Relative Something

I have no idea why, at a very young age, I started fantasizing about taking my own life. I think my family labeled me as moody. All I know is that when I got upset, for whatever reason, I would then feel stuck with the angst, burdened with a lack of skill or knowledge about how to return to normal function.

I have a recollection of becoming upset over something as a 10-year-old, when my family was gathered to witness the first man stepping on the moon in July of 1969. I left in a huff to sulk, and couldn’t get myself to return, even for such a momentous occasion, and despite my family’s admonitions to come back and watch history in the making.

For some reason, I discovered early on that one of the things which offered consolation to my troubled mind was, imagining myself being dead. At the time, it wasn’t a conscious choice to have such thoughts in order to feel better, it was more like an involuntary reflex. It just came natural to me to fantasize my demise, and then eventually, I discovered that such thoughts provided comfort. Of course, it was a dysfunctional comfort, but I had no understanding of that at the time.

It is not uncommon for depressed people to seek solace in alcohol. I assume it provides relief similar to what fantasizing did for me; an escape. I would describe myself as becoming something of a ‘fantasylic.’ I functioned for years with a chronic low-level depression that is labeled, “dysthymia,” relying on fantasizing as my drug of choice. I could project an outward appearance of reasonable health, but inside my head, I was honing a dangerous art. I refined this practice from my childhood into my adult life, and in its dysfunctional way, it served me well.

Then I became a father. With that milestone, my suicidal fantasies began to fail me. They no longer provided comfort. In fact, they increased my despair, as I contemplated the potential impact on my kids. It is silly, in hind sight, that the impact on others never seemed to bother me that way. (Depression is a very self-centered affliction.)

I like to think that my children saved my life. It wasn’t easy, and it got worse before it got better, but that change led to my eventual diagnosis and treatment.

When my fantasizing no longer worked for me, my dysthymia progressed to clinical depression. My fantasies morphed to become exercises of actually plotting my suicide.

But for the grace of god, go I.

After years of neglecting to recognize my difficulties as being depression, I finally sought professional help. I learned very quickly about the dysfunction of my fantasies. Imagining my death is now taboo. As a recovering ‘fantasylic,’ I need to work my program with a purpose. The dysfunctional thoughts can come just as easily now as they did the very first time as a kid. It is a reflex reaction, and it became a very ingrained reaction that feels comfortable in its familiarity.

Through practice, it gets ever easier to instantly recognize and dispatch the depressive mental reflex. Over time, the incidence of needing to do so, declines.

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Thinking about suicide is a totally wrong solution for any level of despair.