Been feeling suicidal...and taking a hiatus from youtube

Jeremiad

This is an unofficial or pseudo Jeremiad and thus, there is linear & circular thought expressed.  I would not go as far as to describe it as the extempore ramblings of a madman; but perhaps that is all I am capable of at this moment.

I start with David Wallace's passage again to express - perhaps for those that don't understand mental illness/disorders - the reality of the signs and symptoms that some suffering from MI frequently experience.

 “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.” 
― David Foster Wallace

This morning I am angry haven recently remembered some of the treatment, reactions, behaviors, and/or confrontations I have received from others as I have battled Major Depression and Alcoholism.  Recently, I have begun to have more clear, logical, and linear thoughts.  I attribute this to many years of constant experimenting with psychopharmacological drugs, which only recently led me to a "cocktail" that appears to actually work on my depressive symptoms.  This, only serves to illustrate to me that my condition is truly a medical / neurological disease / disorder; the crux of my anger at the moment.

Throughout a lifetime of interactions with others I have been accused of being lazy, unmotivated, distracted, overly-sensitive, undisciplined, a procrastinator, weak willed, lacking intentionality, constitutionally infantile, etc., etc.,etc.  This is probably a common experience by those suffering from a genuine, authentic mental illness.  As my thoughts become more focused, my memories seem to re-appear more easily.  Perhaps because my signs and symptoms have begun to decrease.

The crux of my anger at the moment is the stigma, double-standard, ignorance, and indignant attitudes held by the general public - yes, a sweeping generalization at this point - regarding the mentally ill and their cognitive process, behaviors, and congruent emotions.  The general public do not like the apparent outcome of the mentally ill.  I have news for them.  Neither do we!  This is not a choice, lifestyle, or preference we have elected to adopt.  Granted, some of us will at times overly-identify with our illness.  To me this is a natural, innate, and human reaction.  Does not a person begin to identify with what they experience, see, hear, feel, everyday?  Again, a natural reaction.  Yes, some use this identification for justification of behavior.  To me, another sign and symptom of chronic mental illness.  Again, for those that might not understand this statement / belief, please go back and re-read David Wallace's passage.

A few years ago, my Double Depression (Major Depression, recurrent super-imposed on Dysthymia) finally synthesized with alcoholism.  I say finally, because at some point it was going to happen (self-medicate) and I was surprised that it took me as long as it did to come to over-rely on alcohol.  If I had known how temporarily effective it was, I probably would have started years earlier!  I digress.  

For most of my life I believed that there was something terribly wrong with my personality.  There was!  However, this "wrongness" was perceived by myself - and others - as something I had direct, or even a tertiary control over.  

Did I mention that I was born with Alopecia?  A medical disease that resulted in the loss of all my hair by the age of 2 or 3.  So, let's throw some chronic trauma into the mix via the chronic bullying received as the "Bald Monster."  However, there was something very different about how others - mostly adults - perceived and treated me due to the Alopecia.  In this case, I was a victim of a medical disease.  It was "unfair," "unfortunate," "a shame" that I had this disease.  My Alopecia had no bounds for compassion and understanding by adults (of course, my peers were another story).  This understanding, I believe, came as a result of Alopecia having a medical basis that was undeniable.  All you had to do to know that something was wrong was to look at me.  So, besides being neurologically hard-wired for depression (family genetics) I had environmental predispositions toward depression and trauma.  Again, I digress.  

I am angry this morning because my depression and alcoholism did not have the undeniable vision of a medical illness or disorder.  These were not as tangible or concrete as my alopecia by other peoples' standards.  Thus, with my depression and alcoholism, it was more of a characterological, developmental organization of my psyche, personality, and or person-hood.  Ergo, the signs and symptoms of my alopecia were treated entirely differently than my signs and symptoms of depression and alcoholism. 

I've never been yelled at for anything related to my alopecia.  I've never been criticized, judged weak, or received blame and fault for my alopecia.  Can you guess no the crux of my anger this morning?

Yes, I have been yelled at, judged weak or unwilling, been blamed and faulted, and even accused of intentionally harming family and friends because of my signs and symptoms of depression, trauma, and alcoholism.  All the aforementioned are by my account considered medical, neurological diseases, disorders, and illnesses.  Yet, because the depression, trauma, and alcoholism are not as outwardly tangible, concrete, or visible to the naked eye, it is now an issue of character and not medical / neurological.  

How unjust and unfair to decide based on "your" perception and judgments how you will treat me and my conditions.  If I have a slip with alcohol, it's because I am sabotaging my recovery or that I WANT to hurt my family and friends.  If I have a depressed day, it's because I forgot a dose of medication or that I have not been "efficient" enough at my cognitive re-framing of my thoughts and experiences.  Thus, it is my fault or even my intention to do so.  I guess this means I am some sort of mendacious bastard with ill will toward others and am attempting to sabotage someone else's life!  I have not one friend left from the synthesis of my depression, trauma, and alcohol.  I am responsible.  I am not attempting to fix blame.  Friends and girlfriends abandoned me WHILE I was in treatment attempting to recovery.  I can't imagine leaving someone because they have a long term battle with a medical disease.  Sometimes it takes time.  I have family left.  But let's face facts of this result.

If I had a terminal form of cancer, and I became irritable with friends and family, most would give me a pass because of my condition.  If I drank or contemplated suicide with same condition, it would receive sympathy, empathy, even pity.  If I was depressed, scared, angry, indignant, I would be forgiven and not blamed.  I am not attempting to equate mental illness with terminal cancer.  I am however, attempting to correlate it.  

The fact of the matter is that at time mental illness IS a terminal disease.  2010 stats report nearly 39,000 suicides, of which 90% were mental health related.  Seems pretty terminal for those 90% to me!

And yet, I am blamed, yelled at, faulted, and entirely responsible for my signs and symptoms of mental illness.  Again, I am angry this morning.  More to come but I thought I would leave you with one of my favorite poems.  I always considered my mental illness as a battle.  As combat.  Not just with the illness itself.  Also, with the perception of the illness.

Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die”

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accurséd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O, kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

    

  

Rep. Jackson Jr. & Bi-Polar Disorder

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May Probability fall in Line! For Once!

Heading out 2 join my psychological skills w/my affinity 4 the outdoors! Wish me & The Relative (E=mc2) Wilderness School lots of Luck!

Suicide Explained

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.” 
― David Foster Wallace

House by the Side of the Road

With the recent vitriol of the election / politics and my somewhat aimless pursuit of "advocacy" (whatever the Hell that means), my grandmother recited this poem to me last night. Apparently, her father memorized it and spoke it often.

The House by the Side of the Road 

THERE are hermit souls that live withdrawn In the place of their self-content; There are souls like stars, that dwell apart, In a fellowless firmament; There are pioneer souls that blaze the paths Where highways never ran- But let me live by the side of the road And be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road Where the race of men go by- The men who are good and the men who are bad, As good and as bad as I. I would not sit in the scorner's seat Nor hurl the cynic's ban- Let me live in a house by the side of the road And be a friend to man.

 I see from my house by the side of the road By the side of the highway of life, The men who press with the ardor of hope, The men who are faint with the strife, But I turn not away from their smiles and tears, Both parts of an infinite plan- Let me live in a house by the side of the road And be a friend to man.

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead, And mountains of wearisome height; That the road passes on through the long afternoon And stretches away to the night. And still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice And weep with the strangers that moan, Nor live in my house by the side of the road Like a man who dwells alone.

 Let me live in my house by the side of the road, Where the race of men go by- They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong, Wise, foolish - so am I. Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat, Or hurl the cynic's ban? Let me live in my house by the side of the road And be a friend to man.
**Sam Walter Foss

Great First Hand Account; Paranoid delusions in bipolar disorder

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I voted for many issues, mental health policy being one of them!

Reverse Fire; Great Concept!

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Practice Practice Practice

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