I’m here to talk about what people don’t talk about.

Suicide Ideation. 

Firstly the “trigger”, it happens. Something crashes down on your life so hard you don’t even have a chance to look round before your sent into a pit of depression. All those “What if” scenarios, well they have happened. For me, people aren’t a logic that I can follow. They aren’t an x + y statement that should always go together. It leads my brain to chew on it for months, and the only part of the equation that I have power over is me. I pick at myself until there was nothing left. Without an answer I felt alone, I felt no meaning.

Without any answers I felt there was no “purpose”. I felt like I was going through the motion of the 9-5 days. Working, going to the gym, making small talk and going home. I still am “withdrawn” from the “real world”. The small talk, the socialising. For that I feel bad.

Back then I didn’t feel bad. I felt numb. When someone said “See you Monday”. Part of me thought, “You probably won’t”. In a way it was liberating. It allowed me to not care about the petty arguments of work, as I had bigger things to worry about at home.

Feeling numb was my brains final security blanket. These days don’t feel like mine, they are owned by this fog in my head. I would sit on the bathroom floor for hours with my mind going round and round in circles. I just wanted to feel something again, something real. “To reset” I told the woman from the Samaritans. I thought taking a lot of pills would ironically make me feel more alive again.

I had reasoned myself into “reckless” thought but I couldn’t see it right away.

Thankfully, with an amazing GP and therapist I made it through. As there are days I sit staring lost in my own thought and someone asks (as they always do), “Are you ok?” and I actually mean my answer of: “I’m fine, I’m just fine”.

I am grateful that I am here, and I can feel my cat crawl on my back in the morning. I can sit in my garden at the end of a day and feel the grass between my fingers. It’s the little things that make me feel alive.

If you are worried about someone watch out for the signs below, and check out your life counts

“IS PATH WARM”

I  – Ideation (suicidal thoughts)

S – Substance Abuse

P – Purposelessness

A – Anxiety

T – Trapped

H – Hopelessness/Helplessness

W – Withdrawal

A – Anger

R – Recklessness

M – Mood changes

Also give this great blog about the Signs of Suicide a read by The Bipolar Writer

As I come back from my holiday I got thinking about baggage. We all carry it around with us, some in neatly packed cases, and some dragging behind waiting to be measured out for our social norm limit. We argue with the airline, “you don’t understand what I need to get through these next couple weeks”. They respond: “Sorry, it’s just standard”. I’m sorry but, standard or “normal” is just fucking boring in my book. Tell me something true, something that makes your cases bust open with experience.

We watch these people desperately scramble trying to throw out their baggage that they don’t need. (Knowing it’s just going to mount up again.) I can see the 3 brothers of stigma in their cases:

1. “Shame
2. Guilt
3. Embarrassment”

“We are ashamed of our naked bodies and naked emotions. We spend all of our time thinking about this shame. However, we don’t spend proportionally the same amount of time being ashamed of environmental or social impacts we have on each other.”

Stephen Fry – Happy Place Podcast

I don’t know much about the new people I meet, but I like people who show their emotion. Who are “true blue”. People that are fearless to break social norms, and carry around their baggage like its a badge of honor.

At the end of the day we all have crap to deal with, wouldn’t the world be a better place if we shared each others baggage once in a while? I’m not exactly a light packer, but I’d like to think I can lighten someones load once in a while.