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I Am Not Always Very Attached To Being Alive: Living With Passive Suicidal Ideation (theoutline.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/longreads

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At 27, I’ve settled into a comfortable coexistence with my suicidality. We’ve made peace, or at least a temporary accord negotiated by therapy and medication. It’s still hard sometimes, but not as hard as you might think. What makes it harder is being unable to talk about it freely: the weightiness of the confession, the impossibility of explaining that it both is and isn’t as serious as it sounds. I don’t always want to be alive. Yes, I mean it. No, you shouldn’t be afraid for me. No, I’m not in danger of killing myself right now. Yes, I really mean it.

How do you explain that?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I mean. It just is.
You make the choice, and you stick with it.

I made the choice when I was 16 when I decided it was a permanent solution to a temporary problem. That keeps the door open for if I face a permanent problem, but otherwise removes it from consideration.

Now I just laugh at how surreal the experience of thinking of suicide when life is fine. And when I find myself in a position where I don’t find the ideation surreal, I go back on antidepressants.