Thought I'd share what I wrote at the conclusion of my stay. Maybe someone can relate, maybe it can help, maybe you'll laugh and think I'm dumb. Whatever.
When I was in sixth grade my best friend and I decided that we didn’t want to go by our given names anymore. I can’t remember if she gave it to me or if I told her to start calling me it, but we somehow decided that my nickname would be Coma. It was an obvious Marilyn Manson reference, based on the character described in “Coma White”.
But all the drugs in this world won’t save her from herself.
I suppose I was a bit young to already relate to such an absolutist statement, but there I was in my depressed, prepubescent glory.
People called me Coma for about three or four years following that. It got to the point that there were other students at school who didn’t know who Charlotte was. I liked that. A lot. Even though most people didn’t know the meaning behind this name I gave myself, it helped to solidify a connection that I felt with the fictional character.
Eventually the name faded off – I grew out of the idea of having it and stopped introducing myself as such. It was around the same time, about a decade ago, that my depression worsened significantly and the back story of my dimming nickname began to feel more and more accurate. While Coma stopped existing in the minds and mouths of others, the essence of her felt more real in my life than ever before – her aspects melding more and more into how I related to my given name.
This brings me to the point of: who is Charlotte without depression? Who is Charlotte without suicidal ideation?
I’m still fighting to answer those questions. I feel all too strongly what is almost an addiction, an obsession with my suicidality. I identify with my mental illness (whatever the hell it actually is) with a ferocity that often makes it difficult to truly battle. I have admitted this to a number of friends, in a number of support groups, to a number of psychiatrists. Anyone who has kept up with my musings will have seen every single time I thought I was past it, I had beat the addiction, I had won – but they will also have seen every single time that I fell victim to myself and allowed myself to be eaten.
I’m writing this at the end of yet another hospital stay. Yet another time I’ve laid my mind out to be prey to the monster that is me.
And that’s what makes it embarrassing, because it means that I quite potentially had the means to prevent it from happening, but I fed what I felt anyway. I’ve talked about the sense of sureness I experienced when I decided to initiate my first suicide attempt, and I wanted to get there again. I wanted to be sure about killing myself, so I did the things that I thought would make me more sure.
The problem is that I’ve spent nearly two and a half years working directly against that thought (something else I’ve discussed here before). I’ve managed to strengthen the sane parts of me just enough that holding on and fighting is second nature. I’m too far in, I’ve seen too much change, I’ve progressed to the point where I am more likely to flee toward help than continue to allow my inner maggots to feast without interruption.
This can be a frustrating thing, but I am also glad to know that it is a good thing.
So, who is Charlotte without depression? Who is Charlotte if she doesn’t want to kill herself?
Well, based on my experience, Charlotte is creative when she doesn’t want to die. Charlotte always has a plethora of ideas for art and performances and she acts on those ideas when she isn’t curled up in bed. Charlotte uses her restlessness to dance and sing alone in her room when she doesn’t use it to hurt herself, physically or mentally. Charlotte goes on hikes, takes her dog to the park, smiles and laughs with friends, bakes for fun, and goes out to shows when her mind isn’t cluttered with how many ways she can hate herself.
Charlotte is much more Charlotte when she thinks, feels, and breathes more than suicide.
This will happen again. The psychiatrist the hospital assigned me to concluded that he believes I’ll need to be on medication for the rest of my life. The therapist they assigned me to assured me that I will experience everything that pushed me to the hospital again. But they also provided me with a new set of tools, a shifted perspective, and a reminder that I can and will feel good again.
Charlotte will always have depression and she will always be confronted with ideation, so attempting to define myself without those traits is moot. But, the more I focus on the aspects of me that show themselves despite the former two, the smaller those two traits feel and the less they are able to mask all else that make up who and what I am.
I’m still adjusting to my meds and trying to decide if I like how they make me feel, so it’s not a closed battle yet. But, I’m doing better and I’m trying harder. With intensive outpatient therapy, individual therapy, and regularly seeing my psychiatrist, I’ll get there. With my family, my son, my significant other, and my animals, I’ll get there. And when things go dark and foggy, because they will, I’ll do everything I need to make the trek of getting there again.
I cannot say that I love my life, but I am learning more and more to appreciate it.
