I haven’t written from inside of symptoms in months, but I’m getting ready to hop on the podcast this weekend, so I’d better practice ripping my head open when it’s reeling — it’s been a while. We’re talking about suicide again on MK Ultrasound but not the act (we’re going to have fun on there, too — I promise). Ideation. What that looks like.
I drive white-knuckled, mantra humming in my head You will not drive into traffic, because the same as a person living with AIDS may harbor fear of The Cold I Won’t Come Back From, the Suicide Set knows self-destruction has swooped in unexpected before and moved our hands to knives and pills.
For me, suicide exists outside of me and comes in. At least it feels that way. Something invades. I don’t invite it over to play a vicious slideshow of bullets through my head, jumps onto tracks or slit throats — but my old friend comes in anyhow and does it. Nestles into my bed and shows me pictures of me dying while it strokes my cheek.
Sometimes I flinch. From my own thoughts, the ones I don’t mean to think. They’ve made me cry. That’s when I know I might not be okay.
When I was a young gothy-thing, I read Dante and imagined if Hell existed, I’d land in the second circle being blown around for the sin of lusting. Unwanted suicidal thoughts are those winds. It’s dizzying and visceral without any pleasure.
When I’m typing, I sit at the center of the cyclone. When I’m done, I might dance or stretch. I’ll leave if I have to. This is me catching myself before it catches me.
Love to you, Tribe.
