Death Wishes

When I would get depressed after I first started having psychotic symptoms, I would cry to my mother that I didn't want to sick anymore.  I still feel the same way, of course, but I've stopped complaining that way.  When talking about how I feel about my illness, I explain what I have difficulties dealing with, like relating to other people, the side effects of the medications, and telling people that I'm sick.  Sometimes I talk about how my outlook on what's changed about what I can have in my life.  Or, more accurately, what I can't have.

When I would say those words to my mother, that I didn't want to be sick anymore, she would always seem to have disgust in her voice as she told me she didn't want to hear it.  I learned quickly to keep my agony to myself, if at all possible.  The memories of my father during my childhood and all the information I could get my hands on once my mother so eloquently dropped his diagnosis in my lap, had had me terrified that this would ultimately be my future.  And then it happened.

I have attempted suicide so many times that I can't even think of a guess as to a number.  I've had the thought in my mind that no longer being would be better than living, not only in the pain at the time, but the horrifying image of the future that only an educated imagination can create.  The thing about wanting to die is that people will say you only feel that way when you're not in your right mind.  The thing about being crazy, this crazy, is that I'm not sure if that's true.  In all actuality, I know that sometimes when you want to die you're not in your right mind.  You're depressed and symptomatic, and feel helpless and hopeless.  But, sometimes, when your symptoms are under control and your medications are working and you feel like you have some control, you still wish you would die.  Maybe not right now, this minute, or today, but soon.  Perhaps a case of terminal cancer could come your way.  Are you still not in your right mind simply because you are looking forward to your own mortality?

While I have come to a point of balance between being willing to devastate the people in my life for peace in my own and being willing to suffer so those who care about me do not, I am offended when people act as if the even thought of wanting to die is wrong or weak.  I do believe that, for the most part, dying is easier than living with this illness.  I, however, do not believe in an afterlife.  Coming up with coping skills to make it through each individual day is hard enough, let alone when you do everything that you know is right and it should help and it just doesn't.  Perhaps choosing not to be tormented by something that has taken up shop in your brain before you could even fight it is not weak, but intelligent.  One could argue that making the decision to do something that is easier is the smarter thing to do.

Not measuring up to others' standards, let alone your own, seems to be an intricate part of a lot of mental illness.  Because of my illness, I cannot be the friend I want to be.  One time a friend of mine tried to interact with me but because of my illness I was unable to focus on anything but the symptoms I was struggling with.  Unfortunately because of his own illness he then went to his own apartment and attempted suicide.  Knowing that I'm letting my friends down makes me not only feel guilty, but my self worth as a friend is wounded.

There are people who say you should manage mental illness naturally, without medication.  Then there are those who support the use of prescribed medications as the only way to help.  And there are others who feel you can use any effective ways of treating and coping with your mental illness.