a few months ago and spent three straight 18-20 hour days doing absolutely nothing but reading years of archives from the pro-choice suicide newsgroup.***** I was obsessed with it, had no idea why, and my mood fluctuated greatly and frequenly during that time. Those posts were the most painfully, brutally, honest and gut-wrenching things I’ve read in my entire life, but I couldn’t stop reading. That place is the most miserable, hopeless, godforsaken corner of the Internet. I’d read tale after tale of wretched experiences with the mental health system, and therapy and meds that never worked. I can’t understand how I could feel compelled to torture myself with the neverending tales of the most miserable souls alive when I really do want to get better.
Right now, I’m just starting to feel more crazy and overwhelmed by so many different emotions that I can’t even keep track. Words are really hard to find. In fact, I guess I’ve spent three hours now composing this post. Of course, the Xanax may have something to do with that, too.
Thanks once again to everyone for all the support. You don’t know how much it means.
*****For those who don’t know, newsgroups are mostly unmoderated, text-based discussion forums. Posts are mirrored on servers around the world. The newsgroups (a.k.a. Usenet) are a part of the Internet that predates the WWW by over ten years.
As for “pro-choice suicide,” well, they neither encourage, nor discourage the practice, and posters that do either in their newsgroup are usually frowned upon or flamed. They openly discuss their suicide plans and feelings on the matter with understanding people who won’t dissuade them.
