"That's cute," he said. And then he asked about whether I had any morbid or suicidal thoughts. Morbid thoughts would include stuff like thinking things might be better if I weren't around or if I just went to sleep and never woke up. Suicidal thoughts are explicit plans. (Either one is cause for alarm.)
I've never in my adult life been without both kind of thoughts.
I remember once in youth group, way back in the early nineties, where I said something to the effect of how everyone thinks about offing themselves sometimes. My youth director caught that and said, as gently as she could, that no--in fact, most people don't have those kind of thoughts.
On a deep level, I still today, in my forties, just can't believe that's so. I can't believe that most people don't have a voice--not a literal voice, just a strong feeling or intrusive thought--that things would be better--for themselves, for the world--if they were dead. Kelsey Piper, writing at The Unit of Caring, puts it well:
People who are chronically suicidal ask themselves if maybe they should kill themself all the time, over all kinds of things. I missed the last train home, maybe I should just kill myself. I need to decide what to have for dinner…or I could just kill myself. It can be ignored; it doesn’t always accompany a strong compulsion to act; often people think that they’re not really suicidal, or that it’s just kind of the way the world is that you’ll spend a lot of your time wondering it if would be better if you died.
People who are chronically suicidal often think that everyone is like this, and are genuinely surprised to learn that there are lots of people who basically never want to kill themselves or wonder if it’d be for the best if they did or find their planning short-circuited by ‘maybe the best next step is to kill myself’.
That's what I mean. My brain outputs "end it" to a pretty wide variety of stimuli--mostly any kind of shame or frustration (or anger, which for me generally involves both those things). It's a psychic reflex to stress. And as a reflex it's terrible. Piper continues:
You should treat that thought as untrustworthy. It is untrustworthy. You have a brain that occasionally spits out ‘suicide’ as an answer to questions when the answer should be ‘spaghetti’ or ‘call an Uber’ or 'don’t get into stupid arguments on the internet’. It may be an excellent brain in other respects but in this respect it is silly and the correct response is to roll your eyes and go ‘no, brain, sorry, keep problem-solving, that was a terrible answer and you know it’.Most of the time, this is what I do. I recognize the thought I'm having--morbid or suicidal--as untrustworthy, even as lying. I have the suicidal thought, sigh inwardly, and turn toward something else. It's a boring thought-voice, after all. Most uncreative. It offers the same solution to every situation. It's not advice; it's a tic.
I have come to trust, because I don't know, that most people don't have this tic.
On another occasion, Piper notes that depression feeds us untruths:
Depression causes distorted thoughts. One really common distorted thought is that what you are experiencing is normal. Another really common distorted thought is that you’re hurting other people by having your own experiences, or by seeking help for them. Both of those are lies fed to your brain by the depression, because depression is an amazingly good liar.That normalcy lie is one I still tend to believe. (It doesn't help to be told, as I have been told in the past by well-meaning but misguided people, that my depression isn't that bad if I can get out of bed. No question: can't-get-out-of-bed depression is awful. But saying that passively suicidal depression is no big thing is like saying skin cancer's no big thing compared to pancreatic cancer. It's not a contest.)
All this is to say that my therapist suggested that I find something life-affirming to do in the next few days and that I steer clear of writing about nihilism right now.
So: maybe hope.
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