Some of us Suffer Unknowingly
"I'll wait for you there, like a stone. I'll wait for you there, alone......."
The recent death of Chris Cornell is having a surprising effect on my reaction to someone I never knew passing away. I mean, yes I never knew him personally, but Sound Garden was the soundtrack of my middle school years, and Audioslave being the soundtrack of my young adult years, it was almost as if I did actually know him. At the very least, his lyrics were pretty much what was the true story of how I saw life in general, although I did an amazing job of masking life as I knew it.
No one saw me as the tortured artist or creative melancholic because I never really outright wore that badge with courage. I actually still don't. Isn't it funny that I feel I am not cool enough to be that philosophical? Ahhhhhh, swoon. Although I don't walk around appearing to have the look of a non conformist, I am the living, breathing, perfect example of someone that it tortured by their past, and spewing it out on paper for all to read. It must be my conservative Florida upbringing that doesn't allow me to live my life coloring outside of the lines, I have to reel it in a bit. For example, although it is absolutely horrible we lost Chris Cornell, we would expect that he would probably pass away in a nonconventional manner, and not from old age. It doesn't completely surprise us. If I passed away from a substance abuse or suicide, I think it would blow everyone away and they would actually think this isn't something that could or would happen to me. To the world I am not that person. But I am.
This isn't something that has effected me this deeply throughout the years, the contemplating suicide portion. I feel that I was able to adequately keep that in check from age 12-30 with the use of substance abuse. As long as I had a drug to live for, I was fine with life happening. I had even told many people over the years that if I was alive by age 30, I would feel comfortable saying I had seen enough in this lifetime, and I would be surprised if I even made it that far. Now that I have slowed way down in my drug and alcohol consumption, the need to speed up the process more definitely seems like a plausible thought. I too suffer from anxiety like Chris Cornell, but I don't feel that this is a "mental illness" that only effects a small portion of the population. Life is hard. It is fucked up. It is manipulative, horrible, and will use you as much as it can. It is hard for me to believe that any one person doesn't feel this way about life in general. I definitely don't suffer from depression, although I'm sure all that reads this would beg to differ on my assessment. I don't feel like life is anything special, and that your personal contribution to it is making or breaking anything that makes it all worthwhile. I work in social services to try to fulfill a need for a purpose of being here, but it doesn't really fulfill it as I think the job I do shouldn't be a job. This should just be a general, everyday practice that everyone in this world does. There is a long line of social workers that will come behind me, so my small amount of contribution really is unnoticed in the grand scheme of things. To just be happy with life, I feel is sugarcoating a turd, and I don't think it is fair to label me depressed because I tell it how it is, and you tell it how it might be.
So here I am, relating to the death of Chris Cornell to justify my own means of how I come to terms with my own life. I am in no way trying to glorify suicide, or say that it is the right choice. I am only trying to give insight on why this is a thought process, and how people are lead to the choice, or really, option of suicide as a reasonable decision. Are some of us that consider this option mentally ill? Absolutely. Some of us are born with a chemical imbalance that makes the perception of life being fulfilling seem unreal. Then there is a category of persons, like myself, that fall into the category of just being fucked over in life. Being dealt shitty cards over and over again, at really no fault to ourselves and decisions. Victims of circumstance that never play the victim, have been resilient, but are now tired. Tired of pretending. Tired of telling yourself that others have it worse. Tired of convincing yourself that this too, shall pass. Tired of using and abusing to making life tolerable, and numbing the pain of years of corruption. So tired that the thought of stopping life for a moment is a possible feeling of euphoria that you only experience when you are high or drunk.
I have posed the question to friends and coworkers if having suicidal ideations is a normal process to life, and I am told no, a pretty strong and consistent no. So don't wait until it is an only choice and consider reaching out to someone that can counsel or talk you through your feelings and why they are happening. Sometimes it takes venting your issues to someone that isn't related to you to get sme real feedback. I annoy the hell out my counselor, and hate when she justifies my feelings of hurt and trauma to be rational. Now that I have justified feelings of hurt and trauma, what am I supposed to do with them? I also am really good at realizing my part in a negative happening, and know how to take fault in a situation. I take fault to the point of it being detrimental at times to justify with my own self the reason of poor treatment of other against me. A role I have learned to easily play over years of emotional abuse by family, friends, and relationships.
So, if you feel that you are having suicidal thoughts and ideations, make sure to follow through with a counselor, therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist. You can even call the suicide hotline and anonymously talk to people at 1-800-273-8255 (you can text or chat too).
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I've been through the same thought process a time or 2. I have clinical depression with a side order of anxiety. Apparently, I've had this condition for almost all of my life, but didn't know it until I started talking to a shrink in 2006, at the age of 50. I thought all those things were just normal. I had no idea that a big chunk of the population never has any suicidal thoughts. That blew my mind. My "happy pill" deals with the anxiety reasonably well, but I still deal with depressive episodes, although they're not as deep as they used to be.
That is great you found the courage to actually speak out about your thoughts. I know your generation stigmatizes mental health a bit more than millenials do right now.
Very interesting -Thanks for posting - Subbed!
It gets to real sometimes, doesn't it?
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