#TimeToTalk. #TimeToChange. #NoMoreStigma.
I see these well-meaning hashtags and sayings posted on people's statuses with regularity, and I know they come from a good place.
But as someone who has lived with mental health problems for all of my adult life (and far too much of my teens and childhood too), they often make me want to smack someone.
They don't, and can't, help when people need it the most. They can't. They're just words. Mental health meltdowns don't work like that, you see.
Someone pasting the Samaritans' phone number on their timeline undoubtedly is meant with kindness, is meant to try and save someone, just like the way they put the Samaritans' number on bridges that are suicide hotspots, near train platforms, or 1800-HOPE if you're in the US.
BUT WORDS AND NUMBERS CAN'T DO SHIT IF SOMEONE REALLY, REALLY WANTS TO TAKE THEIR OWN LIFE.
TAKE IT FROM SOMEONE WHO KNOWS.
The terrible, ugly, fucking hideous truth about suicide is NOTHING can save someone who really wants to go to that place.
As Alice Sebold put it so eloquently, writing as she did about being a survivor of a horrific and brutal rape when she was a college student, "You either save yourself or you remain unsaved."
No phone number, no well meaning words, no status updates could have saved me when I wanted nothing more than to slash my wrists, take an overdose, sit in my car and do myself away with the fumes, drive on to railway tracks and speed my car into the headlights of an oncoming train, go to an overpass and chuck myself off.
I HAD TO SAVE MYSELF.
That's not a guilt trip, not a pop at anyone in my life who has loved and supported me through the terrors of Borderline Personality Disorder, who has helped me to get on the right meds, find the right therapy, and start to live a full, fulfilled life full of love and friends and lovers and cats and books and doing work that is right for me (because the wrong work will have you back up on that overpass before you can say "Boredom and depression are a lethal mix," take it from me).
It's just a fact.
I had to be the one to send that text, make that call, send that message in that bottle, wave frantically before I started drowning. No one could do it for me.
And thank fuck someone answered. I am so lucky for that. That might be the difference between me and those lost souls who fell down the awful ravine that they never came back from. And I am blessed. I thank my stars every day for it. But my point is this.
Saving is an ACTIVE thing. Not passive. You can't sit and wait for your friends with mental health issues to come to you. BECAUSE THEY WON'T. They often CAN'T. When I get bad, I can barely type a text on my phone, let alone fucking speak to someone. I get mute with misery. These are the dangerous times.
And also, for all the lip service paid to "there's no stigma any more," you're damn wrong if you think people don't still keep quiet about mental health conditions. Hell, I'm aware I'm taking a risk just by writing this blog post. Of putting off future employers, potential lovers, or just scaring the friends that I do already have by saying I suffer with this ugly, unpredictable condition and may be on meds for the rest of my life because of it. But this is one talented entertainer too many who I've seen give in to their demons. I have to finally put my head above the parapet and say my own truth.
So, please - check in with the friends you love. The ones who you know struggle. The ones you worry about. The ones you never worry about, because they might be closest to collapse from appearing fine all the time. And keep checking in. Don't stop. That's it. Again. Again. Again.
Don't just say "I'm here if you need me." Don't just pay lip service. Show up. Again.
And again.
And again.
And never stop.
Please.
We love you for never stopping.
We're alive because you never stopped.
Rest In Power, Chester Bennington. You gave the teenage me so much. The adult me grieves that you could no longer give any more.
Samaritans (UK) - 116 123
Suicide Prevention (USA) - 1-800 273 8255
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