Thoughts and feelings just passing through

Yesterday was World Suicide Prevention Day.  I didn’t know this till today, but looking back on yesterday, unknowingly, I was thinking a lot about the idea of suicide – something I don’t think a lot about.  It’s been an annual day on September 10, since 2003; this year’s theme is Preventing Suicide: Reaching Out and Saving Lives.

I’ve been thinking about this book that Kate Bornstein wrote called, Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws.  I haven’t read this book in its entirety, but the gist is that there are so many things you can do other than suicide – some of them might be extreme, some might be unhealthy, some might be even self-destructive.  But if it gets you through the moment, and you’re still here, that is good enough for the the time being.  I think that’s a great message.  Sometimes when someone is in so much psychological pain, nothing sounds appealing.  But if you just try something different, something way out there, it might be enough to even just temporarily jump-start you out of the mode you’re in.

When I was in high school, one day I heard an after-school announcement for a “yellow ribbon club.”  I really wasn’t doing well, and I decided to see what it was about.  It was run by school psychologists, and there were maybe 5 students who showed up.  We went around the room stating why we came.  I basically said I came because I was worried I might attempt suicide; I came to get help.  The other students had come for other reasons – either they had been affected by the suicide of someone they knew, or they just wanted to help.  After I said why I was here, one of the psychologists reiterated what I had said.  I remember feeling embarrassed and selfish.  I didn’t go back to any more meetings.  No one ever followed up with me.  I did not end up attempting suicide, but things did get worse, and I ended up in the hospital not that much later on.  I partially blame the psychologists for never checking back in with me.

This is a hard post to write because suicide is such a loaded subject.  I’ve never attempted suicide or had an actual plan or had serious suicidal ideations.  But there’s another way to feel suicidal – just kind of vaguely feeling like you cannot go on.  Like you cannot keep living your life.  Like you want to just stop existing, or just sleep forever.  I’ve definitely felt that.  With all the rough mental health – related stuff I’ve been through lately, I’ve felt that even recently.  It’s a dull, nebulous, insidious, recurring, empty heavy veil, a lens to see the world through – a hindrance for sure, because there’s not much to be able to see, through all those layers.  I don’t really know how to address it, other than to hope it will pass.

I think that what I’m learning is that rather than fighting those types of thoughts and feelings or trying to distract or re-route, it is possible to just give them less emphasis, to live with them, and to just focus on doing what you want to do, despite them.  Just let them cycle through your brain, acknowledge them, but don’t give them any more power than what they are – just thoughts and feelings that come and go…

Kinda easier said than done, but I am trying to adopt this practice…