+1 for all of us who got the “how often” question and knew they couldn’t answer honestly.
Comment on It happens...
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days agoI’m in the middle of a psychotic break (since November 2024, and yes, the collapse of the US is a factor) and off and on suicide watch.
Here’s an exchange I’ve actually had (more or less, paraphrased) more than twice these last three months:
🥼📋👓🩺: In the past week, have you been having thoughts about killing yourself? (Another version is “How recently have you thoght about ending your life: a) less than a year, b) less than a month, c) less than a day, d) today.”)
🐰🎩🫖☕: Oh sure. Every day. Hourly.
🥼📋👓🩺: What!?
🐰🎩🫖☕:Yeah. For me this is Tuesday. The brain is always considering heading to check-out. I have a numerical scale of one-to-ten for suicidality the way we do pain assessments.
🥼📋👓🩺: I…see?
🐰🎩🫖☕: It’s fine! Ambient unlife stuff is at a S-3, like “shit I need to get to bed so my boss can scream at me early tomorrow. If that bus careened through this crosswalk, that problem would be so resolved.”
🥼📋👓🩺: …This is normal for you?
🐰🎩🫖☕: Routine. At S-5, I may look around for wandering death opportunities. I don’t talk to anyone about it until about S-6 and start having fantasies of getting proactive, at which point I might tell my therapist if she isn’t squeamish. (A lot of therapists are hair-trigger and will start threatening involuntary committal with any noise of suicidal ideation)
🥼📋👓🩺: Maybe you should…
🐰🎩🫖☕: It’s gotta be an S-8 or S-9 before I’m going to inconvenience a hot-line operator or crisis counslor. By then I’m looking at chemistry sets on Amazon. A fun game is trying to cross a hundred busy intersections in two hours. I’ve won so far.
🥼📋👓🩺: You can’t just…
🐰🎩🫖☕: You can’t just charge death head on. A million years of evolution will drop you before you commit. You gotta sneak up on Death. Icarus, not Heracles.
🥼📋👓🩺: < 🎩 gibbering noises >
toy_boat_toy_boat@lemmy.world 2 days ago
SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
I haven’t had quite that interaction, but I’m equally blasé about it. It’s literally just part of life.
“In the past year have you had thoughts of suicide?”
broad gesture if you haven’t you probably aren’t paying attention… but I’m apathetic, not active. Not that it would matter because when I was actively suicidal it took 6 fucking months to be seen by you chucklefucks…
They always get that concerned face and I have to reassure -them-… like no it’s fine this is just normal for me…? I live with chronic pain, I live with chronic poor-ness, it’s just chronic life (and not the fun drug kind, even). I’m not into it, but I’m not actively thinking about doing anything about it, either. Doesn’t mean I want to be resuscitated if shit happens, tho… and I don’t… (any more chronic issues would be probably one too many, and then I’d get active…) I even know exactly what probably painless method I’d go with, because suffering is dumb. And it’s something I can act on quite literally any time I want with zero effort on my part other than going to the store, so that I’m still here is a great sign!
My current doc (Va changes my doctors every couple years) was the absolute first, out of dozens of people I’ve told that to, who was like “ummm… that’s actively bad… so what is your mental health plan? (Told her I don’t have one, other than suck it up) I’m going to give you an open-ended referral to some outside groups who may be more able to help you, especially on short notice… I get why you don’t trust our mental health… so if you ever want that, just send me a message and I’ll put in the referral for you. Also here’s a list of non-profits that aren’t directly affiliated who may be better suited to help you…”
Fwiw, whatever it is in your life that causes these things, I hope they stay at or below active-planning level. If you ever want someone totally random to vent to, my DMs are open, and I’ll reply with commiseration rather than gaslighting you about things not being that bad, because… well I get how pointless that would be 😜
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
I very much appreciate the offer. Part of it is that I’ve been wailing like Cassandra about the rise of autocracy since the CIA torture thing in the aughts (and hippies older than I have been noting the rising police state since the 1960s) so I’m kinda taking CECOT and the dismantling of federal institutions personally. But then a lot of personal life stuff happened about the same time, so here we are.
I’ve got a few friends left, a rugged protocol for when I am triggered,and I am rebuilding a support network. It’s not my first rodeo, but (to mix metaphors) I’m definitely playing hard mode now.