This is a Really Real Mental Health Post.

TW: Suicidal Thoughts.

I feel like I’m clawing my way to the top again.

But yesterday was so bad and I’m afraid I’ll end up back there.

Yesterday I came home from United Way and crawled right into bed.

The fog was so thick and the suicidal thoughts were so loud that I ended up texting the Crisis Text Line.   Telling them, I have a plan to die, but I also have a plan to go to the gym with friends in a few hours.  I just need someone to talk to me while I get out of bed and get ready for the gym so that I go with the right plan tonight.

Just reaching out was enough to break the fog and I didn’t need to talk to them for long, but having them there is an amazing resource.

Normally there is some sort of trigger for this, and right now there isn’t.  It’s just a biological thing.  I’m bipolar and I get depressed and sometimes my depression is suicidal in nature.

I’m sitting in front of my happy light as we speak, I’m getting plenty of water and still going to the gym.  I’m doing all of the right things.

It’s scary that people still die.

DBT is helping.  I don’t freak out about being suicidal as much.  It just kind of “is” and I ride the waves of it, waiting for it to pass.  I’m not as worried about acting on it because it’s just a thought and my thoughts won’t actually kill me.  That’s helpful.  It wasn’t helpful to be suicidal, AND panicking about being suicidal at the same time.

Last night, even after she brought me home flowers, I laid in bed and asked Wonder Woman to tell me, for sure, that she’d be upset if I were gone.  I needed to hear it, my brain was telling me she’d be better off without me.

But this morning I woke up and felt a little clearer.  I still fought for 2 hours to get out of bed.  I had to leave the dog waiting to go out while I immediately got into the shower because I knew if I left the bathroom, I wouldn’t be able to fight my brain into the shower later.

The thoughts are still there.  Not just the suicidal ones, although they are too.  The thoughts that are telling me I should stop taking my meds, or just not take this one or that one, or I don’t need to refill all of them.  The thoughts that are telling me it’s time to decrease this dose.  The thoughts that are telling me I shouldn’t eat for 24 hours.  Things that, luckily, I know are logically a bad idea.  Things that I can work around and short circuit.

Sometimes my brain is a real asshole.

But I feel like, maybe, I’m clawing my way to the top again.