How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me

I bought the book but never read it. I really didn't need to, I'm sure. You see, I have the same disorder as the author.

Today is one of those days, when the brain chemistry has taken over. I have to fight it. In the past I didn't and followed the inclinations of it's power. Despondency was the key. It hits me now and then, even with proper medication.

For years the diagnosis was not recognize and life was pretty much a roller coaster of heaven, hell and numbness somewhere in between. Of course, in those early years, the diagnosis really didn't have a name as it was clustered within Schizophrenia. But, it is a separate condition and now treatable.

Still, here I am with overwhelming feelings of despair and unwarranted grief. My friends tell me to call them when I'm like this. They will help me. But, you see, that's not what I do. There is no desire to reach out for help.

Something that has helped me in the past has been journaling. I've got page after page of misery written down. There's something to letting it seep out of me into the pen onto the page, now transferred to the keyboard in these modern times.

I will ride through today as best I can. One thing I've learned that helps is to distract myself. Go to the store, a restaurant, the library, a ride in the car, up into the hills, down to the ocean. Sometimes I cry. But not anymore. Seems impossible now. If I cannot drag myself out of the house, which is not a good sign, I will crochet, paint or draw, make digital art, read, write, listen to music, or watch movies on TV while petting my purr babies.

I am going public with this because I haven't forgotten what it was like when it was unbearable, when the suicidal thoughts were invasive and all encompassing. I didn't have the internet back then. How valuable it would have been for me to find others in the same situation, where I could read that there was hope. If I can help just one person because of this posting, then it is worth it being out with my own history.

There is hope. No matter how desperate the situation, if you can ride it out, like the roller coaster, there is an end to the ride. Just hang on for dear life. And yes, there is value in life. There is value in your own life, even if it doesn't feel like it. Even if you feel like you don't deserve to live, you do.

Just hang on. Get help. Keep seeking help, even if it seems to not help, keep hanging on. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Suicide is not the answer. I promise you.

Don't worry. I'm not suicidal anymore. I haven't been actively considering it for many years, though sometimes the feelings arise. The meds help with that.

But, here it is. The despondency is in the forefront of my mind, and like a sad old friend, I must take her hand and comfort her, distract her, and hang on!

How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me

Good Day! Sunshine?

Awakening into today

Does today have a label?
A designation selecting it out from any other day?

How does today,
This day,
Differ from any other?

Obviously not the same
Yet, it seems like just another piece of hell
Infusing itself into existence.

Doesn’t begin.
Doesn’t end.
Just another day.

Foggy, cold, empty, gray
Like my pain,
Medicated and Polluted
with poison smog-thoughts

Cyanide tetrachloride images
Twist their bizarre sneering faces.
Racing in fast-forward,
Everchanging clouds of human misery.

Compassionless, tortured souls
Caught there,    
continually escaping

By channeling themselves
Into dimensions
Beyond the realms of time.

Only to reappear again
More grotesque
And pathetically devoid
Of being worth salvaging.

The cat, in heat, yeowls,
and growls again.

Does she see them, too?

Elizabeth Munroz 
March 1991
Photos by E.M.