I Had to Retitle This Post Because of Facebook

This is a Post About Suicide

* * *

Right after clicking the link, I realize that this is not something I should be reading right now.

The headline reads "I am Not Always Very Attached to Being Alive."

"Oh, boy" I think.

I want to write about suicidal ideation and depression, but in order to do that I need to do a couple other things first.

I am not currently actively suicidal.

Depressed? Uh-huh, but I can see the light. I think. Struggling with an eating disorder? Yes, and it's awful. Only able to write this post because a close friend has fed, walked, and cleaned up after me? Totally. Currently wishing I just didn't exist? Yeah, sometimes.

* * *

A few years ago I was briefly admitted to the ER because of suicidal ideation.

I only ended up there because one of my best friends, who lived nearly 800 miles away, told me that I was not thinking clearly and I needed to talk to someone who was not her. Honestly, not much came of it because I was resistant to treatment and still married so there was, theoretically, someone to keep an eye on me.

After the fact I had a lot of long conversations with my GP and shrink. We were all satisfied with the diagnosis that even then, it had more to do with a really bad obsessive compulsive episode and less to do with actually wanting to die.

This probably sounds like a specious distinction to a lot of people, but I promise that it's one that matters.

* * *

I'm not always happy to be alive.

Much of the time I am tremendously grateful for life, for the ability to know and love the people I do. I adore my job and take a deep sense of meaning from it. I enjoy achieving goals and learning and experiencing moving art. Even on my very worst days, I can still dig deep and find things to grateful for.

Let’s be real, most of the worst days involve knowing that my cats live spoiled, charmed lives because I am here.

I'm still not always thrilled with my own existence.

* * *

Here's what I mean when I say I'm not always happy to be alive.

It's more than just existential boredom. I have dealt with depression as a result of obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety since puberty. Most of the time, I do okay. I train for triathlons. I go to work. My friends make me laugh so hard I almost pee my pants. I kiss babies and snuggle pets and pay attention to the flowers blooming in my neighborhood.

I love a lot of my life.

But even on good days, if I suddenly winked out of existence, I'd probably be okay with it.

This is passive suicidal ideation. For me, it's chronic and that makes it a hard thing to talk about. The second you say "I'd be okay not existing" you find yourself in midst of a bunch of well-meaning conversations where you're suddenly put in the position of having to comfort other people. Of having to explain that you don't actually have plan to kill yourself, and yes, that actually matters and no, you don't need to be admitted to inpatient care. Of having to listen to someone tell you to just eat more probiotics or do a cleanse or listen to some self-help podcast and you’ll feel better.

I really want to punch that last group in the face.

So much of living with whatever we call this is feeling, is a deep sense of disconnection from, well everything. Even when life is good there’s a part of me that thinks, “Meh. This is good, but I would also be okay with not being.” When people’s first reactions are medication or therapy or yoga, I’m not motivated to actually talk about the fact that I often struggle with the idea of being alive.

Of course, all that does is drive the sense of disconnection I feel.

I’m really tired of that. It’s exhausting to try to explain to people why even when I'm not in a depressive episode I'm not always the most fun to be around. There’s no non-intense way to say to someone that the idea of seeing their kids grow up keeps me alive. It’s frustrating to realize that I’m probably not the only person who lives with this, but no one says anything.

So . . . I am often ambivalent about existence. And I don’t want to feel disconnected or alone or like this is something shameful that I have to hide.

There it is.

Just in time for me to take a dose of probiotics.

Screw Perfect

I'm planning out my meals for the next week and crying.

I've just finished a conversation with some friends where I've confided that, right now, the act of putting food into my body is the most disgusting thing I can think of. Going out to brunch with fills me with dread. Dinner frequently looks like a handful of roasted almonds or a bowl of popcorn because I'm "too tired" to cook. I cancel a date with a guy who's a chef because I can't stand the thought of talking about food. I buy a scale and put it in front of the pantry.  

I go to my therapist when the act of chewing starts to make me gag, when I'm so anxious after eating that my stomach cramps and I feel like I have food poisoning.

The friends I've been talking to have all struggled with eating disorders at some point (I'm beginning to wonder if there are a lot of women who haven't). While my shrink was mainly worried with doing an assessment on how bad things have gotten, they offer solid advice. Plan your meals and work your plan. Keep in mind that you can't do the things you love if you're starving. Find a support group a little closer to where you live.

Remember that this is not normal. 

* * *

Mental illness is the most tedious thing in the world.

It is also the most awfully predictable thing in the world. It turns up when things are going really well. Newlywed and deeply in love with your husband? Here's a trip to the emergency room with suicidal ideation. Excelling at work? How about a depressive episode coupled with imposter syndrome so bad that you'll miss a deadline. Feeling healthy and beautiful for the first time since your marriage? Hello again, bulimia. Take a load off, you'll be here awhile.

I've been down this road so many times now that I know the drill. I reach out to my support group. I make appointments with my GP and therapist. I buy a new CBT workbook. I start meditating every day again. I snuggle my cats and drag myself out of the house to do things I used to enjoy because while I don't believe it at the moment, experience has shown that these things help.

It doesn't make doing them--or me--any less boring.

* * *

"You're in therapy?" 

I'm taken aback. 

I've been telling a story to a friend that mentioned the words "my therapist" without really considering that he doesn't know a lot about my mental health. I feel like I present as neurotic enough that everyone assumes that I'm in therapy.

Apparently that's not the case.

"Um, yeah?"

"Oh. I just . . . I never would have guessed."

If I could freeze one minute in time it would be this. This one, perfect moment where I'm passing, or have passed, as neurotypical.

As normal.   

* * *

One of the things you learn in any undergraduate writing class is that you aren't supposed to write Big or Terrible Things until you're well-removed from them. No one wants to read your grief, anger, or sadness while you're still processing it. I like that idea. It appeals to my obsessive need for perfectionism.

Unfortunately, my obsessive need for perfectionism is what keeps me from getting healthy enough to be able to write about depression and OCD and eating disorders from a place of any distance. Every couple years, like clockwork, I have a mental health episode. And while they get less intense and shorter with the passing years, they still happen. I still end up back in my shrink's office, talking to my GP about SSRIs and benzos, and leaning hard on my friends to help get me through another couple months of tedious bullshit. It's hard not to feel like a pest or a burden when I have to send another email saying "Hey guys, I'm having another episode. I could use some company."

It's exhausting and it feels like my life has always been this way. Objectively I know it hasn't, that's just the way things look to me right now. And it's frustrating enough for me to want to say "Screw perfect, just give me normal."

Fat

It's 10:00AM. I'm covered in sweat, hot, and regretting every decision I've made that's brought me to this point.

I'm running a 5K on a treadmill as the final leg of a practice indoor triathlon, something I got up at 6:00 to prep for. It's not the actual indoor triathlon I signed up for--that's three weeks away. I got up early on a Sunday to do a practice triathlon.

I'm being a little dramatic. I was regretting the decisions I had made, but only because running a treadmill is the most boring thing in the world. While I'm running I'll cope by texting bad selfies to friends, asking if they know that treadmills were originally designed as a punishment, and generally being a whiny little bitch.

At the end of the run I'll hop off the treadmill and get hit by a rush of euphoria.

While I didn't win the genetic lottery in . . . basically any other way I'm lucky enough to be a person who gets a runner's high almost every time I work out, regardless of the activity.

I'm feeling even better when I check my watch stats and see I've cut an entire minute off my normal swim time. I've been working really hard since November, cross and strength training and it's nice to see that hard work paying off.

I trade my sweaty workout clothes for a towel and decide to hop on the scale before getting in the shower.

That's exactly the place where the bottom falls out.

"I deserve this" I think, tearing up in the shower. "I had that extra drink on Friday night and ohmygod refined pasta? You slob, what were you thinking?"

"I deserve this."

* * *

I am in the best shape of my life. 

I've lost three dress sizes, my mile times are faster than they've ever been, and my last doctor was thrilled with my progress. When people ask me my secret, I laugh and say "Oh, you know, diet and exercise." 

Here's my actual secret. 

Every morning I get up and weight myself, often more than once. Depending on what the scale says, I'll have Breakfast A (70 calories) or Breakfast B (an indulgent 140 calories). I will go to work and try to keep my total calorie consumption throughout the day to around 700 calories, mostly eaten two hours before I go to the gym, which I visit six days a week. I'll spend 90 minutes Spinning, will shower, and will walk the 1.5 miles back to my house. I'll eat a carefully portioned dinner, ensure that I haven't had more than 1,200 calories in a day and will skip eating back most of the calories burned during my workout. More often than not, I'll halve my dinner so I can have a beer to help me sleep. 

If, say, I've done something egregious like go to dinner at a friend's house and eat more than the calories I have allotted, I will get home, put on my running clothes, and run until I'm at my calorie limit for the day. 

I do this every day for nine months.

At the end of it, a new doctor will ask how I made such progress. When I detail my diet and exercise routine for her, she looks me dead in the face and tells me "That's not a lifestyle change. That's an eating disorder."

"No, it's not. Fat girls don't have those."

She almost slaps me.

I would have deserved it. 

* * *

"I mean, for someone who works out so much, I don't understand how you put on so much weight."

I've heard no fewer than 17 variations of this comment throughout my dating life. 

This particular time I lock myself in the bathroom and cry for hours. 

I am three years and thirty pounds from the best shape of my life. I fell in love and stopped working out so much because I was so happy. I fell out of love and drank too much and ate too much comfort food as a method of coping. Everything about my life feels so out of control at the moment that the constant refrain in my head is "You deserve this. You let yourself go. You're an ugly fat monster."

"You deserve this." 

* * *

It's 10:00PM. I'm covered in sweat, hot, and regretting absolutely none of the decisions that brought me to this place. 

I'm sleeping with someone new. It's the first someone new since my ex-husband and while it's nothing serious, it's been incredibly meaningful for me. He's a genuinely funny, kind, and warm person and I couldn't have written a better first-since-my-ex-husband.

I can't get out of my own head. 

The second my clothes come off, all I can think about is the stretch marks on my boobs, the cellulite on my ass, my disgusting belly. I'm convinced that this is a pity fuck or a meh-I-have-nothing-better-to-do fuck or a I-haven't-had-sex-in-awhile-and-I-can-close-my-eyes-and-imagine-Scarlett-Johansson fuck.

It's not. 

I get a little bit better the more I get used to him (see previous comments about funny, kind, and warm), but I still can't settle down. Every time we eat together he comments on how little appetite I seem to have (It's one of those unspoken fat girl rules. Eat less than you want and try not to enjoy it). Based on the number of times I've said "Oh, I got busy and had a late lunch" he must think I'm the most overworked employee in the place. 

I make a lot of jokes to him about how I'm the incarnation of a goddess of sex, here for his adoration and awe, but the truth is that I'm five years and ten pounds from the best shape of my life. And for as much as I'd like to be proud (and am proud, if I'm being honest) of the fact that I can do an indoor tri for practice on a Sunday morning, there's an extremely loud voice in my head talking about how maybe my fat ass should walk the two miles home and I can probably skip that post-workout bagel and oh, by the way, maybe you should cancel your plans with funny-kind-warm tonight.

Afterall, it's not like I deserve it.