Now we can cross the shifting sands.

[seanan_mcguire]

(Note: The following post discusses depression and suicide, quite frankly. If you want to skip it, I will understand. Also, I am calling a preemptive comment amnesty, because I don't know that I can get through whatever comments may be left. Thank you.)

***

I have a pretty good life.

That's not bragging, really. I mean, my life has its problems—it's stressful, I'm tired a lot, I'm a woman in the age of the Internet (which is unfortunately code for "I get some really disturbing hate sent my way for the crime of being outspoken and visible while existing as a non-male"), my foot hurts almost all the time, I worry about my friends—but there's no measuring stick that doesn't put me at "pretty good." I am financially secure enough to do things like take off for Disneyland at a moment's notice, to hug a woman standing as avatar for my favorite cartoon character. I have amazing friends who love me despite myself, and I struggle every day to be worthy of them. I have incredible cats. I sleep in an orange bedroom packed with dolls and books and Disney memorabilia.

I get to write books. I get to tell stories, for a living, and have people read and enjoy them. It's everything I ever wanted my life to be...

...and I spent more than half of 2013 wanting my life to stop.

I have been suicidal, off and on, since I was nine years old. I made multiple suicide attempts when I was a pre-teen and teenager; some came closer to success than others. I have my scars. My last active attempt was made when I was in my mid-twenties, and the friend who drove me to the train station has never forgiven me for making him complicit, in any way, in the attempt to take my life. I do not blame him for this, even as I know that I didn't mean to involve him; I just needed to get to the beach, and thought "hey, I can get a ride," and never stopped to consider what that might mean when he'd found out what I'd done, or worse, if he'd found out that I had succeeded. I couldn't see that far ahead. All I could see was the need to stop, to be over, to not need to do this anymore. Any of it.

A very dear friend of mine described suicidal urges and ideations as a narrowing, and she's exactly right, at least for me. It's not selfishness, not at its heart, because when things get that bad, it's virtually impossible to see continuing as an option. It's like climbing a very high mountain, and then running out of trail. You can't fly. It's not selfish to refuse to sprout wings and try. It would be selfish to stay where you are, to block the trail, to prevent others from climbing on without you.

It seems so much easier to just jump, and get out of everybody's way. It seems like the only logical choice. Selfishness doesn't really enter into it. I sort of wish it did. It would be easier to argue with the little voices, or at least it seems like it would be easier; we're all trained from childhood not to be selfish, and that makes selfishness easier to refute than narrowness. "I won't be selfish" is an easier statement than "I will continue to exist, even though there are no options, even though it will never get better, even though I am a burden to all those around me, even though I am unworthy of love, even though I do not deserve this skin, this sky, this space that I inhabit." And easy is...easy is easy. We want easy. When everything is hard, easy becomes incredibly tempting.

Writing this down is hard.

I didn't tell most people how depressed I was, because I didn't think I deserved my own depression. I have a pretty good life! I have all the things I listed, and more, and saying "I want to die" when I have a pretty good life felt like bragging; it felt like trying to claim a sorrow I had no right to. But depression doesn't give a fuck how good your life is. Depression is a function of fucked-up brain chemistry, and brain chemistry doesn't say "Oh, hey, you made the New York Times, that's cool, I better straighten out and fly right from now on." You can be depressed no matter what is happening around you, rags or riches, perfection or putridity. That does not make you wrong. Depression is a sickness. You can catch the flu at Disney World, and you can be depressed on your wedding day. No matter how good your life is, no matter how much people say they wish they had your problems, you are allowed to be unhappy. You are allowed to seek help. You are allowed to express your needs.

I did not actively attempt suicide in 2013, but that was only because I have had a lifetime of learning how to trick myself. I begged my agent to get me new book contracts. See? Can't die! I have deadlines! I cajoled my best friend into going to Disneyland with me. See? Can't die! I have to make faces with pixies! I accepted anthology invitations and convention invitations and let a lot of television build up on my DVR. Anything to create obligations that I would feel compelled to meet, but which weren't the kind that can overwhelm me. I made a lot of lists. I check-marked and itemized myself through the worst of it, and it worked, but it...it wasn't easy. I don't think it's ever going to be easy.

I am telling you this because I want you all to understand, at least on some level, that depression is not a thing you have to earn: it is not justified by tragedy, it is not created by grief. It can happen to anyone, and everyone has a right to seek help. Everyone has a right to be cared for, and to find a way to widen their options back into something that they can live with. Everyone. Even me; even you.

I would be very sad if I were not here to share 2014 with all of you. I hope—I really, truly do—that all of you will be here to share this beautiful year with me. Even if I don't know you, even if I've never met you or never will, I hope. Selfishness is easier to refute than narrowness, and we need to be here for each other, or those walls will crush the life from us.

I hope none of you have to deal with what I dealt with this past year. If you do, please, remember that you can seek help. You deserve help.

We all do.

Comments

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

*hugs you*

[museclio]

This is so well done. Thank you.

[indigoraven.livejournal.com]

There are days that I am so depressed the only thing that forces me out of bed is the incredible anxiety generated by the idea of failing. Failing my husband, my family, myself, my cats and my dogs. And it sucks. Like you, I have a damn good life and yet that doesn't seem to make a damn bit of difference. I wish it did.

So if I hug you a little harder when I finally get my chance to meet you (If hugging is an option, that is, of course, totally up to you) it's because I'm so glad we're both still here to do it. I love your work, the writing, the filk, pretty much everything, and I'm looking forward to seeing what new and amazing things you continue to create.

Here's to a good 2014 for us both.

[azurelunatic]

This is a trick I am familiar with, yes. Goddamn depression.

[xixarsenicxix.livejournal.com]

I always feel so nervous to comment on your entries because I'm horrible at putting my thoughts into words and I get nervous at the thought of writing to a writer!
But thank you for this post.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

You are very, very welcome.

[calico-reaction.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this.

*HUGS*

[mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com]

Would that depression were a logical thing.

I am sorry you go through it and am very glad that you're still here.

[laurenthemself]

The things I want to say: this this this, and thank you, and I know how this feels because I've been there (actually my last hospitalisation was February 2013), and thank you, and *hugs*, and thank you, and I'm going to be putting this out there in a few places where I think people should read it, and thank you. In no particular order.

You are eloquent even in the face of the hard things, and I find that so, so amazing.

[alicetheowl.livejournal.com]

I'm very glad you had so many reasons not to die, even if it felt like tricking yourself. I'd be very sad if there were no Seanan.

I've been dealing with similar issues, myself. I've kept the suicidal thoughts at bay, but the day-to-day grind hasn't been easy. Everything's just so much harder than it needs to be.

I'm getting better, though. Hopefully you will, too.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I am glad you are still here.

Thank you for writing this.

[ashbet]

You can be depressed no matter what is happening around you, rags or riches, perfection or putridity.

Oh, Seanan -- this, so much fucking THIS. I wish that you didn't have to know it firsthand.

I hope that 2014 is a year that is kinder to you, that you can get your brain chemistry balanced, that it's less of a struggle, that you aren't facing tunnel vision (and, yes, *narrowing* is exactly right -- when things are at their blackest, I actually feel like I'm wearing physical blinders.)

You are a good person, a deserving person, a kind person. You deserve happiness. And you also deserve the right to be authentic and to admit that, yes, sometimes all the blessings in the world can't silence the bad-brain voices. You can't fight them with logic, or with gratitude for what you have. You just have to grit your teeth and keep going, and lie down in the snow when you must, but stay clinging to that cliffside path, until the trail widens again and your life starts feeling like you have options other than trudging endlessly through a howling, biting storm, or hanging on by your fingernails, or how much of a relief it would be to just. let. go.

I have faith that those plateaus, those mountain meadows and highlands, those rich and beautiful valleys, do exist. I also know that, in the depths of the storm, they can seem like false promises.

It's hard to find the right words -- but I am listening, and my heart hurts for you, and you are not alone.

*gentle hugs*

-- A <3

[p-m-cryan.livejournal.com]

Reading along with this, nodding as I go; I've had my suicidal moments this year as well as some truly thrilling and glorious moments.

I hear you in this.

[huskiebear.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this with us. My obligation was my mother, who had always expressed her worst fear as having a child take their own life, as she had watched the son of a friend do. When my depression was at it's worst, that is what saved me. I can only hope that you continue to find obligations that keep you with us and the strength to ask for help when you need it. Depression does not need to be deserved, it just is. And it can be helped. <3

[sdelmonte]

Thanks for being brave enough to say this. That is all.

[batyatoon]

Love you ever and always, and I am very glad you are still here.

And thank you for writing this; I am going to be linking a few people who may be helped by it.

[dragoness-e.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Yeah. Been there, I know how it goes. You continue to amaze and astonish me--I still don't know how you manage to write as much as you do, and now I find out you do all that writing during a major bout of depression?? Girl, you are simply amazing and wonderful! I don't know how you do it--depression just kills my ability to write.

[rose-malmaison.livejournal.com]

"Can't die! I have deadlines!" The best reason ever.
Well written, fascinating, involving.

[georgiamagnolia.livejournal.com]

Seanan, darling Autumn Girl, inspiration to so many, light in a world that needs light so much, amen to every last thing you said. Or blessed be to every last thing you said, really, since I'm Pagan. You get my drift. Depressed since preteen age, check; suicidal often starting at age 10, check; last major try at suicide in mid-twenties, check. I have said that I don't trust people who have never thought about suicide and that is because sometimes it feels like the only thing I can control in my life is if I continue to breathe or not, and anyone who has not had the briefest moment of thinking of stopping cannot possibly understand where I have been in my head and in my heart. I spent so much of the last three years in a pit so deep I couldn't remember where I put the box that had all the tools in it that I learned in my years of therapy, so I started over with the therapy and remembered that brain chemistry is the issue, not being wrong. I know that you have a network of friends and loved ones who will be the safety net you need but I hope you know that there are so many of us, or, well, me out here in the world who also send you every good thought and blessing. I can't speak for anyone else but at a guess, you have touched a lot of lives that you don't know, so I am guessing I am right that there are a frelling boatload of us sending good energy. And the reminder that we all deserve to find the help we need, that was exactly right. Thank you thank you thank you for that timely reminder. Please know that even from afar you are adored and in my heart, and in so many others. One day that will be something that you will want to hear, even if that day is not today. I salute your bravery. I hope that 2014 is better for us all. One of the very brightest spots in my year was meeting you last October, it really did mean so much to me that I cannot tell you how much peace and hope and joy you created for me. I thank you and send the brightest possible blessings.
much love and cake, and maybe some Wendy's,
~Stephanie

[themysteriousg.livejournal.com]

I have been out and about for a few months. I know lives don't make the depression go say but I'll offer them anyway.

You've carried me through some bits and I count on you to keep doing that. K thanks.

Seriously. Thanks.

[penumbral-heart.livejournal.com]

[TW:suicide, PTSD]
Thank you, Seanan, for sharing and being open about the realities of suicide.
I was diagnosed formally with severe chronic treatent resistant depression and panic disorder at twenty-one. So many people, including doctors asked me what I had to be depressed about? It was the early 90s, I guess they were like me and did not understand depression. I lost two classmates to suicide in highschool in my tiny hometown...still there were no depression discussions let alone resources.

Also, suicide was never said out loud. It was a question on an assessment form. It was as if talking about suicide was worse than ignoring that people were dying.

Twenty years later the progress is slower than I would want. The stigmas still survive. Whether it is the co-worker that flat out asked me not to hold her baby as the rest of my collegues passed him around or the new doctor that greets me kindly then sees my medication list and changes his tone--I am still suddenly only my depression, not a whole person.

I am so treatment resistant that in 2005 I had shock therapy (ECT) which unfortunately backfired causing PTSD. I am scared of doctors, hospitals, masks, being restrained flat on my back, the smell of rubbing alcohol and beeping noises. After ending up a shutin unable to work or drive, I was too exhausted to do more than think about ending my life, but I did not wish to live that way.

Further, I lost many years of memory to undiagnosed pernicious anemia and Hashimoto's which likely contributed to the depression. (BTW, reading about Toby as a fish was haunting--it was triggerring in the accuracy of lost time, yet it also made me less lonely. I always wish to have a chance to tell you that f2f someday.)

I appreciate your post--there is precious wisdom and compassion in your words. I am so happy you mentioned taking care of Seanan!
There is much to respect about you.

Open roads,
N.

***** 1.800.273.TALK is a 24/7 hotline for those in crisis. *****

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

The stigma needs to end.

I hope we do get to meet.

[purrplexitty.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to start crying when I began writing this. But here I am.

Knowing you s the person you are, even with how significantly rarely our paths cross despite being in the same state? I couldn't imagine a world without Seanan in it. But I also understand, and it's brave of you in my opinion, for you to write this. On a personal level, I can understand.

I won't leave some super long comment. Instead, I want to leave you with this in case it hasn't been shared yet: http://www.depressioncomix.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/depcom.159.col_.400px.jpg

Thank you for surviving, Seanan.

[kitesareevil.livejournal.com]

I happened to stumble on this blog while I was on hold for the crisis line because I have cut today and am actively suicidal. Thank you for this, you describe it so well. I'm off to attempt to distract myself or check myself in to the hospital. I'm not sure which yet.

[naamah-darling.livejournal.com]

I do not know you, I am just a random person on the internet, but . . . how are you doing?

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

The brain is an organ. We do not expect people to justify their arthritis or will away a heart murmur.

I hope next year is better for you.

[zola.livejournal.com]

I sent you my phone number through your contact form. If just having someone to talk to will help, I am glad to listen

[the-same-sky.livejournal.com]

Sending love and support. x x x