CW: suicide. 

I’m simultaneously relieved and terrified to finally have a diagnosis that makes sense. 

After 29 years of failed treatments. Therapy that reinforced dysfunction. Medications that made my suicidal ideation a thousand times worse. 

In September, I decided I was done. I purchased a shotgun and some bullets. I went to the gardens and soaked up all the beauty I could. I sent a few texts, and I was going to pull the trigger that day. 

I asked my best friend if she wanted me to try anything else before I followed through. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel like I had left any stone unturned in terms of trying to get better. She asked me to go to the hospital. I did, and I cannot stress how much I didn’t want to do that. 

The hospital visit went poorly. Diagnosed with major depressive disorder and put on yet another antidepressant that sent my suicidal ideation into overdrive. 

I went to the hospital again to detox from the Effexor. I no longer had it in me to “behave.” I tried stabbing my leg with the toothbrush. I stole a fork from the cafeteria which was promptly confiscated. I walked out of group therapy when asked how I was doing and said “I want to die,” and we moved on quickly to the next person who was having a better day. 

I screamed and sobbed in the hallway. I banged my head against the wall. I’ve never done these things. I’ve always behaved and kept that part internalized. 

And when that diagnosis came, the things that have kept me tethered to life have come unglued. The things that everyone loves about me now look like dysfunction to me. This realization that my identity is lost to the schizophrenic mother who made her child into a parent. It’s all very overwhelming and underwhelming to me. 

I am afraid life will lose its salt after this. That the things I’ve long thought are special and unique about me are dysfunction. That the love I’ve been seeking and was so sure existed is something of a delusion. 

Part of me wants to be thrown back in the hospital where I can scream and cry and bang my head against the wall. Part of me wants to buy another gun and pull the trigger. Part of me is curious who I am once the veil of dysfunction is lifted. 

I am afraid I have finished one battle and woken up to the war. 

I had this conversation with my mother once when she was having a psychotic episode. She was trying to talk to me as if her realm were real. I told her I’d love to talk, but I can’t enter her world, and I wished she’d step into this one. That broke through to her. 

Now I kind of feel like I’m on the end of that equation where I’ve been living in a realm that isn’t the real world. That I’ve given 29 years of my life to that realm and am now being asked to step into the real world. It’s fucking terrifying. 

How on earth does anyone cope?