Big trigger warning, suicide ideation mentions.
The trouble with the attitude of trying to force someone who is experiencing suicide ideation to go to the ER right away is this:
While people who are experiencing suicide ideation are more likely to actually commit suicide than people who do not experience suicide ideation, talking about FEELING suicidal is not the same thing as planning to commit suicide.
If I were going to commit suicide, I would just do it. Nobody would know about it until after the fact.
I was on a locked ward for a weekend when I was 16 because I cut my wrists. The cuts were superficial. Nobody fucking listened to a word I said about all the fuckery that was going on in my life at the time. They were quick to try and see if I was schizophrenic, asking leading questions like "have you ever hallucinated."
"Only when I'm doing drugs," I quipped, because I didn't like the self-important asshole asking the questions.
He told me I didn't need to get smart about it, and I said that someone in the room needed to get smart, and since it wasn't going to be him, it needed to be me.
He branded me a hysterical neurotic and, after that worthless diagnosis, let me leave.
I would literally kill myself before ever taking the chance of being put on a locked unit again. Even if some of them are nicer about it these days, they still don't see people as human.
While my bipolar disorder causes fuckery for me, I've learned to cope with it. However, I live in a world that wants to make me "normal" when I can never be "normal." I can never have normal sleep patterns no matter how many drugs you give me. I might fall into a tranquilized slumber and wake up in a puddle of piss, but this is not the same as having a "normal" sleep pattern, and I won't do it.
I will never have a working thyroid gland, and thyroid dysfunction also contributes to depression and weird sleep patterns.
The last time I really freaked out about shit, it wasn't my mental illness causing it, which is what everyone has been trained to assume. So, were I have gone to the hospital, they would have put me on a 36 hour psych hold. That wasn't what I needed. I needed my god damn cytomel, which the doctor hadn't yet given the pharmacy the okay to fill. Cytomel is not a psych med, it is a thyroid med. However, they would have treated me as if I were crazy and made my life an even worse pile of shit than it already is.
Lately, I have been experiencing very strong suicide ideation. I envision putting a shotgun to my chest and pulling the trigger. I don't think it's true that women avoid suicides such as gunshots to the head because we're vain. I think I'm horse-ass ugly. I wouldn't care about blowing my face away because I can't stand looking at it. However, I wouldn't want to traumatize my son by him having to see that mess. That would fuck someone up for life.
I can tell you exactly what's prompting this suicide ideation, and it isn't because I need to be on the damn psych meds that would only mess me up more.
What I need is a job that pays the bills. However, I don't do well with jobs that have a normal Monday through Friday nine to five schedule. I don't sleep well at night. I end up sleepy during the day. I fall into severe depressions working that shift.
I like working night shifts. However, I can no longer do the extremely physical work in a long term care setting or warehouse, the places where I would be able to find such shifts. Homecare work is extremely sporadic and not dependable.
Currently I'm throwing a very small newspaper route because I couldn't handle the larger one. Even with this small one, I'm in constant pain because my body never gets a day of rest. My hands and feet are swollen and my mental acuity, such as it is, is in the toilet. Everything is a never-ending blur of hell. I never have enough money.
I work all the time, delivering food and delivering papers.
I work every day of the week most weeks. I'm not lazy.
I'm the fucking square peg. I'm willing to work. I want to work. But I don't do "normal" well.
THIS is why I'm having suicide ideation. Not because I fucking need DRUGS. And no amount of having some self important twit telling me I need to "love myself" is going to remedy this fucking situation.
Nine times out of ten, people who are experiencing suicide ideation aren't planning to commit suicide.
If we're going to do it, we're not going to tell you.
The thing that everyone has been taught about forcing your unhappy friends to go to the ER is bullshit.
We need real world solutions, not pie in the sky and pharmaceuticals.
The Cheese Hath Grated It
