The Lies My Psyche Tells

Originally written on May 3, 2025

**Content Warning- Suicide, suicidal ideation, death**
Please take care in choosing to read this post.

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It’s 11:45pm on a Saturday night and I decided to read through some of my initial posts to this blog. I was surprised by how much my own writing was inspiring me. Over the years, I go back to poems I’ve written at different times in my life, and I find that sometimes I’m overcome by emotion when I read them back. Especially my more dark and depressing poems. I cry at my own poetry more often than you’d think. I have also realized recently that I don’t remember what I’ve written very clearly most of the time. Sometimes after I write something, I don’t go back and read it for months. But when I do, many times I’m surprised by how I’ve used my own words to express myself. I’ll think “I really wrote that!” These sentiments are usually always positive in nature. Then there is the other side of that coin, the “I really wrote that?” where I can’t help but cry at my own words. That may sound self-indulgent to some, but to me, when I read back my work, I am transported back to how I felt when I wrote it. Since a lot of my writing tends to be on the more depressing and dark side, this often results in many tears being shed. The first ones at the time I wrote the poem, the second when I re-read it for the first time. And then there are the third and fourth and fifth and so on times I cry to them. I go back and read my poetry semi often. Sometimes to see where I was mentally at a certain point in time. Other times, I honestly do it to make myself cry. Many times, the tears flow freely and the sobs may start soon after, but others, I feel so numb that I can’t even cry at all. Reading my own poetry sometimes lifts the veil of unfeeling that’s been covering me, like the black veil of a mourning woman. And maybe it seems that way because I myself am a mourning woman. I’ve been experiencing grief from many things for a long time now. It’s hard to say any one of those things is worse than another, it all just swirls around in a big, tangled ball in my mind, and my chest. That’s where I usually feel the grief. It radiates out from the center of my chest, into my shoulders and straight through to my upper back. I feel the physical pain of it sometimes in the tightness of my muscles, drawn with a tension that seems like it’ll rip the muscles from my bones completely.

What many people don’t realize about grief is that you can grieve many different things. People you love who have died, relationships ended that you thought would last, a life turned out differently than you always dreamed it would, and a multitude of other things. A lot of my poems tell the stories of my grief. They tell the stories of the darkest moments I’ve lived through. They also tell the stories of good and beautiful times. Of sunsets and sunrises and the joy of still being alive.

My life currently is being written in the blackest of ink, on the darkest of paper, done so hoping that no one will find it and be able to read what’s written there. It’s been just over a month since I started having suicidal ideations again. March 28th was the first one, and it scared the shit out of me. I have written in a previous post about having this experience in the past. What I didn’t mention is that it happened again shortly after the initial episode. This was in the fall/ winter of 2022 I believe. I have a hard time now remembering when things were happening in my life. There are entire years that have turned into blurry snapshots of events and feelings, some feel like they don’t have any memories at all.

The second episode was after I had taken the leave of absence from work mentioned previously, and I actually ended up quitting that position. I knew I couldn’t go back to it because my functionality as a working adult was just not there anymore. I was skating under the radar, and I had no idea how I was never discovered. The shortcomings were blatant to me because I was having a hard time even doing the basics of living. Getting out of bed, eating, doing just about anything except sleeping. Once I had resigned from that job, and after being unemployed for a bit, it came to a point where I could no longer NOT work. My partner at the time told me that I needed to go back to work because he had been stressed about our financial situation, and that we were barely making it by each month. This was the first time I had heard from him that he felt this way, and that our situation was vastly different than what he had led me to believe. He told me initially that we would be ok financially for a while if I wasn’t working. We had discussed the option of me quitting my job to focus on feeling better and he said we would be fine and that I should do what I needed to do. Unfortunately, this conversation about going back to work at his urging, was not a nice one. I didn’t really feel ready to go back to working full time, but I had to. So, I set out to find a new job. I guess I still looked pretty good on paper and could talk my way through an interview well enough that I landed a job, and it was making more money than I’d ever made in my life. I thought that maybe I was going to be ok going back to work after all. Especially for the money I would be getting paid. I started the new job and quickly realized I was in way over my head. It was in a field I hadn’t worked in before, and I was going to be learning on the job. I lasted less than 2 weeks before the ideations returned. I remember I was driving to work one morning, and I had an overwhelming ideation in the car while stopped at a light. I was then stricken with fear that this was happening again when stress was applied. It was as if I reached a threshold of being able to cope with stress. The new job sent me over the edge and my brain’s immediate coping thought was to get out. I had to get out of there. And by getting out, it didn’t mean just quit and go back home. It meant to die.

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It’s a different day and I’m laying here in bed now at 12:32 on a Sunday. I’ve been in this mental space for 5 weeks now. I’m in therapy every week and see my psychiatrist every week as well. There has been a realization that this is a recurring state for me. As I mentioned previously, when these thoughts arise, they are truly intrusive and unwanted. I can’t express enough to you all how much I absolutely want to be here, living my life. My brain has other ideas though. Once I’m over that threshold of stress, any small stressor or discomfort only has that one solution. That’s when the ideations begin and the subsequent fear of their vividness and awfulness grips me. I can’t describe how terrifying it is to have this state invade my mind and take over my thoughts. Sometimes when I’m in these episodes, it’s the only thing I can think about some days. Others, it may be only a few times a day, and then it seems to taper off. I’ll be doing kind of ok, then an ideation will come out of nowhere at the first sign of emotional turmoil, or even for no reason at all. I could be doing something as mundane as washing dishes when a thought of suicide just pops into my head, unwarranted, and unwanted, stopping me in my tracks. The other terrible thing about it is, sometimes it doesn't even phase me anymore. Once an episode starts and the initial thought has happened, many of the ones thereafter come with less and less distress until it just becomes a numbness. It’s utterly exhausting and living this way has been honestly terrible. I find it hard to be my genuine self around people when I’m like this. To the outsider, you could look at me and think that I’m fine. There are often no outward signs that those awful thoughts are running through my head. When someone asks me about my day or how I’ve been doing, I usually lie because I don’t want to have to deal with the emotional burden of telling them the truth. I don’t want to have to explain to them that yeah, I might have those thoughts, but I’m ok and no, I don’t need to call the crisis line. I also understand that the concern would be coming from a place of care and worry, but it doesn’t change the fact that I have to reassure someone else that I’m still going to be here tomorrow. So instead, I say I’ve been doing ok and move on. But if I were truthful, I’d say… “Well it was good until lunchtime when I started thinking it might be nice to just die.” I realize that this statement and how blunt I am about this particular aspect of the topic may be a striking and uncomfortable way to hear someone talk about it. However, this is my experience, and this is my real life. At a certain point, I have realized that I have to be able to look at it and realize that it’s ridiculous and put a drop of humor into it. Because let’s face it, this is my reality, sitting here minding my own business and then my brain very rudely and incessantly starts telling me terrifying things that I don’t want to hear and that I don’t want to do.

I have to find the light in the darkness, even if it’s through making light of that darkness. I am ok but not ok… I am alive yet half gone at the same time…. Numb yet still in agony.

But truly though, to all the friends and family that might be reading this, I’m not going anywhere, and I plan to be here for many many more years on this beautiful earth. I have people that care about me, and mental health providers that are helping me tackle this one day at a time. So please, don’t worry too much, I’ll be here to write more poems and share more of me in time.

I will leave you with this. A poem I wrote one chilly spring morning in Colorado when you could still see your breath, but one where you could also see the inklings of spring, and of hope, coming to life.

I take Joy in the singing of the birds

And the crisp air of a mountain spring emerging

The air fills my lungs and provides me with solace that I’m still alive

Still breathing

Still here

The sun crests over the trees and I bring my face to it

Like a sunflower seeking its lifeblood from the warm golden rays

Original Poem written April 1, 2025.