When even Suicide seems useless.

I find it interesting that I am on here, because I am not currently suicidal. Whenever I have explained to a therapist how I feel about suicide, they have termed how I feel as “suicidal ideation” where I think that suicide sounds great, but I’m not actively trying to figure it out.

Which is exactly the problem. I didn’t even know what my feelings were about suicide, so I wasn’t able to articulate them well. I’ve called several crisis hotlines in my life. Some seemed like they were useful, others, after I spoke to them, I hung up feeling even more depressed than when I picked up the phone.

The reason those hotlines were never helpful was I couldn’t explain why I didn’t consider it a good thing that I wasn’t in immediate danger of committing suicide. Because I didn’t know! But I’ve finally started understanding it.

Its because no one took me seriously. The second I said I didn’t have a plan, they would kind of write me off. I once made the mistake of saying “I don’t actively want to kill myself.” to which their response was “Good!!”. No. Its not good, I’d say. The only reason I’m not willing to kill myself is because it would hurt others. Why didn’t anyone understand what I meant when I said if the only reason I’m not killing myself is other people, that is a bad thing.

They’d say “well, why don’t you go rest, drink some water, and call your therapist when you can”. And there it was. The exact reason why I would never get better. Lets put aside that my triggers include drinking water (it sounds weird but every time I drink water I feel like I’m drowning), and being told to focus on my breathing. The reason I will never get any better is because if I don’t do something when I’m in crisis to help change my life, it will never happen. Not only because it will take a long time, which I have no patience for, but because when I’m not in crisis, why would I even WANT to think about the terrible things in my life? I’m happy and calm so rarely, why would I ever take that moment to think about my trauma, my issues, even if someone promised me that I wouldn’t get upset while figuring out a way to help myself, I still wouldn’t do it. Why? Because I want to enjoy those rare moments. I don’t want to do more work.

But no one will ever talk to me until I calm down, until I stop yelling at people because they’re doing nothing to help me when I’m miserable and clearly have no idea how to help myself. At the same time, if I were to go to a hospital and try to get help there, they wouldn’t consider it an emergency, because I would tell them I had no desire to hurt myself or others, because I never do.

So this brings me to the reason I found this website. I typed into Google “I’ve given up on my life so much,  I’m at the point where suicide doesn’t even seem worth it”. I don’t think all of this ending would feel any better, and even if it did, I’m too afraid of failing. I’ve failed at so much in my life, if I were to attempt and not succeed in killing myself, it would make things so much worse. Maybe I’d get the psychiatric help I needed, but then I’d have to deal with the guilt of hurting my parents, and being treated even more so like I’m made of glass.

I never thought I’d wish I wanted to commit suicide, but I do. No one really gets it, I can’t seem to articulate it well. With everything medical in my life, its always been the same. I am in debilitating pain, physical or emotional, it is actually affecting my life, but I go to a doctor and once they rule out all the scary possibilities, once they realize my life is in no immediate danger, they take their time. During that time I’m unable to hold down a job, and feel like no matter what I do, nothing will change.

I learned a while back that the adrenaline responses, fight or flight, weren’t the only responses. I learned about the response “freeze”. When I get extremely stressed, instead of being agitated, and having energy, I get exhausted, I lay down and take a nap. They realized that this was because if you are continuously shown that your actions will have no effect, not even that they wont help, but that they will have no effect, one way or the other, you start to realize you are helpless, you start to realize there is no use in fighting or getting away from the situation.

It gets frustrating to people in my life, because they try to help. They give me suggestions, and every time I tell them it wont work, they think I’m being difficult, that I want to stay miserable. The truth is, I’ve tried all the suggestions they’ve given me, multiple times.

Its really hard because people hear what I say, and they associate it with the behaviors we all learned in school were a cry for help. It took so long for me to figure out how to explain why I was talking to them about how helpless I felt, if I wasn’t asking for help. I finally explained it this way. I have learned nothing will help, and because of that, I feel invisible. I tell people how upset I am, not because I expect them or even want them to help, I just want to realize I am still…. here.

So thats where I am right now. in the most hopeless mindset. I’m going to peruse this site to see if anything makes sense to me. Thank you for reading.