Suicide is Not a Dirty Word

A couple of days ago I wrote On Stepping Back into Life because I was trying to figure out why I was slipping into unorganized depression right when things seemed like they were getting better. I felt better for maybe a day, but -shock!- knowing what’s going on doesn’t actually stop the thing from happening, it just helps us get through it. I still feel like I’m getting beat up. I think the main conflict is, “How can I ever trust myself again?” I tried to kill myself! I certainly wouldn’t trust anyone else who made an attempt on my life, but I have no option but to somehow make amends with myself. After a brief recovery period, you can’t just live your life according to what other people think is best-that’s how you end up in the wrong life and eventually you blow it up to escape. You don’t have to experience suicidality for this. Maybe you made a stupid decision about a relationship, moved to the wrong place, trusted the wrong people. Somehow you ended up alone (either in reality...

It takes a long time to recover from extended periods of black depression. It’s common to think of suicide like an on/off switch-the battle is over once you stop thinking about killing yourself. That’s not true, it’s just another incarnation of the dreaded recovery myth. If you’re depressed for a year or more, you have effectively rewired your brain. Most of us don’t emerge from that a bundle of bad emotions, we come out numb. Maybe we don’t actively fantasize about suicide anymore, but that doesn’t mean we’ve taken up the cause of life, either. I’ve been in remission for 18 months, and it’s still hard. I’m still surprised by what I lost and what it takes to get those things back. Recovery is a process of stepping back into life, over and over again. This looks different for everyone. I remember the first time I realized it was getting better, about 16 months ago. It was two months after ending a long-failed relationship and six months after deciding I needed to stop medicati...