Suicide is painless

 So goes the song, suicide is painless. That song has a lot of deep feels for me. It's also not true.

Today, as you do, I explained disassociation to someone who clearly didn't understand what they were going through. In fact for a lot of normal people, they've probably never even heard of the term disassociation. One of the benefits/perils of becoming a veteran with mental health experiences and issues is you start to learn the lay of the land and the proper terms for things, how they manifest and what their impacts can be. And so this person obvioulsy new to what the fuck their body / brain was doing  made me relate my experiences with it, and the concentrated form of it - when I've been on the point of suicide. Which is twice. If you are keeping count. Once, something like 14 years ago. And the second time... well... just recently.

After explaining it, and a bit of a conversation with a bunch of others also suffering similar - and suicidal tendencies but not really knowing what was going on - I figured the information might be useful to others. My personal experiences of it. What it is. 

So disassociation. Go google it. Or if you can't be bothered, I will have a stab at it with a dose of personal experience - It's where you suddenly... aren't you anymore. It can manifest in many ways, from an out of body experience - you're observing yourself, to, having everything switch off, no feelings, you go numb, or zombie like, or have a super intense thing about being someone else somewhere else to the point that you aren't you anymore. Things can also feel... surreal. The world doesn't quite feel real anymore. Floaty. Off kilter. Like you are half a second out of time, or not quite in the present plane of existence. It's weird. There are also a host of other manifestations of it that end up with you basically having a very altered perception. Hyper focus. Disappearing into make believe. Yada.

It should be noted this is different from you just sitting there and imagining stories or daydreaming. Which is normal. Disassocation is deemed abnormal. Although I think what is deemed normal and abnormal is very subjective and open to debate. I kinda think it's all normal to be honest. Just. Unusual. Or perhaps, not socially acceptable and a sickness that needs fixing.

What causes it ? Eh. Well anything drug related that can fuck you up obviously. All bets are off the table once you start dicking with your chemistry directly ( or if youre sadly imbalanced period ).

But one of the other typical causes is trauma / stress. Be that depressive states, or other mental health issues, borderline personalities, but also just some traumatic event in your life, or some high stress moment. You may have experienced one briefly and not realised it when all your focus goes to the emergency at hand and you act on "autopilot". Not exactly you. Not exactly not you. But that's slightly different depending on how it manifests, but same ballpark.

My guess is - and I think mainstream agrees with me here - is that it's a defensive mechanism where the brain just unplugs the overwhelming emotional signals, and shuts it all down for a while. Or a long while. Like watching something you find really awful on TV or the internet. You turn it off. Except it's a bit trickier with your brain. And flicking off all your emotions and or toning down your sensory inputs leaves you in a weird state where the world no longer quite feels real. And you've gone numb.

I get disassociation not exactly regularly, but I've had it more times than I can count. And its typically triggered in me by trauma / high stress. Of which some of the highest stress moments are when I have been on the edge of suicide. And it manifests in a really odd but super noticeable way.

So. First suicide close call. I ended up in the kitchen. With a 9 inch cooks knife in my hand. Poised above my left wrist. And testing how much it hurt to stab and slice. Each time a bit deeper.

Emotionally I was a mess. Crying my eyes out, my insides cramped like a kick to the stomach, no ways out, misery. The solution - the small calm voice in my head told me - was to end it all. End the pain. No more suffering. Do it. It makes sense. If you were a horse, they would do it. But the pain that would be left behind. What would my girlfriend feel finding me. What would my family feel. This must be wrong ? No. It's not wrong. It's an end to suffering. It is logical. It is right. Just do it.

At some point in there, massive disassociation. Crying abruptly stops. Everything stops. Time slows down. You can't feel anything. Everything is numb. Spacey. Surreal. I could see myself standing there. Feel the tears on my face. But no emotion, crying stopped. Calm. There was even briefly, some points of, what am I doing here. Why am I acting like this. How odd. Time passes, not long, and like a switch being flicked on, it all comes back in a sudden wave. Crash. Rinse and repeat several times. I look back on it now and think of it something like a circuit breaker trip switch. You get a short. And the system just trips and flips everything off. Spends some time in that state. Then flicks it all back on again. Lights on. Pain on. Too much. Trips. Lights off. Pain off.

From one point of view its fascinating. An amazing glimpse at how my brain works. The safety mechanisms when pushed to the limit. From the very real point of view it's fucked up. Badly.

In the last few months I've disassociated a lot for a lot longer than just 30 minutes. Which is I think understandable. A lot of pain, suffering and then mental anguish. And the brain has enough and disassociates out. Bailing out. Too much. Fuck this shit. Combine it with exhaustion and never really being able to escape the physical side of it, and you end up kind of hallucinating out and living different lives, different places, anywhere but here. Very odd. But again, that bit of your brain trying very hard to run away - literally disassociate - from your body and where you are now. You get up numb, not here, not thinking. A zombie. And wander around like that in a surreal world. For me, at some point it typically snaps back in and crashes down on me again before bailing out again.

The bottom line of all that is that it's normal."Normal". No doubt shrinks will tut, and reach for therapies and or drugs and or things to deal with it. But it's a safety valve on your brain. One that can absolutely fuck up and go wrong and end up being a problem all in itself - but then this is no different to any part of you.

You're not broken. Not weird. It happens. Give it time and it will pass. And of course, try and get help for the underlying thing that is pushing your brain to "trip". It's telling you very clearly that something is very wrong. And almost certainly, at that point, you are probably beyond digging yourself out of that hole. It's too deep. You need someone to give you a hand out. Several hands out even. Which is also fine. We can't always do everything ourselves. Imagine trying to climb on the roof of your house, or someone elses 2 storey house. There are very few people that could just spider their way up unaided. For the bulk of us we would need help. A ladder. Or someone up there with a rope. Or a hand. We all have very real limits. We are not invincible nor omnipotent. And sometimes to get somewhere or achieve something, or just get better, we need help. A ladder. A rope. A helping hand. Until we are somewhere better. That's not a weakness. Or a failing ( and even if it was, that's ok too, you can't always be strong ).

Understanding what you can and can't do at a current point of time, a current situation is a strength, not a weakness. Understanding the difference in times when you can do something yourself, or need help otherwise you fail is a very useful skill. And not easy to master or even maintain. Our judgement is frequently shot. Doubly so when you are struggling or in stress. The ultimate bottom line of all of that is, don't be hard on yourself for not being able to achieve everything in the universe. Or even knowing what you can and can't achieve in a given moment. Do what you can. And understand there are limits, and don't be a dick to yourself.

Being a dick to yourself is something I struggle with a hell of a lot. My internal ultra analytical, logical, calm part of me is super critical and very brutal. It can bully the shit out of me. Do better. Pathetic. Useless. Why can't you master this. Why are you such a failure. Don't get me wrong, it has its benefits. It's smart. And quick. And problem solves like a brute. And can consume information and skills at a vast rate.. when it feels like it. It is often I think, why when I parachute into situations - especially professional ones, I can do extremely well. That part of me can also however ironically be lazy - it can be hard to motivate, no, not doing that, done that already, too boring, too mundane, god no. Which is where 30 years of discipline comes in to kick it up the ass - although thats as much a good thing as a bad thing, as it lends that uber achieving critical bit of me a steel rod of discipline to keep going and makes it even more of a ball buster. 

The lazy / smart bit is epitomised in me going through school. Lurching from worst in class to best in class on a yo yo cycle, often year to year, but sometimes term to term, and in one hilarious microcosm of this, two math tests, the same day, one the run of the mill test on standard course material, and the second on advanced non course material designed to see just what we could do. I scored second worst in class on the run of the mill test ( 48% I seem to recall ). And best in class by a mile on the advanced material - only 4% behind what a maths teacher scored ( 92% and 96% respectively ). This paradoxical result garnered me a withering look from the maths teacher the following day with a single sentence - what happened. My answer was a shrug. But I know exactly what happened. The run of the mill stuff did not engage me. I lazed my way through it. The advanced stuff caught my imagination, new, different, pushing me, and I engaged. I can remember one of the questions being fascinated of being asked to calculate trigonometry in 3d. I ate it up. And buzzed through all the trig necessary to tell me what the 3d space looked like. I *enjoyed* it. Oh, you're pushing me ? Ok. Let's go. I also enjoyed confounding my History teacher by acing some tests at 100% - shockingly good - and then next month ditching them into the dirt sub 40%. I mean. Once you've proven you can do it. It gets old. I get it. You want me to memorise this boring crap. I could do that. I could also not do that. And do something else more interesting instead. Like invent games in my head. Teachers shaking their heads at me was not uncommon. 

This inevitably lead to my school reports all looking the same. Could do better. Does just enough. And in one withering assessment, "John knows exactly what he needs to pass a test at a C grade and does so". Rude. But also true, victim of being utterly uninspired by the content. Boring. Also inevitably I passed all my GCSEs pretty much at C grade. Ah ha ha. But anyway I am digressing like the old fart I am.

But as well as all that crunching nonsense that side of me can also just be a massive super critical dick. Aloof. Sneery of incompetence. And a horrific task master internally. It's a struggle to keep it in check. My cultivated sense of zen and calm is the antithesis to it. It tells it to sleep more. Smell the roses. You don't have to problem solve everything, analyse everything and everyone, be hyper attentive all the time. It does at times buy into that as some better more aware place to be. And I think it likes to put its feet up at times and let a gentler, less thinky, more zen bit of me take the wheel of the bus for a while. But it varies. The internal fighting personalities that make up me. I have at the very least completely disabled that critic from piling into others - at least in a non professional environment where I can be a deal more pointed, but still understanding of people needing to learn ( but so so on laziness ). I am very accepting of others and their strengths and weaknesses and have a large capacity of helping others in need and understanding. That thinking however does not typically extend to myself. I can get fucked. Apparently. Part of the being a dick to myself routine.

No I am not nuts. Well. Not nuts in that way. At least I don't think so. Ha ha. But it is sometimes exhausting being me. Frequently running a red line. Must. Push. Harder.