I've talked very openly about my struggles with suicidal ideation over the last several years on social media. I know there are those who feel like I'm "oversharing", or looking for attention, but my decision to speak openly about it starts in about 1995. In about 95 I came out publicly in my small college town after I heard about the suicide of an Out young gay man who had been an LGBT advocate in the more urban part of the state. I had admired this person from afar for their bravery, and it...I've sat here for several seconds trying to describe the blow to my soul when I found out. Whatever that feeling was, it lit a fire under introverted, shy, social-anxious me to do something so other people in my community wouldn't give in to the hate that was unrelentingly rained down upon them. So, I came out. I started a GSA at my campus, I spoke college classes, I unashamedly spoke up about who I was. And today I speak about my own struggles with suicidal ideation so that others, regardless of why they are struggling with finding a reason or motivation to hold on to this life know that they are not alone, and maybe, just maybe that will give them the courage to hold on one more, or to reach out for help.
For me, suicidality was never about my gayness. For me it was, and is about drug resistant major depression, and its about trauma/ptsd. I first started having obsessive thoughts after an upper classman at my HS had suicided. It simply hadn't occurred to me before this that that was an option, and I kinda felt guilty that it hadn't occurred to me sooner. Guilty, because if I had thought about it sooner, maybe I could have avoided going through some awful shit. Anyway, from that day forward it was constantly on my mind, all mixed in with the constant flashbacks that haunted me: a shit smoothie to keep my brain occupied and agitated every time I had a quiet moment.
And there were a few times that I got close. I'll save those stories for another day, but will leave it at I was blessed to find the tiniest spark of hope to cling to, or to have someone remind me at a crucial moment that there were indeed people who cared about me, and that I would be missed (and being a people pleaser I didn't want to upset anyone!).
I've been lucky enough to have been in therapy for most of my adult like. I wish I could be the person who just needs therapy intermittently, but my PTSD is such that I don't know if I'll ever get to the place where I "graduate" from therapy, but who knows? Through that therapy though, I've chipped away at the trauma, and I've gotten to a place where the flashbacks aren't a daily TARDIS trip back to the shittiest days of my life. And I'm also very lucky to have a therapist who understands that in order to work through suicidal thoughts and feelings her clients need to know that they can bring them up without having to worry about an automatic involuntary commitment. Unfortunately many therapists are so afraid of liability, or take on too much responsibility for the actions of their clients that as soon as the "S" word in brought up they wan their clients to go straight to the nearest mental health ER, do not pass go, do not collect $50. So, dear reader, if you have a therapist and you have ever struggled with suicidality, please chat with your therapist about how they deal with clients disclosing this issue with them. If you're not having suicidal thoughts now, talk to them now so when the time comes you know what kind of support you can expect. And maybe that is part of the conversation: If I have these feelings, THIS is what I need from you to get through it safely.
Most recently, during my early recovery from my Top Surgery, and torso "contouring" I was in a bad place. I was in a lot of pain, my brain chemistry was all fucked up from the anesthesia, and having gone through all that just to have results that I was not happy with...having gone to sleep excited about finally feeling comfortable in my body, and waking up and looking down to see that it was obvious that the surgeon and I had very different visions of where my dysphoria was, it was devastating. And all those things combined, I was thinking about "going hunting" which is the euphemism my wife and I came up with after my last battle. And fortunately my wife saw how fucked up I was even though I was trying to hide it from her, and we talked about it together with a therapist, and that part of me that was ready to give up, found the spark again, and I'm happy to report as we enter into Suicide Prevention month, that I am actually in a place of being grateful for my life. It isn't a perfect life, a perfect world, or a perfect body, but I am grateful for the love that surrounds me, and maybe more importantly, I am grateful for being AWARE of all the love that surrounds me.
May you be be surrounded by love, and feel it all!
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