At 27, I’ve settled into a comfortable coexistence with my suicidality. We’ve made peace, or at least a temporary accord negotiated by therapy and medication. It’s still hard sometimes, but not as hard as you might think. What makes it harder is being unable to talk about it freely: the weightiness of the confession, the impossibility of explaining that it both is and isn’t as serious as it sounds. I don’t always want to be alive. Yes, I mean it. No, you shouldn’t be afraid for me. No, I’m not in danger of killing myself right now. Yes, I really mean it.
How do you explain that?
After that, I celebrated each birthday with surprise because each age I hit was one I assumed I wouldn’t reach.
I know exactly this feeling. I often expected the escape from terrible depression would eventually be suicide. I still expect to die by my own hand when my quality of life declines from health problems or old age in the future.
Funny thing is, my father was the same way. He procured for himself whatever drug is administered in right-to-die cases and warned me that he had it a number of years ago. But he never asked for it when he went into hospice due to age-related health issues. He clung to life until it was gone.