Sometimes PMDD Makes Me Suicidal
I post this on my Facebook feed this week and wanted to share it here in case any one needs to know that they are not alone.
Trigger warning- Suicidal Thoughts and Guns
Some of my PMDD flares make me suicidal. That is not and has not been a secret for years on here (social media) even though most people on my friends list can't or won't process what that means. I don't blame them for it; I don't like to think about my friends killing themselves either. It's not a comfortable conversation to have, especially if you have unresolved issues of your own as most of us do. I have talked about struggling to fight the Negative Committee That Meets in My Head scores of times over the years. It always happens at nighttime when I need my brain to be quiet so I can sleep and all of the distractions to drown out the voices are absent. My brain, with its genetically-mutated hormonal-reactions in the quiet darkness, whispers instructions to murder myself. This is my reality. I was suicidal last Sunday night.
Mental health professionals and suicide hotline volunteers always want to know if you have a plan. I *ALWAYS* have a plan. Shotgun. Like my grandfather and great uncle before me. The shotgun is a 16 gauge and it lives in the corner of the closet, barrel against the drywall, stock against the carpet, always loaded. I know where to put it to end my life because my other uncle didn't know exactly, only blew his face off and lived.
I never think about my parents having to find my blood-splattered, dead, and decapitated body afterward. Suicidal brain doesn't work that way. It's not rational. It doesn't think of long-term scenarios, cause and effect, aftermath. It's not kind or anywhere close to nice. It doesn't think of other people. There's not one ounce of mercy or grace in suicidal brain. The thought to call somebody never entered my head. The only thing it knows is RIGHT THIS SECOND is a place of utter despair and misery and there is no end to this. THIS *WILL* GO ON FOREVER. Any message it hears from outside to support that this will never end, it seizes upon and plays like a broken record. It says, "I need this to stop. Right now."
There was a loaded .22 pistol on my dresser Sunday night. I didn't use it because I knew I would probably survive it. This is my reality.
On Monday, I told my parents to get all of the guns out of the house. They did. Including the .22 pistol on my dresser. I couldn't stop crying yesterday at work. I told everybody it was just hormones and that is the truth. It *is* just hormones. They're trying to kill me and they've been trying to kill me for years. They haven't succeeded yet.
I still am not out of danger yet but I'm better than I was two days ago. I've done the googling and asked the questions to see what may work for me (cross all the things please) in SSRI Land, antidepressants. The doctor appointment is later this week. All of these are steps away from that gnawing place, in the direction I need to be going. Sunday night scared me but was not the closest I've come to attempting suicide. That day was me as a teen with undiagnosed and untreated depression, sitting on my bed holding a loaded pistol in my hand, not knowing I would probably survive that .22 shot to the temple. You get older and wiser if you're able to fight it long enough.
I've walked this path for almost 30 years, the majority of my life now, so I know the landscape like the back of my own hand. I've had therapy with a counselor who changed my life, she is a great one, and taught me wonderful coping skills that all fall away when PMDD flares. I remember nothing. I am not the same person when it gets bad, but you know that. You see the change even if your conscious brain doesn't recognize it or you can't think of anything to say to acknowledge the presence of the darkness around me.
I can fake normal sometimes during bouts of depression, laugh, and play happy; sometimes I can't. Like yesterday, with my contacts in the case of solution to rid them of the protein film they acquired from me crying for 12 hours. Cold compresses on my still-puffy eyes today and an inability to be my talkative, friendly self. This flair has sucked me dry and I need 48 hours in the bed to catch up on energy. I am, instead, at work, trying to be normal. A functioning depressed person, that's me. Until I'm not.
My friends know that I will not be able to end it without writing multiple goodbye letters to everybody. It's what I am, a writer; I will have to write about it just as I'm writing about it now. This is not a goodbye letter, by the way, and I wrote no goodbye letters night before last. Neither is it a cry for help; I'm getting the help I need and my hormonal depression will lift like it always does. The crisis is over for this month.
This is a reminder that the majority of us struggle with suicide at some point during our lives but nobody has learned how to talk about it yet. Talking about it causes shame so we don't say anything except sometimes, short, neutered sentences escape our lips without warning. "I know how you feel," or "I was where you are once too," then we quickly cut ourselves off before we reveal too much to the light. We're all too vulnerable to expose ourselves to ridicule and the stigma of being the crazy one in the neighborhood or at the office. What would the neighbors think? The truth is we're all crazy and some of us are better at hiding it than others. Some of us are barely keeping it together as we scroll through the internet right now and are crying hurtful, traitorous tears reading other people's mental illness stories because it's your story too but you can't say anything like, "Me too," because you will be judged.
I told my mama I was sorry I am embarrassing yesterday because I knew the guns would have to go to somebody else's house and they would require an explanation. Judgement. We even do it to ourselves.
I wrote this with dry eyes which, honestly, surprised me. No tears for me today, just the usual PMDD flare numbness intermingled with sudden, overwhelming shocks of anger that makes it hard to keep my mouth shut. However, as one of my friends said yesterday, I will take anger over suicidal any day. Writing this helped me to get some distance from the emotions as writing always does for me and I hope that reading it helped you somehow as well. If you are also suicidal, I hope you can find the fight to argue with that voice in your head that tells you it will never be any better. Our brains lie to us and no circumstance is ever permanent. We like having you around and I hope you stay with us.
Trigger warning- Suicidal Thoughts and Guns
Some of my PMDD flares make me suicidal. That is not and has not been a secret for years on here (social media) even though most people on my friends list can't or won't process what that means. I don't blame them for it; I don't like to think about my friends killing themselves either. It's not a comfortable conversation to have, especially if you have unresolved issues of your own as most of us do. I have talked about struggling to fight the Negative Committee That Meets in My Head scores of times over the years. It always happens at nighttime when I need my brain to be quiet so I can sleep and all of the distractions to drown out the voices are absent. My brain, with its genetically-mutated hormonal-reactions in the quiet darkness, whispers instructions to murder myself. This is my reality. I was suicidal last Sunday night.
Mental health professionals and suicide hotline volunteers always want to know if you have a plan. I *ALWAYS* have a plan. Shotgun. Like my grandfather and great uncle before me. The shotgun is a 16 gauge and it lives in the corner of the closet, barrel against the drywall, stock against the carpet, always loaded. I know where to put it to end my life because my other uncle didn't know exactly, only blew his face off and lived.
I never think about my parents having to find my blood-splattered, dead, and decapitated body afterward. Suicidal brain doesn't work that way. It's not rational. It doesn't think of long-term scenarios, cause and effect, aftermath. It's not kind or anywhere close to nice. It doesn't think of other people. There's not one ounce of mercy or grace in suicidal brain. The thought to call somebody never entered my head. The only thing it knows is RIGHT THIS SECOND is a place of utter despair and misery and there is no end to this. THIS *WILL* GO ON FOREVER. Any message it hears from outside to support that this will never end, it seizes upon and plays like a broken record. It says, "I need this to stop. Right now."
There was a loaded .22 pistol on my dresser Sunday night. I didn't use it because I knew I would probably survive it. This is my reality.
On Monday, I told my parents to get all of the guns out of the house. They did. Including the .22 pistol on my dresser. I couldn't stop crying yesterday at work. I told everybody it was just hormones and that is the truth. It *is* just hormones. They're trying to kill me and they've been trying to kill me for years. They haven't succeeded yet.
I still am not out of danger yet but I'm better than I was two days ago. I've done the googling and asked the questions to see what may work for me (cross all the things please) in SSRI Land, antidepressants. The doctor appointment is later this week. All of these are steps away from that gnawing place, in the direction I need to be going. Sunday night scared me but was not the closest I've come to attempting suicide. That day was me as a teen with undiagnosed and untreated depression, sitting on my bed holding a loaded pistol in my hand, not knowing I would probably survive that .22 shot to the temple. You get older and wiser if you're able to fight it long enough.
I've walked this path for almost 30 years, the majority of my life now, so I know the landscape like the back of my own hand. I've had therapy with a counselor who changed my life, she is a great one, and taught me wonderful coping skills that all fall away when PMDD flares. I remember nothing. I am not the same person when it gets bad, but you know that. You see the change even if your conscious brain doesn't recognize it or you can't think of anything to say to acknowledge the presence of the darkness around me.
I can fake normal sometimes during bouts of depression, laugh, and play happy; sometimes I can't. Like yesterday, with my contacts in the case of solution to rid them of the protein film they acquired from me crying for 12 hours. Cold compresses on my still-puffy eyes today and an inability to be my talkative, friendly self. This flair has sucked me dry and I need 48 hours in the bed to catch up on energy. I am, instead, at work, trying to be normal. A functioning depressed person, that's me. Until I'm not.
My friends know that I will not be able to end it without writing multiple goodbye letters to everybody. It's what I am, a writer; I will have to write about it just as I'm writing about it now. This is not a goodbye letter, by the way, and I wrote no goodbye letters night before last. Neither is it a cry for help; I'm getting the help I need and my hormonal depression will lift like it always does. The crisis is over for this month.
This is a reminder that the majority of us struggle with suicide at some point during our lives but nobody has learned how to talk about it yet. Talking about it causes shame so we don't say anything except sometimes, short, neutered sentences escape our lips without warning. "I know how you feel," or "I was where you are once too," then we quickly cut ourselves off before we reveal too much to the light. We're all too vulnerable to expose ourselves to ridicule and the stigma of being the crazy one in the neighborhood or at the office. What would the neighbors think? The truth is we're all crazy and some of us are better at hiding it than others. Some of us are barely keeping it together as we scroll through the internet right now and are crying hurtful, traitorous tears reading other people's mental illness stories because it's your story too but you can't say anything like, "Me too," because you will be judged.
I told my mama I was sorry I am embarrassing yesterday because I knew the guns would have to go to somebody else's house and they would require an explanation. Judgement. We even do it to ourselves.
I wrote this with dry eyes which, honestly, surprised me. No tears for me today, just the usual PMDD flare numbness intermingled with sudden, overwhelming shocks of anger that makes it hard to keep my mouth shut. However, as one of my friends said yesterday, I will take anger over suicidal any day. Writing this helped me to get some distance from the emotions as writing always does for me and I hope that reading it helped you somehow as well. If you are also suicidal, I hope you can find the fight to argue with that voice in your head that tells you it will never be any better. Our brains lie to us and no circumstance is ever permanent. We like having you around and I hope you stay with us.
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