Submerged - WFWD

Words From Within the Depths (the me you might not want to read about...) -

Entry #1

I was driving to a family member's house last weekend and thinking, why do people TRY to commit suicide? If you're going to do it, just do it. It's fairly simple to make sure you do it right. I mean, slicing your wrists and waiting to die slowly? Taking some pills with the possibility of brain damage or severe vomiting, while yet again waiting to die slowly? Trying to hang yourself, which has got to be pretty damn painful and usually isn't done right? Eventually someone will find you, in your attempt, take you to the hospital and commit you into treatment. How is that helpful? Why not try something like an axe or a butcher knife to just give one good hack at your neck and end it quickly and absolutely. Makes sense to me. Or... if you don't have the courage or upper body strength for that... why not try all of the above mentioned options all at once? Take a bottle of pills, down a bottle of tequila, slit your wrists, and throw yourself off a building. That should get the job done, one way or another. I always told myself that if I was going to do it, I would do it right. Either lie down on the train tracks at my old house when I was a teenager, or use a gun (which I now know is also not a guaranteed way out, depending on where you aim and how long until someone finds you). And besides, I never knew anyone who owned a gun that wasn't locked up. So, I pretty much never bothered. There were a few "attempts" which were mostly just for attention from my boyfriends. But, I never really tried with the honest intent of suicide. I just figured I don't want to wuss out and screw it up, which would probably be the inevitable result due to the fact that I screw everything up. So, instead I took control of my need to be in control, and I cut my arm. To watch and witness the blood, the effects of my actions... to see that I made that blood flow and that I left that scar... that made me feel like I was in control... Just take a look at my arms and you'll see that I haven't felt in control for a long time...

So anyway... these are my passing thoughts while driving around. Or while sitting around alone during the day... or while lying wide awake at night until 3AM...

And next comes the discussion with the family... well why isn't the medication working anymore? what if they want to up the dosage? then all of the side effects will get worse and I will be a zombie with no libido... why does it work one day and not the next? I thought this was supposed to be temporary to get you through a rough patch... will I ever be done taking it? will I ever "recover"? what is recovery exactly, when it comes to mental illness? shouldn't I know what's wrong with me in the first place, in order to know when I have recovered??

In it's own way, these feelings and this life feels warm and comfortable, like a hot tub. Sinking back into it after being out in the cold, it's a feeling like nothing else. It feels soothing and relaxing, surrounding your body with warmth. After a while it begins to get uncomfortable, being covered in sweat and swelling up from being in there so long. You start to get a headache and you start feel the urge to get out of there, you feel trapped and irritated, snapping at everything and everyone. So you take hold of something and decide to pull yourself out of it. But it's so cold and so empty outside... there's nowhere to go out there except into the masses of people, staring and judging and being happier than you. Maybe you'll just keep your feet in for a while, just to stay warm. But the compromise is not enough, the heat on your legs mixing with the cold outside begins to make you ache to be back in completely. To lower yourself back into the boiling water and be comfortable again. You begin to trail your fingers across the surface of the water, flirting with your deep, dark desires. And there you are again, curled up in the warm safety of where you've always felt most like yourself. And again comes the sweat and irritation and you wonder... what is it like under the bubbles, what is it like to be submerged completely, where no one can see you or pull you out again...

I honestly can't imagine living without this disease, whatever you choose to label it (depression, bipolar, borderline personality, ADD...) It is mine. It is something I understand and I can cling to when I feel like I have no control over anything else in my life... and the irony is that one of my main symptoms is feeling like I can't... I can't do this or I can't NOT do that. I am in control of having no control... and you wonder why I feel like dying...