For the last day of national suicidal prevention week, I decided to share some of my personal experiance. I talk about depression a lot, but suicidal thoughts a lot less, because as this comic
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html
that I shared earlier this week says, it's a difficult thing to tell someone. Should you tell it in a knock-knock joke? That's not serious enough. Yell it then run away? That's startling. I'm also always worried people will think that it's just a ploy for attention or something, because that seems to be a misconception people have about suicide. Or that they'll freak out and I'll end up in a hospital.
I remember the first time I was something that could possibly be called suicidal was when I was about 13. I was alone and scared and didn't have a vocabulary that included words about mental health. All I knew was that I was in ridiculous indescribable pain, and had been so for what seemed like forever, though it was probably only a few months. I still have journals from that time. It is clear from my journal entries was that I really wanted death, because it seemed like the only way my pain would stop, but I thought people who committed suicide went to hell, and though I wasn't sure how hell could be any worse than what I was living through, I put aside the thought of suicide just in case hell was worse.
I've long since stopped believing that people who commit suicide go to hell, but I've not stopped being suicidal. I've thought about it a lot and I don't really know what keeps me from following through, since my mental health still is far from great, and things are difficult more often than not. Perhaps it is my friends, or God, even though when I'm suicidal I don't think I have either of those things. But they have me, and for that I'm grateful.
