What is Brave?
What is brave?
Killing myself doesn’t seem brave,
though brave people die from this disease everyday.
Is it anymore brave to suffer,
to need so much to get through,
to worry those around you?
Right now I don’t feel brave at all.
In improv, Messing says being brave is
“being scared as shit but doing it
anyway with the result of flying.”
Flying seems impossible.
But maybe in this moment,
flying is holding on,
flying is trusting in a better you can’t see,
flying is reaching out when you want to crumble within.
Maybe we are brave and not brave in different ways,
so we use our strengths and borrow the strengths of others.
Maybe that is brave.
Prequels and Sequels
The comic strip above came out on May 10, 1999. It was the day I first attempted suicide, and I saw the strip as I was getting ready to exit this world.
I ripped it out of the paper and wrote “For Leon” on it and put it in the car with me.
The strip was written less than two weeks before Phantom Menace was to be released and my then boyfriend (future husband and now ex-husband/co-parent) Leon was so excited for the movie, and in that moment, leaving the strip for him was the only way I knew to say goodbye.
My suicide attempt obviously failed and I would see Phantom Menace in the theater with Leon. (I am sure there is some sort of joke that could be made about how Jar-Jar alone could make me wish I killed myself, but I’m gonna skip going there. Well I guess I went there but I’m not sticking with it.)
Seven weeks before it opened I ordered tickets to see The Force Awakens, a movie I would have cared less about without Leon and our son in my life.
I was not doing well when I ordered the tickets and seven weeks seemed an impossible date to reach. But I made it to the movie even though the part of my brain that refuses to believe I should remain here, is begging me to exit.
From that day of the failed attempt over 15 years ago to today, many of the best things in my life have happened, and at the same time many days have been filled with the thought of ending it all.
As I sat in the theater, with Leon and our son, all of us loving the movie, I felt beyond fortunate to be here, and at the same time felt so angry, and sad, and scared that part of me still feels I must leave this world.
But I made it to the movie and I guess all I can do now is keep planning for the future, and keep working with my Dr.and myself to be here for the plans I make.
Med Head Again
Getting off meds was never a mental health goal of mine. My goal, has for many years, been the same:
To not want to die.
In an attempt to reach this goal, I have taken meds. had my brain shocked, eaten less and moved more, wrote, been of service to others, surrounded myself with good people, and have practiced Oprah-like gratitude. And I continue to want to die.
Some days it is stronger then others.
Right now I feel like I have a bunch of tiny people in my brain all wanting to destroy me.
And so I am going back on meds, reminding myself that that is okay, that maybe one day I will be okay, and at the same time being really fucking angry at it all.
