Are We All Melancholy Lately? Feeling Melancholy Lately
*extremely Yoga instructor voice* let's take a second to breath together
A lot of friends of have been in a mood lately so I figured I’d revisit an old piece of mine covering a hot button topic we may all be feeling at the moment. If you’re interested or believe reading this may bring any catharsis, let my words wash over you.
Suicide inside a global pandemic
How is it possible to keep dark thoughts at bay when everyone is struggling to survive?
Originally published in the Chicago Reader.
You either have someone come flush the pills for you or I have to call an ambulance,” my therapist tells me after a recent failed suicide attempt. It is the middle of April and I have been quarantining in a studio apartment alone with two friends down the hall, people whose phone numbers I list as emergency contacts in case things escalate. Outside quarantine, inpatient means time spent in a hospital under the watchful eye of medical staff. Inside quarantine, inpatient means taking time away from health-care workers dealing with COVID-19 around the clock.
Coronavirus has drastically shaped the world we live in.Two million deathsover the course of seven months have forced everyone to carry on with their life inside isolation. With theunemployment rate at 13.3 percentandsuicide risk on the rise, mental health has never been more fragile. Suicide rates haverisen 35 percentover the past two decades, and economic recessions historically lead to an increased number of people taking their own life. As the worldwide lockdown continues for many well into summer, the added increase ofisolation will only heightenthoughts of hopelessness and despair, eventually leading some down a road of no return.
“Someone who maybe has abandonment issues and struggles with rejection is going to have a harder time in quarantine depending on what their resources are,” says Catherine Chinnock, a therapist specialized in trauma and depression. “Suicidal tendencies might show up a lot for people who need external validation right now.”
Connection is a biological imperative, something we require to survive. When you’re lonely, it’s only natural to seek someone out for social interaction. Isolation from others can lead to low self-esteem, distrust, and emotional conflict, which canbecome pervasive for peoplealready suffering a chronic mental or physical illness. Research shows the impactsocial withdrawalcan have on stunting the individual, occasionally leading to death from circumstances other than suicide.
“In eastern Europethere was this orphanage with a lot of kids and only a few nuns to run it and these children had their diapers changed, they were fed,” says Katie Augustyn, a clinical social worker situated in Chicago. “Their basic needs were met but nobody cuddled them and what they found was these kids stopped crying, became listless, started to lose weight, and eventually some of them died.”
For people like me who suffer from borderline personality disorder, moods fluctuate from one end of the spectrum to the other. Days spent laughing with friends could easily change to self-harm in the blink of an eye. I punch my wall to subside pain and rip skin from my fingers to keep feelings at bay. I drink booze and mix pills, doing things I don’t remember, waking up with scars on my arms. I figure anything is better if it keeps me alive, and drink a bottle of Jack Daniels in a day, egged on by my friend who is a recovering alcoholic. After losing my job due to problems largely surrounding my mental health, I have all the free time in the world to submit to my vices.
“A huge risk factor for suicide is alcohol use, and that’s way up right now,” says Victoria Kessinger, a psychotherapist specialized in dialectal behavioral therapy. “When you’re working from home, and you’re in quarantine it’s so much easier to abuse substances, and there’s not as much accountability for waking up and going to work the next day.”
Chief among reasons I shy away from hospitalization is shame. After 12 years of being suicidal, I figure I should have things under control. I’ve tried five times in my life and can map what triggers episodes, yet whenever they arise, I crumble. My therapist alerts my family that I am on suicide watch, and I feel incredible shame. My sister is a doctor, and now, more than ever, her time, along with every medical professional, is best spent tending to those dying. Compared to COVID, I feel my problems are trivial. I hover over Northwestern’s number in my phone before abandoning the plan altogether. I’d rather let someone who wants to live have a fighting chance than put medical professionals through a song and dance I experience at least once a year.
“Shame is deeper and more toxic. It makes you think there is something wrong,” says Kessinger. “I hear a number of people say, ‘I’m such a shitty person. All these people fighting to live, and I wish it was me. I feel like garbage because of that.’ They have the pain of suicidal thoughts and on top of it, there’s shame.”
With the world in midst of hellfire and despair, marginalized people are especially likely to feel the weight of suicidal ideations. Currently, there are many free resources accessible for those wishing to silence negative thoughts.Howard Brown Health Centeroffers free workshops for the LGBTQ community in Chicago,Psychology Todayhas alist of support groupson their site, and thefirst transgender suicide hotlineis now up and running. As the future remains unclear regarding many people’s employment statuses, health-care professionals are trying to make resources accessible for many who need it.
“A lot of people say, ‘I can’t afford a therapist right now,’” says Chinnock, “but there are a lot of people offering sliding scales or free therapy, especially for marginalized groups.”
“There’s really amazing organizations that offer crisis texting and crisis calling,” says Kessinger. “The Pea Club website has a number, the Trevor Project provides crisis and suicide prevention to the LGBTQIA community, and there’s the national suicide prevention hotline.”
I carry a lot on my plate and do not know what the future holds but, for now, I know I’d like to feel my legs walk to Lake Michigan for something other than 2 AM thoughts of suicide. I’d like to look at muddy midwest waters and think how great it would feel to dip my toes in them instead of swallowing me whole. I’d like to make it to another summer building sandcastles with friends cheering me on as I put one foot in front of the other.
Tomorrow may be the today I wish for. There’s only one way to find out. Survive.
The Words
An old poem from 2016 I figured I’d cap this newsletter with.
You say I don't dictate your life
And you're right
I don't dictate your life
I wonder what it feels like to be free
Unshackled, unmarried from the in between
The feeling of wanting to die
Of being afraid to be
The loneliness, the black hole shit abyss
I swim to sink in
I succeed to fail in
The fucking shit I've tried to wade in since I was 15
You say I don't dictate your life
You say I know I'm special
I don’t need you to say those words
But the words, the words, the words
The words are so drowned out by the noise, the noise, the noise
The noises are everywhere
And they won't let me breath
Did you know the story of Ophelia?
She drowned herself, yeah but did you know how?
It was her clothes
Her clothes and her words
Her clothes brought her to the bottom of the lake
Her words told her to do it
See, she could have saved herself
She laid there for three hours sinking
Her body sinking, her mind sinking
She could have saved herself but she didn’t
She listened to her words
There's a misconception about suicide
That men are more likely to do it
That women are only 30% of that statistic
Bullshit
Suicide knows no gender
Depression doesn't discriminate
And no matter how much you retaliate
Sometimes you can’t overcome it alone
Because the words, the words, the words
The words don't believe in me
You do
But you're too busy for me
Like you said,
I don't dictate your life.
And you don't give a shit about mine
What you want is to be separate
Away from the burden my existence has on you
We’re alike that way
We both want the same thing
To be burden-less
To have a relationship built on less stress
But the words, these words, my words
They constantly create a jumble of mess
That isolate, manipulate, emasculate
Keep me suspended in a constant state
Of what is present
And what is not
You say I don’t dictate your life
You say I shouldn’t let it dictate mine
And I hear what you say
All the words, these words, your words
Those don’t compare to my brains
My brain tells me the opposite
Tells me things like
More pills will make you happy
Your mom can’t smell the exhaust pipe
Cut the right way if you want to die you idiot
You fucking idiot
And I can’t stop listening to it
When will I stop listening to it?
You say I don't dictate your life
And you're right, I don't dictate your life
But guess what
If you can't handle me at my worst
Tough shit
That was actually my best.