from “Everywhere and Nowhere: A Journey Through Suicide” by Donald Antrim
When telling the story of my illness, I try not to speak about depression. A depression is a furrow, a valley, a sloping downward, and a return. Suicide, in my experience, is not that. I believe that suicide is a natural history, a disease process, not an act or a choice, a decision or a wish. I do not understand suicide as a response to pain, or as a message to the living. I do not think of suicide as the act, the death, the fall from a height or the trigger pulled. I see it as a long illness, an illness with origins in trauma and isolation, in deprivation of touch, in violence and neglect, in the loss of home and belonging. It is a disease of the body and the brain, if you make that distinction, a disease that kills over time. My dying, my suicide, lasted years, through hospitalizations, through more than fifty rounds of electroconvulsive therapy—once known as shock therapy—through recovery, relapse, and recovery. It can seem recent in memory, though at times it feels ancient, far removed, another lifetime, another life and my life...
I was not on the roof to jump. I was not there to kill myself. I was there to die, but dying was not a plan. I was not making decisions, choices, threats, or mistakes. I was, I think—looking back now—in acceptance. It was a relinquishing, though at the time I would not have been able to articulate it. I did not want to die, only felt that I would, or should, or must, and I had my pain and my reasons. If you have had this illness, then you’ve had your reasons; and maybe you’ve believed, or still believe, as I have, that it would be better for others, for all the people who have made the mistake of loving you, or who one day might, if you were gone.
Depression, hysteria, melancholia, nervousness, neurosis, neurasthenia, madness, lunacy, insanity, delirium, derangement, demonic possession, black humors, black bile, yellow bile, the black dog, the blues, the blue devils, a brown study, the vapors, a funk, a storm, the abyss, an inferno, Hell, a pain syndrome, stress, an anxiety disorder, lack of affect, an affective disorder, a mood disorder, panic, loneliness, bad wiring, a screw loose, a mercurial temperament, irritability, schizophrenia, unipolar disorder, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit disorder, borderline personality disorder, laziness, pain, rumination, grief, mourning, malingering, unhappiness, hopelessness, sadness, low spirits, invalidism, despondency, dysthymia, detachment, disassociation, dementia praecox, neuralgia, fibromyalgia, oversensitivity, hypersensitivity, idiocy, an unsound mind, cowardice, obstinacy, apathy, recalcitrance, spleen, a broken heart, battle fatigue, shell shock, self-pity, self-indulgence, self-centeredness, weakness, withdrawal, distraction, distemper, a turn in the barrel, a break in a life narrative, bad thoughts, bad feelings, coming undone, coming apart, falling apart, falling to pieces, willfulness, defiance, thoughts of hurting oneself or others, the thousand-yard stare, craziness, rage, misery, mania, morbidity, genius, suicidality, suicidal ideation, aggression, regression, decompensation, drama, breakdown, crackup, catatonia, losing one’s mind, losing one’s shit, losing one’s way, wasting away, psychic disorganization, spiritual despair, shame, raving, the furies, a disease, an enigma, a tragedy, a curse, a sin, and, of course, psychosis—suicide, in the past and in our time, has been called many things. Whatever terms we use, whatever the specific nature of their origins and progress, our so-called mental illnesses are themselves traumatic and stigmatizing. They isolate us from others....
When I was a boy, in bed I brought the covers up to my chin, wrapped them tightly around me, and lay without moving. I held my arms close to my sides, or crossed over my chest. I gazed up at my model airplanes, moonlit, hanging by threads from the ceiling. My chest, my body, felt tight, tight in the sense of a contraction, but also tight in the sense of being bound and squeezed. I remember that I felt paralyzed, or not exactly that, though something like that. I wasn’t paralyzed. It was just safer to lie still. Nonetheless, I shook, though not in a way that you’d notice—it was more of a hum. I felt numb yet in pain, and breathed shallow breaths, restrained.
Even now, at sixty, if I cry hard I will be frightened, and you may find me in a corner, crouching, turned toward the wall, my hands raised to protect my face. I will sob and shake, and make myself small, and beg, Please, go away. I will not be able to look at you. If you touch me, I will scream in pain and run from the room. Why can’t you see that it would be better for you without me? If any single feeling has defined my life, it is the feeling, more an awareness than a thought, that only lonely rooms are safe. This is how I feel and imagine shame, not as guilt or regret or remorse, not as some particular emotion or amalgam of emotions, but as a basic provision, abjection, the condition of those who have been cast out, neglected, harmed.
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Fanders theory
Theory...Logan's dark side could be insanity (possibly his dark side within himself. Kinda like Virgil is anxiety but probably was Paranoia.) Completely logical vs. illogical Insanity= the state of being seriously mentally ill; madness. synonyms: mental illness, mental disorder, mental derangement, madness, insaneness, dementia, dementedness, lunacy, instability, unsoundness of mind, loss of reason; More extreme foolishness or irrationality. plural noun: insanities synonyms: folly, foolishness, foolhardiness, idiocy, stupidity, imbecility, asininity, lunacy, madness, silliness, senselessness, brainlessness, thoughtlessness, irrationality, illogicality, absurdity, ludicrousness, ridiculousness;
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Dementia
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/30bu5QT
by timetodanceryan
de·men·tia
/dəˈmen(t)SH(ē)ə/
noun: dementia
a chronic or persistent disorder of the mental processes caused by brain disease or injury and marked by memory disorders, personality changes, and impaired reasoning.
synonyms: mental illness, madness, insanity, derangement, lunacy
Words: 2353, Chapters: 13/13, Language: English
Fandoms: Panic! at the Disco
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Categories: M/M
Characters: Brendon Urie, Ryan Ross
Relationships: Ryan Ross/Brendon Urie
Additional Tags: Dementia, Angst
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