the happy moments
I've been having a rough time recently, to say the least. In an attempt to rehab the chronic pain I've had in my legs for years, I've injured my back. The pain in my legs was irritating but manageable for years and I was still able to skateboard on a regular basis. Now that I've hurt my back I can barely skate at all, and when I do I have to be super careful not to piss off the injury. It's been a couple months now and healing has seemed to have stagnated. Now I'm in a worse spot than ever before.
Because of this stagnation I've been feeling suicidal the past week or so—even more than usual. I just can't fucking take another injury to deal with—both the physical and mental pain. I've been crying about it nearly every day and whenever I close my eyes I just see images of shooting myself in the head or jumping in front of a train. I wake up to this every morning. This has happened more on than off for many years, but the frequency and intensity of the thoughts has been particularly high recently. It's profoundly distressing and the more distressed I am from it the more it happens.
Today it got so bad I called the suicide hotline. They hung up on me. I instead called a friend and talked a little about what was going on, but mostly just about normal shit. I really just needed someone to ground me and remind me that the world goes 'round.
Anyway, now that I've calmed down, I've been thinking about a few moments from the past two days where I've been (or seemed?) sincerely happy in the context of my suicidal ideation. These were all brief and with near-strangers but also totally meaningful.
The first was yesterday morning at the cafe down the street I frequent. I ran into a regular there who I used to shoot the shit with about software development but hadn't seen him in about a year. So we had the whole long time no see, quick catching up, and be good man in the span of about a minute before I got yapped at on Teams and had to head home to be pulled into a meeting.
Later that day when I went downstairs to the local Mexican place I frequent. It's like a Chipotle bar style but way better food. The Hispanic guy in front of me was ordering in Spanish and I was like... why don't I do that? So I did. It really was a very small gesture but it put a sincere smile on the face of the man working there. I'm a white guy but do speak un poquito Spanish so I guess it was appreciated.
And then today, before my meltdown, I was walking downstairs out of my apartment and one of my neighbors who I recognize from the halls but have never spoken to was really struggling to get some chairs she ordered up the stairs. It was definitely a two person job, so I helped her move them up to her apartment. I'm sure it was appreciated.
What do these moments have to do with suicidal ideation? Well in each of them I know without a doubt that I seemed friendly, relaxed, happy—and frankly for these few short moments I felt that way too to some degree. But I bet none of these people would expect me to be suicidal.
It just makes me think of the common narrative you hear about suicide. Nobody I am close with has died by suicide, but I have friends who've known people who have done so. They always have said things along the lines of "I just saw them yesterday and everything seemed totally normal."
Well I get it. I am that person. I'm not going to kill myself but I certainly have the urge lurking beneath the surface most of the time. Only a few close to me know that I suffer from chronic pain and OCD, and probably only my partner knows to what degree. It's just something I can't talk about with hardly anyone. Not many people who are seriously suicidal are open about it to even one person, especially because the people you'd be likely to open up to are also the people who would be scared the most by the idea of it.
So what's the point of this post? I don't know. I guess I'd say check in on your friends and family. I am the person from the "everything seemed fine!" narrative and chances are you know one of them too.