22 - it gets to a point
TW: suicide
There's an irony in writing this post when there are a few posts already written about the subject of suicide and self harm shortly before this.
It's a difficult thing, living after the fact that you've survived a suicidal attempt. Sometimes you think yourself stronger for surviving it. Other times, like today, it rears its ugly head. Convinces you that your mother's very gentle words of encouragement and comfort mean nothing — you have no future, nothing to look forward to, nothing worth trying for. The wound festering so terribly that you're afraid to admit to anyone, not even to your closest of friends and your partner (another irony then, that I would feel more comfortable confessing this here and exposing myself to strangers from all over the world), that you don't know how to live after the suicide attempt. You don't know how to live after the fact that you tried to die by your own hands. And now it feels like it's so overwhelming that maybe death sounds very preferable than the mortifying ordeal of being alive at all.
Then you ask yourself "I got this far. Why am I here again?". The song and dance that doesn't stop just because you decided you're tired and you want to sit somewhere near the fruit punch of life, while the rest of your suffering continues to dance on the ballroom floor. You don't want to really watch the dance floor, but you're mesmerized by it anyway. Tired. Exhausted. Somehow you feel the pull into dancing again. You know you shouldn't. You've been dancing for what feels like years. Your whole body is screaming for rest and your phone keeps buzzing with messages of pleas to come home and hundreds of missed calls, but you dance anyway because in that stupor, that's all you know.
I said "I can't see a future in which I'd be in it." I was told "that's not true, you always have a future".
That wasn't a plea to be convinced otherwise, that was a statement. I can't see a future because I haven't thought I'd live long enough to survive this point. Obviously it's not something you want to tell it straight to your mother's face.
But it is a reality - one that I'm terrified of.
For all the talk about "depression is so common that everyone knows about it and are overaware of it now", it's still terribly misunderstood regardless. Even I, the one who has been living with this for more than 10 years now, don't understand it. The constant roller coaster of feeling somewhat livable again only to find yourself back in the pit. Something that goes "we did everything right and still it came to this".
It gets to a point, you know?
I hesitate to reach out to a therapist or go for immediate intervention due to money, but honestly, I don't want to somehow live until I'm 44 to look back and think I was actually close to ending it all, again.