In Passing

So, it's passing. I think. I hope. That was probably the worst I've been since the hospital. Jb and I have a rule: no killing myself. Wednesday, it was a hard rule to keep. Thursday and Friday, I just wanted for him to come home. Smoked a lot. Rocked myself on the porch stairs trying not to think about it while I've got Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" playing through my head like that last strip of film that keeps slapping against the reel--over, and over, and over.

I should have gone to the hospital Wednesday. I should have gone Thursday. I was that bad. But I couldn't stand the idea of another stay, starting back at square one. It had taken me 5-6 months to pull myself out of the last one, and since the first hospital stay, I swear it's as if I get worse and worse, and never better. Or there's the hope of better, and then the crash hits. I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. But mostly, I couldn't put Jb through the strain of another hospital stay.

This weekend I have Jb as a babysitter. I've an appointment Monday with my therapist. Another Wednesday with my psych. It'll give me things to do, keep me in line.

Out of the blue, a woman I'd struck up a friendship in the ward called me. Last time I'd talked to her, she'd been convinced she was going off her meds and talking about suicide. I couldn't call her after that; I didn't want to know. I couldn't deal if she had. It was so good to hear her voicemail, to know she wasn't a fallen comrade, that I cried. When I called her back, I was suicidal, and she was completely manic. I couldn't keep up with her, as slow and dumb as my brain had gotten. But then again, how do you keep up with someone on a manic kick?

1:27 p.m. Breakdown & Death

It was inevitable, I guess. Last night, we watched CSI and House M.D. It was like a one-two punch. CSI focused around the "death" of a girl with bipolar. House spun around a dying man and the concept of life after death. The rest of the night, I couldn't stop thinking about death and whether there was actually anything to think about. Are near death experiences merely the last hurrah of nerve endings firing in your head, your brain flooding with endorphins, creating delusions? Is there anything out there?

At my bleakest, I am sure that religion, mythology, and spiritual beliefs are all stories we make up to convince ourselves that life is worth living, that there is some reason and reward beyond ourselves. After all, why is it easy to look back on the ancient Greeks, to throw stones at their gods, without being aware of the hypocrisy of our own belief systems. The peasants in Medieval times seem uneducated and desperate for some hope of release and reward in an unconscionably hard existence, but how much more uneducated and desperate will we seem to those who look back at us a thousand years from now?

This is where I become lost. If there is no sense to living hand-to-mouth, to spending so much time at work that we see more of our colleagues than we do our families, to death and decay and poverty and injustice and hunger, then why--why--bother? Your parents raise you, as best they can, to be a productive member in society, but what happens when that conditioning no longer rings true to you? What happens when it begins to slip? For me, I despair of having to fill countless hours with things I have to do for other people, things which have no meaning whatsoever in the grand scheme of things. Why? Why work? Why sell your life to someone else? Why struggle? Why continue on in such pain and misery and anxiety?

I spent last night grieving my wet-headed, ninja kitty again, though it's been over a year. But there's such guilt there. I knew something was wrong with him. I could tell he wasn't making his jumps, his balance was off, he was sleeping all day... And we laughed at him for being clumsy. And we didn't take him to the vet for over a week because we didn't have the money to spare. And by then, he was so sick. There was nothing we could do, except make the difficult decision, stand by him until his heart stopped. I was hysterical with tears, and was again last night, remembering it. What is it that we do here? That we can believe in to weather such things? What can we do except make up stories to give us hope, to ease the grief, to find some explanation.

But there is no explanation. There is no knowing. We are robots: our body working in set sequences until it can't anymore. We are conscious, yes, and we have free will, but what does it lead us to? So, individually, we choose what we live for: the love of family and friends, the love of a partner, the satisfaction of living life on our own terms, the pride of being successful. Each of us must find some reason to go on, else why bother? And it's during times like this I can understand those who choose suicide. What is it all for in this shallow, shadow world we live in? Tired, and alone, and depressed, how can we choose to go on when we see so clearly? What if we cannot find that one thing worth living for?

And despite this, there are moments I want to believe, but I catch myself. Even in my dreams, when I die, there is nothing. I'm alive, and then I'm not, and everything is blackness. Only once did I dream that I died, and having died in one existence, found myself in another, parallel existence, living another life in another consciousness that was like my own, but not. And perhaps we live that way, on parallel plans of existence, time meaning nothing. Or maybe the true blackness is inside of me, an empty void of loneliness. And maybe I'm grieving for myself as much as I am for my cat, my marriage, my father, my grandmother. All I know is that I cannot understand the struggle, and that I am lonely in my lack of belief.

Comrades In Arms

I've also been worrying about J----. We met in the hospital and exchanged info, though that's considering breaking a rule in hospital. You're not supposed to have outside contact with anyone you meet inside the psych ward. But we sort of clicked, and it was only for two days. She was discharged before me. But for a few weeks, we didn't talk, and then I called. Because I needed to talk. And it was strange to be able to call someone and to realize that when they asked how you were doing, for once, you didn't have to lie. So we became each other's touchstones. She called when she was thinking about cutting and her husband wasn't home. I called when I just needed to reach out to someone who understood. But the last time I talked to her, things were bad. She was talking about going back into the hospital, about cutting, about wanting to stop taking her meds, even about letting it all go and committing suicide. And I haven't heard from her since, and I... I'm truly afraid to call, to find out that maybe she's relapsed, or worse. I understand wanting to die. And she was in such a black depression. If she committed suicide, not only would it be a horrible tragedy for her family and friends, but selfishly, it'd be like losing a comrade in arms. How easy it is for any of us to slide down that razor's edge, and it'd be like looking into a mirror and seeing possible futures, possible outcomes. How many of us end that way? Why, with all the medications, the therapy, the hospitals, why do some of us never make it? I don't even know if I'm grieving for what could have happened to her, and for myself. Maybe it's for all us standing on the edge of that yawning pit of despair, the slick whisper that asks us, "What are you doing all of this for? Why must you, why must anyone, have to live this?" I can't explain it. All I know is that I have to hold on. And that's as irrational to me as the depression. And I hope like hell she's held on, too.

4:23 p.m. Serration

There's something about the serrated bread knife that brings up thoughts it shouldn't. I almost cut myself with it. Accidentally, of course, while washing dishes. But then, there was that moment of dangerous thinking, come and gone in a blink, and yet, flirtatious and coy. That it was there at all makes me uncomfortable. However, I take the passing thought as a good sign. I no longer obsess about certain objects for lengthy periods of time the way I used to, and I truly have no desire to die right now. While that's an admission that might worry some, for me, it's simply a truth.