#and I think that could be one of the reasons why mens suicidiality is so much higher too

[makemycitybreak]

Tw suicide (and v long background info for short vent hahah)(if anything just read the tags they're like almost the same length as the post)

So like last week (??) I was talking to my dad cause my student council was like putting smth on instagram about international men's day which you know kinda funny sorry and then I had this lil friendly conversation with my dad about men's mental health and we talked about how the statistics for suicide are kinda misleading when talking about mental health (bc women are more likely to attempt suicide, and the argument is often that men have it "worse" than women bc they are more likely to commit suicide and actually succeed with it) and then my dad was like "oh but like sometimes suicide is meant to actually kill you and sometimes it's more of a cry for help etc" and I was like "yeah but I think lots of people who OD actually mean to kill themselves" and my dad agreed but then he said that like if you really want to do it there are other ways and yeah sorry this conversation was kinda long back and forth but he ended up saying that an easy and accessible way to do it is to hang yourself in the woods. And like. It just stuck with me. It would be so easy. It would be so easy to like actually do it. There isn't even a lot stopping me. If I really wanted to I could. It doesn't have to be the woods either. It ciuld be somewhere more private. Although I wouldn't want anyone to actually find me, cause that's obviously traumatic. I wouldn't want them to go through that because of me. Especially not if one of my parents would find me alone. Oh shit this is making me cry. But also, you know what do I care - I'm gonna be fucking dead!? You know. I don't know.

[monsieur-darling-blog]

Mathew on Medicine

I started taking Zoloft in the summer of 2016, after a bad breakup. This magical pill was supposed to help me cope with the serious bouts of anxiety I felt when driving along I-440 in Nashville, as well as get rid of any signs of depression that I was feeling at the time. It was my first time taking medication that was prescribed (obviously I got through college inhaling as much Adderall as I could get my dirty, nail bitten hands on) and I thought, “What the hell?” I wanted to get rid of my anxiety and my depression, although I hadn’t thought that I actually suffered from either of those things until my doctor was writing my RX.

For the first week, the pill did absolutely nothing. I still felt like the bitch in the Mercedes in front of me was going to stomp on her breaks and we’d collide. I still sat in my room, reading sad stories by Sylvia Plath, tears flowing. I checked my Grindr account, looking for someone to cuddle with, just to forget about that sinking feeling I felt in my stomach late at night, whenever I was alone.

But then week two hit and the Zoloft started working. This drug was FUCKING AWESOME, I’d scream to anyone who’d listen. My brain literally hummed like a computer being turned on. I felt extremely happy at all times, even when I shouldn’t. I saw my ex with another dude and smiled. NO FUCKS GIVEN! Haha. When one of my family members checked into rehab, it bounced off of me like a toy ball. THAT’S TOO BAD, ANYWAY LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY DAY! I felt like a superhero, except my super power was radiating complete elation that verged on mania.

When I disclosed those intense feelings to my doctor, she recommended taking a heavy mood stabilizer that would knock me out. I told her that I didn’t want to become a zombie, that the only reason why I was acting so crazy was because I had never felt this happy before. I could handle it! What did she know?! She only went to college for 12 years!!! She left the decision up to me: I could fill the prescription if I wanted, and she highly, highly recommended it. I never did.

And so, every morning at 9 a.m. I took my medication, let the warm fuzzy feeling grow in my brain, and walked around like the sun was perpetually shining (and hey, it was Nashville in the summer time, so the majority of the time, it was.) I’m not sure if my friends could notice the change in my mood, and I didn’t care if they could. That would become the most destructive part of the prescription: I stopped caring.

One of the side effects of Zoloft is a decreased libido. I don’t know what’s wrong with my serotonin levels, but the medication had the opposite effect. In my depression, sex was one of the last things I wanted to do. I wanted to be close with someone but skip the part where we got naked. Once the medication started to work, I decided to share my most private parts with the entire world. I became a slut. Now, I was using Grindr for its intended purpose: casual sex.

In three months, I had more sexual partners than I had in my entire life. When it started, I kept my standards high, sleeping only with the people I was physically attracted to: The short guy who slept with his socks on, the bartender I had had a crush on for four years, the hot guy I met at the bar a couple weeks ago and talked about NYC with. But once I went through all the good looking ones, I lowered my standards and started hanging out with seedy men, becoming one of them myself. On Thanksgiving, I met up with a 20-year-old in a hotel at 4 in the morning. We spent an hour talking before removing our clothes. It was my last ditch attempt at staying the person I always believed I was (prudish, in control, etc.) But then in December, I gave a blow job in the bathroom of a dirty bar and to this day, I still don’t know his name. I had never been the hoe in my friend group. It was like living a double life. I hit the lowest of my personal lows when I slept with two men in one day, one random person before I went to work, and one after work, a lawyer, in his office, who I will never speak to again. The shame that spread through my body as I turned the shower to the hottest it would go was unlike anything I felt before. I felt dirty. Gross. A whore without the cash.

And suddenly my magical friend Zoloft became an enemy. It changed me into someone I didn’t recognize or want to be. I wasn’t a happy person before, and while it felt great to numb underlying issues for a couple of months, it created a slew of other issues. I started to become obsessively concerned about my health. I went to the doctors every other week to get an STD test, even though I was generally careful and showed no symptoms. I worked out every day because of the excessive energy shooting through my bloodstream. Even worse was when it ravaged my stomach (which it did frequently) and I almost shit my pants on the dance floor of a crowded gay club. That was a close call. I told my doctor I didn’t want to be numb when she first prescribed Zoloft. Because I was buzzing so hard, I didn’t think that I had become that, but when I think about that time in my life subjectively, I had. Wake up, medicate, fuck someone, work, gym, bed, repeat. Try not to shit yourself. That was the routine. Every. Single. Day.

I detached myself from that blissful but fabricated feeling in the new year, and focused on moving to New York. I stopped sleeping around and picked up a pen and started to write, using my new found ambition and lack of inhibition to write stories instead of sleeping with people. I am glad I stayed on Zoloft while I remained in Nashville, as it kept me happy even after those dark days of being a skank. But once I came to New York, I let my prescription die out and haven’t taken it since.

I thought I would experience side effects coming off the medication but I was lucky and did not. When I first decided to stop taking it, my doctor told me it was a bad idea. She warned me that I might experience prolonged zaps to my brain, almost like electric shock. While that scared the shit out of me, I never experienced that. She also thought I would become suicidial. So far, that hasn’t happened either.

I was a little more agitated than usual during the first two weeks coming off. Slow walkers were my main target. I’d shout, “HURRY THE FUCK UP” through gritted teeth and prance past them, blushing furiously from my lack of verbal control. But now, I am the happiest I’ve ever been. A lot of that is because of New York. The city, as I’m sure you’ve been told, is so energetic, I get high just walking through Union Square and seeing the hustle and bustle of tourists snapping pics of the skyline. And this is how I self-medicate now: I take myself to new places and walk around. Exploration has become my mediation.

I’m not writing this to tell you how to live your life if you’re suffering from depression and anxiety. I know plenty of people who need medicine in order to function, and have zero judgement against them. I think my doctor might’ve been too quick to start prescribing me anything, though, and didn’t really care when I informed her that I was turning into a crazy person with IBS. But the biggest lesson I learned from those months was to deal with problems as they come, instead of burying them, way the fuck down, inside myself. It’ll save a lot of time, and hopefully you won’t find yourselves on your knees on a piss-soaked bathroom floor with a dick in your mouth.