Documenting Experiences
with Mental Illness
& Neuro-Divergence
That Strange Sadness: The Morning After a Suicide Attempt
Waking up from a suicide attempt is a peculiar feeling and is one that ultimately only 6% of people will ever experience. My attempt was not a cry for help. I don’t believe that such things exist. A person who attempts might regret the decision instantly but in the second that they actually make it, they mean it.
Things Your Suicidal Friend Wants (You) to Hear
Malcolm X said it best: “when we replace ‘I’ with ‘we’, illness becomes wellness.” We need our community. We need our community to hear and, at times, see through us.
I hadn’t even considered that being ignored triggered me, and prompted me to act so recklessly. But to answer her question, yes. I finally felt like the depths of my pain were understood by my community.
But just because people understood did not mean they knew how to react to it.
Making A Safety Plan
Every new therapist or psychiatrist whose practice I visit, makes me do the same thing in our first session— make a safety plan. The safety plan is a document that lists the different methods you’ll try if you’re ever in a mental health crisis or feeling suicidal.
Responding to Death By Suicide
I don’t struggle with suicidal ideation as often as I used to, but I still get triggered every time somebody dies by suicide. And can I be honest? When I was in the thick of it, seeing the response that deaths by suicide had on people only made my own pending suicide seem that much more tantalizing.
Life Is Worth Living
Life and its problems have a way of eroding us in a similar way, but beautiful things can be made from that process. The Grand Canyon is testament to that. My life is testament to that. A working masterpiece that will just get more amazing with time.
Suicide Prevention Is Better Than Awareness
What does it really mean to “be there for” someone who is fighting against themselves for their own life? To help ensure that you know what you’re getting into when you post such promises, I would like to share some information with you that I learned in the Mental Health First Aid course that I took last November!