Day 87
My therapist assured me eventually depression will lessen thanks to sobriety. Right now, it feels like it's having the opposite effect. Substances were used to take the edge off. Yes, they created problems, worries and guilt of their own - but they also has a guaranteed temporary effect.
Living with myself with a clarity I haven't experienced for over a decade is rather challenging. The tics and traits I'd read were on the spectrum are all amped up. I feel more alert and awake in life, but I also have issues with some of the negative aspects of my life.
My patience, sensitivity to sounds, issues with dealing with annoyances, my anger, my anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts are all firing off a lot more frantically than they have in a long time.
On the Autism/Asperger's forum I joined someone asked a profound and upfront question - what is preventing you from committing suicide. On that forum for people on the spectrum it's clear a large number of them are struggling on a daily basis with mental health.
Whilst suicide is not exactly an easy subject, I found the openness of the people quite refreshing. Just in general it's a nice forum. There's no down rate option or trolling etc. A lot of active members and good advice to be found.
I guess the problem with suicide is that as soon as you mention a real thought, like that, people freak out. Now and then I reveal a true and unfiltered thought and people lose their shit.
I did it the other week, the guy I get on with best on our team was off for 4 months with his fibromyalgia flare up. He came back for a week and was rushed to hospital on Tuesday. He's a good guy and whilst nobody deserves that amount of bad luck - I said to kristy that I wished it was the temp who was hospitalised and not him.
She told me that was dark. It was, but that's one of hundreds I have a day. Unfortunately being sober I feel darker thoughts are more prevalent. It's nothing dangerous or anything. I'm not going to hurt anyone or do anything illegal - I just don't feel good, especially in myself.
The temp is an odd one. We have a lot of similarities and yet everything she does or says makes me cringe, or feel angry and uncomfortable. I've not met many people like that in life - someone that you simply despise. Usually people like this weren't nice people and so my reason for disliking them didn't feel so riddled with guilt. With the temp, they're not a bad person. They're immature for their age, but the big issue I have is that they don't stop talking at you and the subject matter is always complete drivel.
Anyway.
Suicidal thoughts have been daily since a teenager. So, seeing that forum post did make me ponder what reasons I had not to do it.
The reason I haven't is probably cowardice on my part.
I don't have the courage to live my life how I want to. Similarly, I don't have the courage to end it either.
I understand the view that suicide is selfish to the one's you leave behind. But I also find grief around death to be a selfish emotion. People torment themselves with nostalgia or guilt around what they could or should have done or said when this person was alive.
I remember speaking with a GP not long after my nan died. He said everyone at a funeral who cries is doing so for their own mortality. Quite a blunt statement by all accounts, but I get it. Death makes you reflect, we all know it's coming one day, and losing someone close to you makes you ponder how and when your end will be.
I suppose suicide has a comfort to it in removing that question of how/when death will come by taking the matter into your own hands. I used to view suicide with contempt, and shared the view that it was selfish or cowardly. In truth, they have more courage than I could ever hope to muster.
Ed