This is a Really Real Mental Health Post.
TW: Suicdal Thoughts. Guns. Possibly disturbing descriptions.
I spent most of yesterday evening in bed, under my blankets.
Wide awake, but shutting the world out.
Suicidal thoughts swirling around, like stars in the galaxy.
I had plans and means but couldn’t hold onto a thought long enough to have the drive to put anything into action.
I guess my scatter brain saved me from becoming any real danger to myself.
Either way it was uncomfortable and I was afraid to get out of bed because then the means would be too accessible.
And when I’d lose track of my suicidal thoughts I didn’t want to get out of bed because I was just to defeated to move.
I kept hearing a gun shot going off in my head.
Not that I have access to guns, I know better, but I just kept hearing the sound reverberating in my head.
It’s what happens when the thoughts get bad. It’s been the same since middle school. The thoughts would get bad and I knew there was a loaded gun in my dad’s night stand drawer and I could hear it going off in my head.
And I’d fight against letting it happen.
I wonder what it feels like when the barrel is pressed against your skull?
I wonder what it sounds like when the gun goes off?
Does it sound different when the vibrations are right there up close?
Do you even have time to hear it?
I wonder if I would screw that up too and live and just be a burden on everyone around me.
It really is better that I don’t have access to guns.
And the thing is, I’m not actually having a horrible morning. I woke up, I measured out my food and logged it in a new program I’m trying. I’m planning on being all crafty and making shit in a little bit.
But still, the dark thoughts are just swirling around.
I’d kinda rather be dead.
I wish it was a therapy day, not that therapy is a quick fix but I always feel safer when she reassures me that these thoughts aren’t going to kill me. That I don’t need to be locked away to be safe from myself. That this isn’t a crisis.
It feels like a crisis but also doesn’t.
They are just there, quietly hanging over my shoulder.
I feel like I can almost have a conversation with them.
“Hey, what’s up? Please don’t let the cat out as you come and go.”
Really Real Blog 
We have a gun in the house. A shotgun. I was adamant that I didn’t want a gun in the house, not because I am anti-gun, I grew up around them and was taught how to properly use and clean a gun as well as make bullets. But because I know what I get like when I am suicidal… rather when I have suicidal thoughts. I don’t trust myself to not go through with it. But it’s a shotgun and I have dinosaur arms so It wouldn’t work. I’ve put some thought into it. Hubby has it locked up in a case, unloaded (it’s actually never been fired, what a waste of money), and the bullets are locked away in a case in a separate area from the gun and he has the key. I don’t know what the key looks like, so that’s a plus. I can’t sneak it off of his key ring.
But I do know what it feels like to have a gun against your head. I did it when I was 5. My dad did not keep his guns locked up and he left them out in the open. He slept a lot when my mom was at work. One day I opened up the case and started playing with the gun. I had enough sense to see if the barrel was empty, but who knows if the chamber was. Anyway, I put that cold steel against my head. It was scary. Because I knew I could die. I don’t know what possessed me to do that. But I did. I wouldn’t recommend it.
I understand the thoughts though. It is something I am working through in therapy. If you get an answer other than mindfulness, please share. Because my therapist is big into mindfulness. It is like the coconut oil of the psychiatric world to him. I’d like another option.
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I was and am the same way with guns. I’m all about gun control but I’m not anti gun, I grew up with them and around them. I respect them and feel that they have their place. I went out of my way to allow my son access to safe gun training and sports through shooting time with my father and a junior rifle league.
But my access to guns needs to be limited and only when I’m in a safe space.
DBT has been really helpful, learning to distract and self soothe and accept the thoughts as just thoughts. Learning to accept that they may be a part of my life, maybe forever, but that I can live with that, thoughts don’t kill and the thoughts aren’t me, they are just firing brain synapses and they will pass. That kind of stuff.
Writing and sharing them is my big go-to as far as getting through the rough times right now and luckily my medications help a lot. I used to deal with them almost constantly but now it’s only once a month or every few months that I get a day or two of sticky ruminations. A low dose of Abilify, with a PRN extra dose when they start to show up, has been a game changer (with its own added side effects).
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