Content warning: suicidal thoughts.
Most of the suicidal thoughts that I experienced last year would break and enter their way into my consciousness when I sensed that what I was wanting to communicate to others didn’t make sense. Even after spending a half year trying to build a particular argument, there were parts of my consciousness and awareness that were not able to pass over an abyss.
This felt like a living death, living a life that is not worth living. What was the point of existing if I were surrounded by others but unable to reach them? Scrabbling behind a soundproofed, glass wall? My body wanted to escape, and it communicated that to me viscerally. Later, I saw that I did not want to die, but that the status quo felt full of meaningless suffering.
A conversation with a friend led me to realize that perhaps the thoughts that we could die are what make the decision to live that much more meaningful; that it’s an active decision & exercise of agency in considering all the possibilities and making an active decision to live. By allowing that battle to wage itself in our minds we don’t have to assume that the what is given to us must be endured, or must be something that we are grateful for, that pain itself is not enough to give meaning.
I do think that there is a disclaimer here: that this is just my most recent experience with these kinds of thoughts; that this is me speaking from a unique (and unsustainable) period of rest where I am not encountering them anymore, and that I don’t think that this applies to anyone but myself in this moment (and perhaps my friend). I want to extend my hand to others who are experiencing these thoughts in the moment, in any of the infinite different ways that they can be experienced, to say that maybe I don’t even remotely understand but I hope that I can be there and make space for the other ways in which these thoughts are being experienced.