When it's better on the graveside

When you have been depressed for as long as you can remember and suicidal ideation or death makes up a big part of your thought process for a lot of your waking hours, you become accustomed to it at some point. You no longer realize when you make jokes about death or you make offhand remarks about wanting to be dead. You soon get to a point in life where you no longer understand why others are making a big deal out of what is going on with you since you are not making a big deal out of it yourself. It feels worse when you have one of those off hand days where things are actually really bad for you and you want help but no one seems to care or see what the big deal is since you are "always" this way. You have lost your sense of purpose and feel hopeless all the time. You go through the rigamaroll of work or school since it is what you are supposed to do but find no sense of fulfillment in it. You go out with friends, family or your partner to events or for activities but feel dread, that you are taking up space, or that you would be better off dead than making your family, friends, or partner deal with you in this situation. When you have had depression and suicidal ideaiton for so long, you tend to down play or not realize how bad it is. You've had so many people ask you about it at this point that you know what is going to cause helter skelter and you know what responses to give or perhaps you have lived with it so long that you have normalized having suicidal ideation and that just because you don't feel the intense urge to act on it feels like a good day and you'd rank yourself as a 3 or a 4 that day since you are managing well. In reality, "normal" people don't have suicidal ideation at all, visualization, having a plan, or having intent of the suicide puts you at a much higher number and a much higher risk. Just because you have lived with it for a long time and you know how to manage it, doesn't mean that you need to manage living on the edge of suicide on your own all the time. That's not how life needs to be. Lean on supports, use coping strategies, talk to a psychiatrist, talk to your therapist, if you are in this boat, you don't need to be, we can find you a different boat. Life doesn't need to be so hard. If you feel like you are in immediate danger of ending your life please call 1-800-273-8255 or 911 or go to your local emergency room. There is light at the end of the tunnel. It's just harder to find sometimes if you're using fireflies instead of floodlamps.