Suicide Is Not the Answer, But Figuring Out What the Answer Is Is Hard

A lot can happen in a couple months. Even when nothing happens. I guess nothing happens on the outside but a lot happens on the inside. I don't know. What am I even talking about?

My last post was all like, I understand myself. And, I feel better because I know why I feel bad, and that means I can get better. But just because you know yourself and you know why you are a certain way, it doesn't mean it is easy to change. After a few weeks, it seemed to make things worse. Or, not worse. But sadder. I don't know. I feel fine at the moment, so it is hard to remember what I feel like when I don't feel fine. Like it's just easier to ignore those times, even though 'those times' make up most of my times lately.

Okay, so what is my point here? I wanted to write about this book. I read it a couple years ago, and I liked it then but not as much as the second time I read it recently. This time, I liked it a whole bunch. So much that I will say, at the moment, it is one of my favorite books. I think I liked it more this time because I could relate to it more now. Back when I first read it, I was not in the state of depression I am in now/have been for a couple years. Here is the book: The Program, by Suzanne Young. Warning: there are spoilers in this post.

The basic premise of this book is like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but the Program in the book is for teens and they are forced into it. The Program is for depressed kids, and all the events that make them depressed are erased from their memories. The reason for all of this is because teen suicide has become an epidemic and, goddammit!, that just will not do. The only way to fix it is to ignore the problem, right? Sounds like a pretty accurate metaphor for how people view mental health problems in real life.

That metaphor is mainly how I viewed it the first time I read it. But the second time around, there was the added layer of being able to relate on a more non-metaphorical level. The second time, I actually found this book really hard to get through. And when it was over, I felt completely devastated. I really love how books can do that to you. Make you feel something so intense. Yes, even when that feel is something so soul crushing. Just reading the emotions of the characters as they are struggling with depression and suicidal tendencies...it was relatable. And sad.

I won't go any further into that, but there was one part in particular that I wanted to mention. And something I've thought about quite often. There is a part in one paragraph that I feel I can relate to specifically. (It's on page 398 for those of you following along.) "I'm saying goodbye to who I used to be. Who I can never really be again. The people I once knew are different."

After I got over the majorly suicidal part of my depression, this is exactly how I felt. I felt that I had gone through something so devastating and life changing that, when I came out of it, I was not the same person as I was before. (This is actually another issue I have - trying to figure out who I am anymore. Something that some characters in the book also have to deal with.) I felt like I could never be that person again. I felt that most of the people I knew before were not the same people anymore. Not because they had changed, but because I had changed. I went through that major depression and pretty much very suicidal time in my life in isolation. I didn't talk to many people and I saw even fewer people in person. I know it is dumb to think that anyone should have known what I was going through, considering I never reached out to anyone. And, actually apparently lied to people about how I was doing. But at the time, I felt that people didn't care about me. As though they had any idea!

Well anyway, regardless, the fact of the matter is that only a few people went through that time with me. And since most people didn't go through it with me, they couldn't see how it affected me. They couldn't see how it changed me. I imagine most people still think I am the same person they knew a year ago. But I'm not. I mean, fundamentally, my core and my morals, etc. are the same, but I am not the same. Like I said, I am still trying to figure that part out. I am trying to be like the main character in the book. She didn't know who she was anymore, so she realized she had to let that old person go and be her own new person, whatever that meant. It's really hard, but I am trying to do the same thing.

So how do you figure it out? How do you give up who you were and become who you are? It's like being tied to the middle of the rope in tug of war. My self wants to be both people, so I can't pick a side. In the meantime I just get pulled from both directions, but stay stuck in the middle, unable to be anything. I can stay here and eventually get pulled apart or I can go in the right direction. So, how do you choose? In tug of war, it's down to whichever side has the strongest pull. But, stuck in the middle, I don't feel pull from either direction. So like I said, I just stay here and think about being someone but never taking action. I know I need to. But even though it's sadder, it's much easier staying stuck and being no one.

Where I Went

So that's a good point... Where did I go? If you ever read my blog or know about it, then you know that I have not posted anything here in a very long time. Almost 2 years. Which is crappy, but whatever, I'm working on it. If you know me, then you may also know that the past 2 years have not been the easiest for me. Especially the last year. It pretty much was the worst year that ever existed, and you may or may not know that I did not handle it very well. Or that I was very suicidal. *Spoiler alert*: I didn't kill myself!

So, alas, here I am. Working shit out all over the place like I actually care about myself. Whoa. Before you start to feel sad for me or worry about my current state of mental health, don't. I appreciate the fact that you care. However...thanks, but no thanks. I am doing much better.

Which brings me to my latest blog post and the book that made me want to write again. Where She Went. This is the sequel to the popular If I Stay, by Gayle Forman, which was okay but not my favorite. Like, I felt it was cheesy and that maybe I was just too old to enjoy it for what it was without feeling a little embarrassed about reading it (and actually liking it). But whatever. Who cares? Irrelevant. The sequel, though, I enjoyed very much. And I can't fully explain why but I am going to try. On the surface, it may seem like just another one of those teen books where the main character pines over a love they can't have and they end up either getting what they want, or not getting it and being sad, or not getting it and realizing they always had what they needed in the first place. I am not going to spoil the end for you because I think you should just go read it yourself, right now.

Anyway, that might seem like what it is on the surface. I thought that at first. And even though I felt that way several times throughout the book, I really enjoyed it. I mean, come on, who doesn't want an emo boyfriend whose whole life revolves around you and he is utterly lost without you and only you can make him complete. (No question mark, because how could that even be a question?) Okay, maybe not that extreme, but still... However, throughout much of the book there were also specks of it hitting me in the gut. Like, once I heard a review of Doug Martsch's album 'Now You Know' and the person said something about it like: it was "like getting punched in the heart in a good way". I love that. I always felt that way about him and Built to Spill. But I digress... (If anyone knows what review I'm talking about, let me know. It was back in 2009 I think.)

Anyway, as this book went on, my heart kept getting punched. And I know why. Because in this book, the main character Adam, and what he goes through emotionally, I feel like that was my life for so long. I think it helps that, just like Adam, I am going through some shitty part of my life, and working out my issues, and coming to terms with all of the things that I hate about myself and what I've done with my life and how I ended up in the place that I am mentally. (And I've been listening to tons of cathartic music lately, aiding in my mental transformation. And I just have to say, when Forman mentions Yo La Tengo, New Pornographers, Wilco, Andrew Bird, and Sufjan Stevens, and particularly the songs 'Challengers' and 'Chicago', in the most cathartic and coming to terms scene in the book, I was like - this is me. And the magic word is 'acceptance'. Of all the shit I went through and all the shit I've become.)

 The first sentence of the book was what did me in. "Every morning I wake up and I tell myself this: It's just one day, one twenty-four-hour period to get yourself through." He tells himself that since he got through yesterday, he can get through today too. And, pow!, punched in the heart. When I was at my lowest and I didn't want to face the rest of my life, let alone one day, this is what I would say to myself...you can make it through today, that's all you need to do.

I could go into detail about every bit and piece of this book that expressed how I feel about myself and life, but this post is getting long as it is. So I will just also mention the one part that actually made me decide I love the book and motivated me to write a blog about it and why I like it so much. Because it helped me have a breakthrough in how to look at how I was before, versus how I am now. In case you're into this book, I will tell you it's on pages 196-197 in the edition I am reading. "I could tell how much had changed just by how different everything sounded." And, pow!, punched in the heart. Has anyone else ever felt this way?

It really struck me. When I was really depressed, everything sounded like nothing. Like sadness. Like reasons to kill myself. Even the sound of crashing waves would have done that. Like they would have reminded me of all the beautiful things in life. And how I was too sad to appreciate all of those things and it made me even more sad that I couldn't appreciate them. It's weird. It's hard to explain unless you've felt the same way, and I know it's a weird way to think about things. It's like being disconnected from your body and seeing yourself do and say things, make mistakes, make things worse for yourself, but you can't stop that trainwreck.

So, like, I would hear waves, know that they should make me happy, but still be so sad about everything else, about life, that I came to hear the sound as a depressing sound. In reality, it was usually more the sight of things that did me in, rather than sound. But the metaphor still works. I would go to the ocean and look out onto it and feel this weird feeling in my chest. Like my heart breaking all over again. Like my breath would catch and I'd want to cry. I guess it was like seeing all my missed opportunities. Before this, I would look out onto the ocean, or to the mountains in the distance, and think of all the things I wanted to do in life, and all the places I wanted to go. When I got really depressed, it was too depressing to enjoy life and be hopeful. I wanted to want to be happy. But it never worked.

Well now that I'm not super depressed anymore (thank you family, friends, doctors, Wellbutrin - oh yeah and myself too), things sound and look different once again. Now I don't look at the ocean, or the mountains, or whatever else and feel depressed. I feel hopeful. I want to live life. I want to do everything and see everything. I want to be myself again. Now I don't just want to want to be happy. I want to be happy. Now when I hear the waves, I don't hear the sound of loss. I hear life, and happiness, and the possibility of getting back all the things that I've lost or let go of the past year. Or at least the possibility of finding something new and good to fill the hole that the past year of my life has left inside of me.

That hole is nowhere near as big as it was even a couple months ago, but it is still there. It's just that, now, I see how I can fix it.

So. Wow. Big, long, emotional, cathartic post. Hardly wrote anything about the book. But, as you hopefully know, this blog isn't just about the books. It's about how they make me feel. How I connect with them. And this book made me feel. For sure. Every emotion. And even though I was working on that metamorphosis myself already, seeing the thoughts I have been trying to think written out like another person is thinking them helped me to break through whatever was covering me. And I could finally see what I was trying to see. I spent the last year of my life feeling like I was on the verge of finding the answer to some big problem that was haunting me. But at the same time, I couldn't remember what the question was. Now I can see. Thanks fake emo boyfriend. Thanks Gayle Forman. And thanks to all of you for reading all of this post; it means a lot to me.

 I hope you all get punched in the heart. In a good way, of course.

"I fell in love again. All things go, all things go."