YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I'm not in immediate danger but am having frequent suicidal thoughts this past week. On Thursday I was driving back from a work event about 70 miles away and I had a strong impulse to get a hotel and end things so that I didn't have to get back home and continue my life.

Just a couple of weeks ago I was in a better place and was even thinking about going to Europe for the first time later this year. I believed that I have a future and that there's a bridge from where i am to a better life. Now it feels like the bridge stopped existing a long time ago. There's no bridge.

When people who don't understand comment about suicide I don't think they understand that often the person hasn't just suddenly given up. They may have been fighting and trying thousands of times before it became too much.

I apologize for posting here in what is probably the wrong place.

There's no wrong place for this, my precious friend. I hope it gets better for you. Remember, thoughts are just thoughts. These type of thoughts are far more common than polite society cares to admit.

I had similar thoughts and feelings two and a half years ago when one of the "bridges" I was working towards clasped in front of my eyes. I thought "this is how I'll go" and even though I kept putting one foot in front of the other and eventually found the will to start living on purpose again. I would imagine driving my car into this concrete wall that runs alone the highway frontage road I live off of, other gruesome things, but it wasn't what I wanted so much as what my brain was serving up. It was so heavy to go about my days and I couldn't see how to make it lighter.

For me, I'm ashamed to say, time was the only thing I allowed myself. I didn't go back to therapy until I'd taken other steps and anxiety was more a problem than my depression. I didn't talk to my doctor and while my husband was aware of what I was grieving, I never shared the depth of it. I do not recommend this path. It was foolish and selfish. I could have saved myself pain, but part of me felt good wallowing in it, like treating it would have been disloyal to what I lost. One of the big factors in me getting past it was holding on to a few things I wanted to experience: The most specific was the Deadpool movie. My devastating news had happened December 7th - fucking Pearl Harbor Day - because of course it did. Wade Wilson saved my life. I read comic books and lived for the viral marketing that December and January and the release date was February 16th.

Thank you for sharing Rivergirl.

You’re doing the right things.

You keep telling people what’s going on

Lots of people care about you.

And I may ask a question in the most gentle way?:

What would be the first thing you’d want to see in Europe?

Thank you, bgg and oak.

I'm sorry you had to go through all that pain, bgg, but I'm grateful that you're still here. It's amazing what can save us, and I'm glad that Deadpool was one of those things for you. I think the idea of travel has been my Deadpool recently.

Oak, thank you for your encouragement. About Europe, I know there were specific things I wanted to see when I was feeling better, but what I'm picturing right now is being with a group of traveling companions in a sidewalk cafe or a well-lit restaurant, laughing and talking over the sights of the day. Just typing that makes me feel a deep loneliness and longing.

If there's any redeeming aspect to these intensely painful days, maybe it's to motivate me to take further steps toward managing my depression better.

Thank you again, kind MIHH friends.

oak had such a beautiful question. Travel seems like a healthier goal than a profane superhero movie, but I don't call myself "geekgirl" for nothing. lol.

Depression sucks, but it does make the good stuff feel pretty special. Europe is going to be magic.

I don't think there's anything strange or necessarily unhealthy about loving a profane superhero, bigeekgirl. What saves us doesn't necessarily have to make sense to anyone else.

I'm sorry you've been going through this River. I know how bad it is when the brain just starts working up these ideas for you. I don't have any wise words. I just wanted you to know I heard you.

Thank you, brownblob. I'm doing a bit better after being back at work for a couple of days. I'm glad to hear from you, was worried because you hadn't posted for a while.

Here is my challenge, offered in the most gentle way:

Picture that coffee cup. What color is it? What is the texture of the outside of the cup? What do the swirls inside the cup look like?

Once you have that picture, so clear, of the coffee cup and who you’re with, and what you’re discussing, now just hold onto that. No matter what happens, good or bad, all you have to do is remember that image.

You are going to post in this very thread in eighteen months, what that coffee cup was like. Once you get back from Europe, of course.

I believe in you.