#my hell brain is fixated on the Fall of 2021 being my expiration date

[i-will-physically-fight-you]

Being Self-Aware with Mental Health

TW: Suicidal Ideation

I think one of the most important things when it comes to mental health is not only being self-aware of why you’re behaving and reacting the way that you are, but also knowing the different ways mental health problems can manifest in people.

For example, last year I was very much in denial that I was dealing with suicidal ideation, because well. I wasn’t trying to actively kill myself. I didn’t want to die.  I wrote Floating With The Sunset and was like “Haha what a very nice fic that absolutely has nothing to do what I’m feeling right now :)”

But there is such a thing as passive suicidal ideation, where you may not actively seek suicide but well. You find yourself fantasizing dying in a car accident. Or the idea that the railing you’re leaning against giving way and causing you to fall to your death. Or, like me, you might just have the irrational feeling that you were going to be dead by a certain date and there was really nothing you could do to stop it.

There’s the little things, the little signs you may be feeling this way.

It’s not taking a shower for days at a time or never getting around to cleaning your room. Telling yourself you’re going to, but never getting around to accomplishing it because it’s so pointless. Everything is pointless.

It’s depriving yourself of sleep for days on end, only sleeping when the exhaustion forces you. You hate sleep, you see it as being pointless when you could be doing other things. Maybe you see it as being something you need to attain after accomplishing something worthy to be able to sleep. You don’t like acknowledging you hate sleep because you wish you could go to sleep and never wake up.

It’s crying over the littlest things, crying for hours on end. Crying feels like all you can do these days, because everything feels so hopeless. Then it’s feeling emotionally numb, incapable of feeling emotions. It’s feeling like a part of your soul is missing, it’s you laughing with friends but feeling like someone else is controlling you.

It’s being unable to do anything, much less the things you love because everything is pointless. The only things you get accomplished are the things you’re terrified of receiving the wrath of others for not doing. Even that barely motivates you to do the thing. Doing the simplest of things takes up so much energy.

And the thing is? I knew what I was experiencing was very bad and I needed to reach out, but I was afraid of it. I was so afraid that I didn’t want to put a label on it, much less reach out and have others treat me differently because of it.

I’m here to tell you, it’s better to be aware of the problem. It’s better to put a name to it, and to start finding ways to combat it. It’s better to express what you’re dealing with to others, even if sometimes they really don’t understand and laugh when you tell them “I literally thought last year that I was going to be dead by May”

And it might not completely dissolve the problem, you might still struggle with it every waking breath, but ignoring a problem doesn’t make things better. It only makes things worse. Ignoring it gives it more power over you. Acknowledging it weakens the power it has over you.

Just even being self-aware of it and being kinder of yourself knowing that you struggle with an issue, is big. If you can do anything, do that.