Ideas2Words Words2Minds Minds2Action

Well, I’ve been trying depression for a while, but that doesn’t seem to be shaking off the suicidal ideation. Seems rather obvious to you, I guess. I tried everything else, so I thought maybe depression would be just the thing. People always say, “Stop being so depressed. Stop thinking about suicide.” The two come together so often that we begin to think one requires the other.* So, harkening back to those nail-biting Sherlock Holmes mysteries read in the halcyon days of youth** (not my youth, of course, but one whose youth was spent reading Sherlock Holmes in days that must have been peaceful or enjoyable or in some other way worth harkening back), I couldn’t help but remember the advice of the sage sleuth: “We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” As I have already tried everything else, I thought, “what the hell, no one has tried depression yet; let’s give it a whirl.” Well, I am just barely here today to report that indeed depression is not a good antidote to suicidality.

With that in mind, I thought I’d give mirth another go. If not entirely therapeutic, it should at least be more enjoyable than spending all day in bed staring at the wall and might even win back a few friends in the process. So, consider yourself warned, the rest of this entry will be mirthful, impishly giddy, and down right silly. It may even be funny here and there—but don’t hold your breath.

To kick things off, I thought I’d dust off a limerick I wrote a while back. I don’t think it got the ovation it merited, so I am republishing it here for all to read (and applaud):

   There once was a boy full of bile,
   though he’d greet you with laughs and a smile.
       He decided one day
       he should jump in the bay,
   but his meds kept him dry for a while.

And now, a few one liners à la être suicidaire:

   A man walks into a bar. He says, “OW!”
   A suicidal man walks into a bar. He says, “OW! See! Even the bar hates me … what’s the use?!”

   Normal guy: Take my wife … please!!!
   Suicidal guy: Take my wife … she has suffered enough; she deserves better than me.

   Normal guy: I took a train once, but they made me put it back.
   Suicidal guy: I jumped in front of a train once, but someone pulled me back.

   Jack and Jill went up the hill, each with a buck and a quarter. Jill came down with $2.50; she needed the money!
   Jack and Suicidal Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill—knowing she could never live without Jack—came tumbling after.

   Normal guy: My wife hates me. The other day, I fell asleep with a cigarette in my mouth. She lit it.
   Suicidal guy: My wife hates me.

Okay, enough of that. I feel better already. Of course, it’s 5:30 in the morning, so it could be that I’m just delirious. Hey, I’ll take what I can get. Good night everybody. I hope to be as happy tomorrow, but I make no promises.

NOTES:
* - Didn’t want to interrupt the line of levity, but didn’t want to let the thought go either. Just as often as people assume a suicidal person must also be depressed, I have assumed that a depressed person (me) must also be suicidal. Talk about a dysfunctional automatic thought! “Well, I’ve been depressed all weekend, I guess it’s about time I start thinking about suicide…” Sounds stupid when you say it like that, but the thought process (sorry folks, I just can’t resist) has a mind of its own.

** - Harkening back? Halcyon days? Yeah, I know. Just thinking about Sherlock Holmes makes me conjure up words I could have only heard in my youth, moments before the speaker was severely beaten up for using such uppity words. “You think you smart, huh? Well, how smart are you now with my foot stuck in yo’ ass?! Punk ass bitch think he all smarter than me and shit…” Snap out of it, Ashley! Click those heels and get back to Kansas (with yo’ white ass)!

Nobody loves me.
I’m all alone.
Suicide is better than living a life of misery.
Everyone will be better off without me.
I’m not getting any better.
I’ll show them! They are going to suffer with the guilt of driving me to suicide…
The kids will grieve of course, but they will be better off with a new father than having to deal with someone like me for the rest of their lives.
No one understands me even though I have been telling them for years what I am going through.
They don’t want to understand. They just want me to get better, or just get it over with.
It was God’s will that I suffer to the point of suicide. I don’t have the faith of Job, so my punishment is death.
There is no meaning in life, so whether I’m alive or dead doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.
Secretly, I think most people want me to kill myself so I would stop messing up their lives.
Secretly, I don’t want to get better because being suicidal makes me special. If only the rest of the population stopped to think about how miserable they were, they would want to kill themselves also. They just aren’t capable of introspection and deep existential analysis.
The list goes on and on. Right now, thankfully, I just want to go to sleep–the kind you wake up from.

One last thought: A thought might pop into my head just out of habit, but that does not mean I have to act on it (again, out of habit). The thought only suggests an action; it does not mandate it. And so I choose to ignore those thoughts just I would ignore the idiot drivers that don’t let me in or cut me off to shave three or four seconds off their travel time.

Suicidal no more? Suicidal not now. I’ll take that.

A Change Gonna Come

Sam Cooke’s old song “A Change Gonna Come” is about the hopefulness of a Black American despite the sorrowful life available to him. I find the words are applicable to any situation in which a person must find hope in a better future despite all evidence to the contrary.

A Change Is Gonna Come Lyrics

I would like you all (what can I say? I grew up in Texas) to read Cherished79’s entry Handcuffed to My House. She did a great job of describing what I have been experiencing the last five weeks or so. Remember my descriptions of all the nearly catatonic days in Geneva? Two of the most common, and in my mind most painful, symptoms of major depression are anhedonia and psychomotor retardation. The first is simply the lack of desire for anything pleasureable (an = not, hedonia = pleasure, same root as hedonism). The later is motor retardation caused by mental dysfunction (as opposed to neurological or physical or t.v.). Suicidality is a mosquito bite compared to these two; sometimes it even seems like the key to the handcuffs.
-Ashley

I am a strong believer in evolution and, as such, I have always wondered why some of the deadlier mental illnesses have survived the weeding out process. I read one article that proposed a possible answer that also incorporates the link between creativity and madness (documented in very good studies, by the way).

I wish I could find the original article (it is probably one of Redfield-Jamison’s) because I’m going to give a 2nd grader version of the original thoughts. Oh well, better to get the idea out than to wait until I get organized! Just think of this as the trailer for an article you’ll want to find yourself. So, here goes:

Since mentally ill people are generally less concerned with staying “in the box,”* at least when they are most ill, they are more likely to see solutions to problems that others think are unsolvable. I’m thinking here of mania and hallucinations — I have no idea what benefits depression brings; maybe better designs for mattresses. What seems possible, even obvious, to a sick person is way out of bounds for normal people.

Regular Joe: “No, silly, we can’t get across this gorge. It’s impossible. Let’s just go around.”

Sick Joe: “Yeah, but what if there were two massive columns holding up enormously thick ropes that held other ropes, which held up long planks of wood … You’re right; that is stupid. I’m stupid. I have nothing to live for…” Sick Joe’s idea, later credited to Regular Joe.

Therefore, even though a very high percentage of these people end up killing themselves, their usefulness to society could have already been substantial. Maybe that’s also why chicks dig even the ugliest artists — to keep their creative qualities in the gene pool.

I find it interesting that sick people generally kill themselves after reaching sexual maturity, giving them just enough time to make some sort of contribution to society. A moment’s thought will yield the obvious biological explanation for this. I just think it is interesting how elegant evolution solves the problem of species optimization.

*In America, managers are always telling people to “think outside the box.” When we do, though, they quickly admonish you for not being realistic. “It’s all that book knowledge you depend on. You would have learned more if you spent that time working in the real world.” Days later, “Yes, sir. That was MY idea. My trusty employees checked out the numbers to make sure MY idea was workable…”