Fighting to breathe

The last few days have been ridiculously hard emotionally. There have been a couple of high-profile deaths by suicide, both of which felt like they came out of nowhere. It's led to a lot of discussion online about resources for people who may be fighting with depression, telling people to reach out when they are in trouble, etc. and so forth - the conversation that usually sprouts up when depression makes news.

The fact that a CDC report indicates that suicide rates have increased over the last fifteen years or so makes it seem like the normal conversation isn't doing the job. History has shown that after the initial few days of concern, things fade away until the next time. The problem, of course, is for those of us for whom the next time might be the last time.

I've made no secret of the fact that I've fought with depression in the past, and I've had to work through suicidal thoughts. I had thought before that I had battled the beast and because I was still standing, that meant I won. I had hope that it would be something I could say that I had defeated, that I would reach a point where, when those thoughts came back, it wouldn't be a long and draining fight. I could simply handle the issue calmly and rationally and go about my life.

Now? Now it's clear that this is a fight I don't get to win. It's a fight I'll have to battle every single day for the rest of my life, and at some point, I will most likely lose that fight. Someday, the idea that the world is better off without me, that I need to remove myself from the equation to make the universe make sense again, will come back with a vengeance, and I may not be strong enough to beat it back.

Something about this makes me extremely angry. My inner eight-year-old is throwing a temper tantrum, stomping and screaming about how it's not fair. It's not fair that I have to deal with this fight every day, just because...just because. Some accident of fate and brain chemistry and history and God knows what left me with a time bomb that I can't defuse - I can only delay the explosion.

It's bullshit, is what it is. I'd love to end this with some message of hope, of love, of wishing kindness upon the world, but I can't. All I can do is scream at the sky and look to tomorrow for a better game plan. There will be a tomorrow for me - my beast is, thankfully, beaten back for now. I need to take advantage of the break while I can.

Comments

Wanna Hear Me Talk?

I mentioned in my last post, but now I'm doing the official promotional thing. I'm going to be doing a couple of presentations at the Flights of Foundry convention next weekend! Specifically, I'll be doing a game demo for Rolling Realms on Saturday, September 28 at 1pm Pacific. On Sunday, September 29 at 3pm Pacific, I'll be doing a panel presentation on copyright and public domain basics; finally, also on Sunday, September 29 at 5pm, I'll be on a panel sharing my handwork (specifically my crochet, cross stitch, and blackwork) with a few other fantastic people. This is my first time doing this kind of presentation, and so I'm a wee bit nervous. Still, I'm super excited, and the fact that it's all online means that I'll at least be in my home, and the cats may or may not make an appearance on camera. So! If you're interested in what's looking to be a fabulous online convention (that's FREE!), come join us next weekend!

Calm Your Mind with Needle and Thread

I was fortunate enough to be able to host a workshop at GeekGirlCon last weekend, which went extremely well. My friend Erin was in town for the convention and was kind enough to co-host the workshop with me, which worked wonderfully because she was able to answer some questions that I didn't know how to answer, and also keep us on time (she's a professor, so she's experienced with dealing with classrooms full of people). I thought it would be a good idea, for my own benefit if nothing else, to document the first part of the workshop, which was a talk about embroidery and mental health. I've made the PowerPoint and list of resources available on a separate page of this blog ( here ). I don't know about you, but the last few years have not been especially kind to my mental or emotional health. I discovered early on in the pandemic that going back to something I learned when I was a child, cross stitch, was something that could help ease my anxiety and give me somethi...

Hope is a Four-Letter Word

I've been bouncing around with this for the last few weeks, ever since I read a couple of quotes from the book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. The book overall had some interesting ideas about reframing the idea of trying to get everything done. Even though there were a couple of things that made it clear the author was not approaching things with an eye toward neurodivergence (his discussion of distraction, for example, only talks about the "choice" to be distracted, and not how some people's brains simply don't focus the same way others' do), I was feeling generally positively toward the book until I got to the last chapter, and read this: "Hope is supposed to be 'our beacon in the dark,' [environmentalist Derrick] Jensen notes. But in reality, it's a curse. To hope for a given outcome is to place your faith in something outside yourself, and outside the current moment - the government, for example, or ...

Search This Blog