The Suicide Word
Seven years ago today, I was dead. Literally. Clinically.
We know now that stating how you tried to kill yourself in detail can cause others who self harm to relapse, so I’ll spare those details. I’ll just say that in the hours leading up to the big flatline I was pretty out of it. So out of it that I guess I made some concerning posts on social media, posts that alerted friends. Someone reached out. I asked my roommate at the time if she would take me to the E.R. without us needing to talk about it.
While I waited for her to get home, I listened to a cover of Suicide is Painless, the theme from MASH, by Lady & Bird. It was funny, considering. And I kept thinking about all of the times I could’ve trusted the right adult and maybe not found myself in my 20s still barely a person, with such constant and repeated abuse that my brain was this injured, feraled thing. I thought about my grandmother kneeling down in front of me as I laid on a couch, watching a rerun of MASH, ever comforted by Hawkeye Pierce, and told me that she would choose me.
I didn’t get it.
So there I was.
I’ve written about this event loosely in the past, to make people understand how normal and hopeless the act can feel at the same time, hoping to show people that having someone committed, making them fear being committed so much they shut down was cruelty.
I’ve never talked about it like this.
First I should say that I’m as safe as I can be. I have good people who I know how to set boundaries with, good people who check on me and give me space. Friendship. Fellowship. Family. Apply as necessary. I am the stray dog who sometimes sits on your porch of people. It’s unlikely that I’m gonna do anything weird tonight or even when you’re reading this. This isn’t a suicide letter or any kind of letter. Got it? Great. My hypothetical legal team is satisfied.
Here’s the thing:
I think about how nice it would be to die every single day. I probably always will. For me, the great puzzle of mush that is my brain never got itself a developed nervous system, much less a regulated one. Anything from the fear of impending homelesness to my bank card not showing up to the batteries in my wireless mouse needing to be changed illicit the same response: death would be preferable to this. It’s the only trick my mind ever learned. “On the brightside, maybe this time you’ll get to die.”
And that’s a me thing. A gift hatefully given to me by abusive guardians, dismissive adults, and a failed child protective system. No matter what my life becomes- how good, how golden, how full of promise, love, and ease- my brain will initially go to “YAY DIE” the way yours might go to “take a deep breath.”
But what isn’t in my control is the bleak, cruel governmental and economic structure we live within. No amount of manipulating my vagus nerve, using a heating pad before I even leave bed in the mornings to trick my muscles into relaxing, playing Tetris before bed to reduce night terrors and waking flashbacks will create jobs that allow disabled creatives a flexible schedule. No friend I can reach out to, no journal I can scribble upon, no therapist I can call up will lift me out of poverty or give me housing.
In the seven years since my great goodbye I’ve only had actual, on-the-lease, no-one-can-kick-me-out, my-presence-won’t-get-my-friends-evicted-because-i’m-illegal-goods housing roughly three non consecutive years. I’ve bounced around five different cities, every time I’ve bounced I’ve had to ditch possessions. I’ve had full time jobs in this time that paid over minimum wage. I’ve pulled off a good talk therapist and an EMDR therapist ONCE. Every job I’ve had I’ve spent my money replacing pieces of my work uniform as they died. I’ve paid rent on an apartment in my name but had to make my own toilet paper out of newspaper to do it.
My mental and physical health are worse than they have ever been. I sit here, largely because my body barely works anymore, and I watch as the Haves trot out pretend mental health talking points to justify forcing immuno-compromised and just not interested in becoming disabled people to go inside and not yuck their yum by asking folks to wear masks. I send yet another email begging editors from last June, from March, to actually pay me. I check out the windows before I go for a silly, little mental wellness walk in the worsening heat to make sure I don’t see the landlord around because I’ve already had to lie about why I’m here once and fear that if I have to do it again I’ll be out on my ass and the person kind enough to let me squat here off-lease evicted for betraying all the terrible clauses that let landlords dictate how long someone can stay inside the apartment they pay for based entirely on the snot-covered handshake of obedience and greed.
I watch renowned public figures, academically loved and oft-followed on Twitter, talk about how long COVID has given them “mental health complications” and pretend they’re better than the rest of us. I see people I thought I trusted like posts saying that they’re not really mentally ill and that there should be a special, different mental healthcare system for the High Functioning, Productive Normal People who now have “symptoms” but find our broken mental healthcare system very off putting.
So in the same way that the worst person you know uses their birthday to force you into a themed party and splitting God’s highest restaurant bill because no one else there has financial concerns and thought you ordered the salad and a water for sport, I am using my deathday to ask you to do, well, fucking anything.
Are you fighting for a return to normal without asking yourself who that was working for? Are you checking on your friends who have gone silent? When someone is downward spiraling on Twitter or Facebook, are you there for them? Are you letting them know they aren’t alone? Can you cover a phone bill, a pizza, offer a spare room to one of your friends who is slipping through the many cracks? If you think you’re one of the good ones, look around you. Your coworkers, your inner circle, your acquaintances. Who is, statistically, not making it through all this? Who has been thriving the whole time? If you get your “new normal,” are those the beacons of care, morality, and nuance that you want and are you comfortable with the Always Goldens stepping on the bones of your friends on their way further up?
When you share those hotline numbers, talk about “ending the stigma,” “it gets better,” “ask for help”- all those sunshine-y, rainbow-y nightmare trends- who are you actually helping in that moment?
I know I’m loved. I know I’m valued. I know my perspective matters. I know I have a quick and creative mind that contributes in ways others can’t because of my special uniqueness or whatever. What good does that do me if I have nowhere to live? If I can’t see a doctor? If I’m scared to buy things that might help me do better work or live easier with whatever my mystery health issues are because I might have to hop a freighter and find a new place to crash at any moment?
Your love for me does very little. Love is not enough. Governmental powers want me to die because I am mentally ill. If I found out what is causing me to be physically ill, they’d like me to die over that too. They want me dead because I’m not gender conforming, not heterosexual, not a traditionalist. They want me dead because I’m not willing to die working in retail for $12.50 while my bones and my spirit crumble.
The empty psychology you lean on- the help you want me to ask for, when it’s all I’ve ever done- has good people in it but is largely a tool to make people “cope,” and not for themselves, but for the workforce. The workforce that never paid me enough to have an apartment and treat my C-PTSD.
So happy deathday. I’m making a wish: take care of your people. Stop pretending hotlines or probiotics or begging a job to give you health insurance you can’t afford to use offers solutions to anyone. I came back from the dead. I’m only asking you to wake up.
