I first tried to kill myself in 2000, and writing about it of course resulted in another fucking award from Columbia.
My drug dealer broke into my apartment, found my phone, called everyone he’d ever heard me talk about, and then finally 911. I’d been thorough.
At that point, it was merely personal problems; we now have systemic ones.
I’m still crashing with a friend but return to the marginally movable trash can tomorrow.
I don’t know what I’m looking for by posting. I just know “not this” is where I’m at in life, and one can only spend so much time with the crisis line.
Dialectical behavior therapy has helped me with suicidal ideation. DIY’ing it without a therapist might be difficult at first but the game is to observe your initial thoughts and feelings about whatever is happening, challenge those with reality testing or more helpful alternatives, then reach a synthesis which serves you instead of harms you. My time with therapists was almost a decade ago so this might be a terrible explanation but it’s the best I have at the moment. Suppose for instance that a motorist blows straight through a stop light long after the light has changed. My habitual thoughts and feelings will likely be full of disgust. This is everything wrong with the world all at one: the capitalism, the cars, the Anthropocene, the selfishness! But maybe my assumptions about the driver are incorrect, maybe it would be helpful in this situation to try to empathize with that driver. What were they feeling and thinking? And what about everyone else that’s around, are they interesting right now? What is stopping me from observing without judgement but instead acceptance? Somehow this helps me get back to awe and wonder even in the horror.
You likely have some unhelpful habitual thoughts and feelings on top of the shit life syndrome of living in a vehicle. I’m sorry you’re struggling now. You deserve better! I enjoy reading your contributions and I’m glad you are here. Hopefully you overcome this soon.
The tremendous irony is my dad was considered Arizona’s foremost expert on adolescent suicide prevention as a clinical psychologist. News crews would come by the house to interview him.
After my first attempt, once they’d gotten back to the states, they flew up to Seattle, demanding that I come up with “an accounting of everything [they’ve] given [me] and what [I’ve] done with it.” This is not a prompt you want to throw at a columnist, because you’ll get 40" tearing you down and not at all about finance, which was the ostensible idea.
I was already managing ed at Seattle’s third-largest daily. The other two? Times and Post-Intelligencer. I’d found my voice by this point, and it went poorly.
My dad opened with “I thought something like [my suicide attempt] might be coming.” Great. Way to be proactive. Mom was crying within 20 minutes.
You literally asked for it, you fucks.