Today I Was Supposed to Be Dead
Last year I was deeply suicidal. Yes, I told some people. A doctor, a therapist. I tried to get on some meds, but they made everything worse, not better, as every attempt at medication for depression has done in the past twenty years. I hated being alive. It was a burden to wake up, to breathe, to eat, to work my job. But I had to work my job so that I could keep eating and keep waking up. I hated everything and could not find any hope to hang onto.
A close friend told me that people are depressed temporarily and then they stop being depressed and they’re really REALLY glad that they were still around to not be depressed. But when I heard things like this, I couldn’t remember ever being not depressed. It seemed like I’d always been depressed, continuously, for the last twenty years and that people are tired of hearing me talk about depression. Which is why I thought it would be better for all of them if I just ceased to exist.
I do NOT feel this way now (please don’t call the police).
I am doing much better now, but I am trying to be honest about how my brain was thinking, about the recurring thoughts that I couldn’t get rid of. In case it helps someone else out there to feel a little less alone or if it helps someone else out there to understand how to talk back to a loved one.
Well, I told myself, if my friend is right and I am only temporarily depressed, then I will make a test. I will wait one year. I will remain alive for one year, no matter how terrible it is. And at the end of this year, I will look again at my life and decide then if I still want to die. If I’m really forever broken with depression, then I can decide then what to do about it.
In the meantime, I decided to stay alive. And I made myself a list of things I needed to accomplish before being dead. Several of these were books I needed to finish writing. Others were things I needed to make sure that my kids had squared away so they were secure in their adult lives (motherhood drives a lot of my thoughts about myself, for good or ill).
I had already written a will and told the executor of my will about what it said. I’d already talked to my kids about my wishes after I was dead (at least one of my kids said that they refused to listen to anything I said because if I wanted to be dead, then I didn’t get any more choices—which, fair, I guess).
In many ways, it now looks silly that I was so serious about this decision and this list. I am so far from feeling this way that it feels like it was a very long time ago. But it wasn’t. And I am proud of my courageousness and my ruthless accounting of real life experiences that most people don’t want to talk about, so I’m talking about this. I don’t think it makes me a bad person or a weak one to have experienced such a severe bout of suicidal depression.
At least two of my friends have asked me if I’m still planning to be dead, though, so that means I told at least two people about my delayed plan and that I was serious enough about it that they wanted to check in and ask very specifically if I was OK and if I was still planning to do anything. I suppose one good thing about my personality is that I would probably tell the truth even if I was still that depressed. Not because I would want help (I don’t much believe that anyone can help after the multiple failed attempts at help I’ve gone through at this point). But because I hate lying. And it’s even harder to lie when I’m depressed because I have no energy and lying takes a lot of energy.
Anyway, this is to say that actually, my friend was right and my plan to wait a year turned out to be a really good one. Also, my list of things to finish before being dead is not quite done yet. And if I were to make a new list, I’ve got a whole bunch of things to add to it, including new books that I hadn’t even conceived of a year ago. More on that later.
I used to put myself under obligations so that I wouldn't die until (the next meeting I was responsible for, the dinner I agreed to host, the promise I made about something or other....). It worked for a while. I was lucky enough that the first antidepressant I tried actually worked, a little, and an increase in dosage was/is miraculous. I still "go there" on occasion, when another bout of shame and worthlessness strikes, but overall I can go whole days sometimes without the thought that I shouldn't be alive. Now I understand that my brain chemistry is faulty. I think of it as a little like having diabetes: it's a chemical thing, and I need a medication to help me do the rest of the work like eating and sleeping responsibly.
My therapist at the time pointed out that I had gotten "drop dead" messages from my mother, father, and grandmother. Early training in self-hatred is hard to totally erase. But it helped to understand where I learned to think I was unlovable. It also helped when someone said that often depression is anger turned inward. Now I can talk back to my grandmother's voice -- most of the time.