I’ve just stepped off the Suicidal Ideation Rollercoaster. I visit it every now and again. I should say “we” visit it. The person who steps us into the carriage is her own self: Suicidal Girl. She gets triggered when we hear those voices of our past play over and over…and over and over…in our head.
If The Deneen System has made a bad decision, encountered a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, missed a deadline, been extremely ill, felt trapped in any way or, gods and goddesses forbid, caused pain or inconvenience to someone that we deeply care about, the carnival lights start flashing and the internally mocking music starts up on a loud loop of degrading self-talk.
It’s a strange thing: this living your life while constantly encountering the overwhelming desire not to be alive. Not to be present. Not to be crushed under the weight of being a caring and conscious being stuck in a flesh-bag of seeming not-self. I don’t know where the beings are that made me, if indeed, anyone even did. Perhaps I just sprang into existence at some point, like a sprout shooting forth from a broken hull, pushing its way out through the dirt to seek once again the light that is its food; its Source.
We find ourselves constantly wanting to go back to Source. Because, this life here doesn’t really make sense, does it? This thing where we have to take the lifeforce out of other plants or animals to maintain our own. This thing where we can’t spontaneously dump our emotions, knowledge and intent straight into the receptors of other beings. This thing where we are all so separate and apart with all of these boundaries, and appendages, and base needs. It’s all really hard for a Being of Light to navigate. Having other Beings of Light to appendage hold with, to, however-awkwardly, exchange information and love with, it really is a soothing balm for the wound that living this life seems to be on us.
This current dance with our thoughts of not-being worked out far better than some. Our fiancée helped us do self and crisis care at home so that we wouldn’t have to hospitalize and risk The COVID. And she brought up this idea: suicide as selfish. “You can look it up,” she said. “You can read about it. It IS selfish! I don’t want you to leave me!”
Hhhhmmm….
We have looked it up and we have read about it, and we have talked to people other than ourselves who have the suicidal ideation. We’d not been able to find the selfishness of it. Hearing and feeling it from someone who loves us so very deeply? We came close to understanding that point of view. See what I mean? Nobody’s been able to dump that feeling and reasoning into our brain-pan before, though we’ve encountered the conversation so many times!
These bodies are slow. And lumbering. And painful—oh, lately, so very, very painful! These bodies aren’t efficient at understanding others’ points of view, experiencing their spirits through the heavy masses that make us up. These bodies are stuck in time, with only the linear life to look forward to, the previously-experienced to regret, relive, obsess over. It’s a very artificial state.
We’ve just got to believe that we chose all of this, and for a very good reason that we’ve asked ourselves to forget. All part of the play. Maybe a part of a bigger something. Maybe just distraction from the boredom of infinite life and infinite power.
Whatever the wherefores and whys of it, we’ll try out best to stay. It’s all going to end one day, in spite of our best efforts. In spite of what we believe about death and the Whatever-Comes-Next. We’ll know soon enough. Or we won’t—because we’ll be in The Nothing. Unrealized potential for Being once more.
When the darkness comes, when every breath is a struggle that our whole selves want to snuff out, this is when we remind ourselves that Death is already rushing toward us quickly. We’ve no need to rush it.
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Hey!!! I love you! I’m not ready for a world that doesn’t have you.
Your girlfriend, and others who have said the same, are right, in that suicide is selfish. I’m thankful Rachel, I suppose is who said it, is helping you to see it. Not that I don’t understand your feelings about not always wanting to be alive, but I most often do wish to be alive and I always try to be aware of the wonder there is in life—even in its darkest moments or periods—in simple things, most often. You know this, but you have to retrain your brain so that it does not play and replay the bad, sad, difficult and horrible moments from your life. Teach it, encourage it to more often and only play the good and beautiful things, the triumphs, the joys, the laughter and tears of thanksgiving and gratitude. It’s not easy, and it takes a long time, but it must be done.