My mind went to a really dark place here, guys. So. Trigger Warning. Content Warning. (Suicide)
I don’t want to admit it, but I will. When I read this question, “What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail,” I thought… suicide.
I wouldn’t fail. I would be dead. And that’s what I thought, in the past, that I wanted.
It’s not true. I know it’s not. At least not in the part of my brain where rationality and love (or even like) of life lives. But there was a time (and still is, occasionally) where I thought I would “fail” at suicide and live. Like the outcome of living was a failure and a bad thing. I thought it took strength to try to kill myself. Like, I remember having the thought, “I’m not strong enough to kill myself.”
It makes me sad to think back on. And, if I’m being realistic, sometimes, in the past, what kept me from trying to kill myself was fear. Fear that I would “fail” and live, but be disabled because of it. Or incapacitated mentally. Or be mentally unresponsive but alive on machines. And I wanted to succeed but didn’t know how to be sure I would succeed. And then it became a question of “Do I really want to be dead?” It’s a hard question when I’m depressed as fuck and can’t see the light on the other side of the situation, on the outside of the storm I find myself tossed around in.
So, no. When I am feeling well, or even just okay, I know that I do not want to be dead. I don’t want to unalive myself. But this prompt brought back an instinctual response of “suicide,” borne of over a decade of depression, multiple hospitalizations for suicidal thoughts, etc. It’s rough. It’s hard to accept that my mind still goes to that place first, at the simple reaction to a writing prompt.
*sigh*
But, just so you know, I’m okay right now. I’m not in the best place, mentally, but I’m not in the deep pit of despair and darkness where the only what I think I can get relief is to end it all.
I’m not there.
I’m here. And continuing to fight.
Life of a Journaler 
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