not tonight; too much to do

but soon. i’m ~30. this is a long time coming. it’s been in the back of my thoughts as long as anything else at this point. i guess it just got to be where i was impossibly tired of failing at getting better, not hurting people by being unstable, etc. i always felt too much of an obligation to my family/friends/significant others, or just got scared. the utter frustration of repeated failure eventually ground that fear down. it’s a relief! it’s the first thing that’s made sense in a long time. the only odd thing about it is the surreality of getting one’s affairs in order, especially letters to family and colleagues at once apologizing and then making long, specific designations. And then of course wondering if any of it will work out the way you hope.

and that’s it. that’s all. that’s your life. i guess if there was more this wouldn’t be its course.

i’ve been around long enough to have counseled others about the selfishness of committing suicide, to have said “permanent solution, temporary problem, y’all” and when you’re 16, that’s probably true. here i have a different story, borne out by the evidence of time. you know, chronic mental illness with a different solution hopeful every few months/years eventually proven as inadequate as the last one, if not more.  seriously, i’ve tried – a lot, and for a long time.

i belong to another forum wherein it was appropriate for members to discuss their thoughts on this topic, and a lot of people seemed to agree that the only legitimate excuse for killing yourself was chronic, unbearable physical pain with no foreseeable end in sight. while i can sympathize with that position, it’s really only because i think very few people have ever had a real glimpse of chronic mental illness, or rather a real understanding of it. it’s less quantifiable for people and therefore its dismissed just as easily as magic. maybe just like magic, you can’t really get it until you’ve seen how the trick is done. i may not be able to convince you, but i can say with conviction that there are mental illnesses whose pain is real and whose prognosis is just as grim as any physical illness. i’m sure there are significant differences i can’t describe to you from the other side of the table, but on the mental illness side there’s the added dimension of nobody believing it could be as bad as you say it is. you know, making fun of people for being depressed is maybe the stupidest thing you could do.

all that being said, i’m a big proponent of trying over and over and over again to make it better. if life can be good, it sure seems worth it. and there are people you love who will never understand. god, that is really tough.

the only advice i can offer, the only barometer i’ve ever had to know whether or not this was the “right” thing to do: run away. does that sound just as good, or better? then do it. cause it really is just your circumstances fucking killing you. run away. people do it all the time. (teenagers: don’t run away. teenagers get raped and killed, etc. friends of mine. many, many teenagers all of the time. leave if you have to, but have somewhere to go, an organization for people like you. there are lots of them.)

my end won’t be particularly messy; no reason to make this either : / thanks for reading? have a good one.