Joe Hass - I thank you for your post, your honesty, and your continued
dedication to never inducing that pain on ones you love.
On 8/12/2014 4:11 PM, Joe Hass wrote:
I posted this on my Facebook feed, and I'll expand on it a bit here.
I spent 15 minutes after my dentist appointment last night sitting in
my car trying to process this.
You may or may not be aware that I struggle with a mixture of
depression, anxiety, and ADHD and have for the vast majority of my
life. A combination of medications and therapy have helped me over the
years to manage things, and some days/weeks/months are better than
others. Most if not all of the close friends in my life can vouch for
the fact that I struggle with my self-worth on a frequent basis, to
the point where my brain often makes a very logical argument that I
should end my life. And being a very logical person in general, it
makes sense: if I can put together a case that shows my life is
without value or meaning, shit, it's gotta be true. I've lived with
suicidal ideation (thinking about killing yourself) for a very long
time. That said, I've never tried it, and only once even tried to try
it*, over 16 years ago (it's an indescribable explanation of what's
going on your mind when you have about 45 pills in one hand and one
part of you is trying to lift your arm and the other part is refusing
to do so).
So why have I never made the leap from ideation (I should kill myself)
to intent (I'm going to kill myself)? It's been almost 17 years now
since someone I truly cared for killed herself, and as I told someone
the other day, it's really one of only about three things in my life I
wonder what would've happened had I done certain things differently (I
will not get into those details). It took me nine years of therapy
(amongst other issues) to finally wrap my brain around her death and
my relationship with her and a lot of other things related to that
event. But the one perverse gift Beth gave me was the realization that
killing yourself results in so much pain to others that to be the
cause of that is something I could never do to another person.
At first, it was my mom. For the last 10 or so years, it's been my
niece. She'll hold that position for a couple years longer, and then
my son will take it the rest of the way. It's the person who, in my
truly darkest hours, when that safety fuse is straining, I think about
being told I killed myself. And it works, for me. It may not work for
another person.
You might be thinking, "Well, shit, then don't do it." But therein
lies the rub. Mental disorders (and thanks, PG: I need to start using
that term instead of "mental illness") are insidious because they're
outstanding at seducing people into believing things about themselves
that no other human being on the planet ever would. And it truly is
impossible to really describe to those who haven't lived it what it's
like: to be able to take someone telling you that you're a wonderful
human being and people care about you, admire you, support you, and
love you and disregard it because of some reason that is so irrational
as to be utterly laughable if you weren't that person.
I'm no professional (though I've paid enough to enough of them that I
feel I should earn some sort of honorary status in those ranks), but I
can tell you this: depression is a bitch, and, mixed with other
things, it can take you to places no sane person would think is
possible. That's probably why they call it insanity.
I fear I've gone too long and too deep in the wrong place, so my
apologies.
* This phrasing is blatantly stolen from Bart Simpson in "The Canine
Mutiny", after Lisa tells him to "[j]ust promise not to freak out the
blind man" in trying to get Santa's Little Helper Back. "I can't
promise I'll try," Bart replies. "But I'll try to try."
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