Suicide Attempt – A Most Unreliable Narrator

gather your bones

Dear Internet,
I’m currently sequestered up at the cabin in Northern Michigan, closing it down for the winter for TheExHusband. It’s beautiful up here, as it is always beautiful up here, at times it makes my heart ache. I came up too late, missing the last summer hurrah at the beach; my fat girl bikini remains unworn. The weather has dropped considerably since I’ve been here, which means apple cider, cake doughnuts, and decorative gourds will be all the rage for tourist traps, those damn trunk slammers.
Coming up to Throbbing Cabin, I knew there was lack of Internet, which was fine. Lots of the cute as balls villages around here have libraries with said resource. I checked and double checked I could access many of the programs I use “in the cloud” (quoted because that makes me giggle), such as Dropbox and Evernote offline. Many of these programs keep local copies on the hard drive, thus making it easily accessible for me to get to without Internet access. Easy peasy right? Slowly close down the cabin AND have plenty of time to work on my masterpieces.
No. No 1000%. Just checking email (chock full of images these days) and websites ate into my data like mad. I begged and cajoled with TEH and he agreed, if he wanted to rent this place out, WIFI would be needed. So tada! I am on the internets.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Yesterday marked the end of National Suicide Prevention Week. To “celebrate,” as it were, semi-colon tattoo is now living on my right wrist.

To also mark the occasion, I passed around my suicide attempt essay and not my mother’s attempt. Not intentionally, surprisingly, but because of my divorce of her, I haven’t given her a thought in months. So why would I remember to mention what we have in common?
Strikingly, no one wanted to talk about the pieces other than my mother’s reception towards me after I attempted. Top pieces read in a very long time but nothing about my attempt. Not a, “glad you didn’t go through with it” or “how are you feeling these days?”
Wasn’t one of the main points of suicide prevention week is to stop the stigma? Weren’t we supposed to open up and talk about suicide, how to prevent, how to better equip ourselves when having a dialog on mental health?
And yet, nothing really changed, has it?
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. Don’t want near daily emails or can’t make it here everyday but want to keep up with what’s going in my world? Subscribe to A Most Unreliable Narrator, a monthly-ish newsletter roundup of what’s happening. Bonus! Comes with GIFs!

re: don’t shut me out

HGFH emailed me a rather long email and I’m including my response here. Basically I’m sticking to my guns and while I might admit I was a bit harsh I do not apologize for what I said to her in the first email.
With that being said, if you happen to read this, there is a quote about my mothers response to my suicide attempt. What happened was that when I was 17, I attempted suicide with pills only to be found by friends shortly after the attempt. Stomach was pumped etc, the whole nine yards. Upon coming home, my mother responded, “Next time, use knives and not my medicine if you are going to attempt suicide.” My mother has no recollection of this little happening, well happening but it was when the stages of her own disease (depression) were starting to get worse. Who knew 10 years later she herself would attempt suicide? Oh the irony kills me on that one.

First off, my mom got her disability hearing. It’s in September. Good luck to your mom on getting hers quickly as well.
Secondly, my intention, albeit a bit harsh, again was not to inflame, irritate, or embarrass or kill our friendship. It has been basically many months of pent up aggression about how our relationship actually STANDS.
Thirdly, I wanted you to respond. I wanted you to read what I wrote and to respond to it. I have every intention of responding to you, as I’m doing now via email. The one thing I have learned about us is that we seem to clear up better understanding via email than voice or IM simply because we have time to think about what we want to say. I do understand that what you wrote is from the heart and I appreciate that but I don’t think you actually read what I wrote and that bothers me.
This has nothing to do with our ‘friendship’ per se, rather, it has everything to do with how you treat me. This is the key point. I tried to explain to this to you when we were at Applebees because I took you on your word and told you how I felt and you either didn’t get what I was saying, I was not explaining myself clearly enough or something because I could not make you understand just how clearly I felt about how you treat me. I felt like it took great courage for me to tell you to your face and you kind of poo-poo what I said. You did not address anything I asked of you in that email other than about the computer issue. The problem I have with you is that you act like a martyr and that everything revolves around you. It is clear that while you value our friendship your definition of our friendship is different than mine and that pains me. For 17 years I’ve lived under your shadow and I’ve tried to explain to you, many many many times that I am tired of being though of as secondary to everything else. For example, in high school and later when you found other friends to hang out with, you quite often choose to forget about me and hang out with them. Shannon was one and Sherry was another and Love is yet a third. And your retort is that I did the same, but see, that’s how it differs. I never intentionally dissed you until after you dissed me and I can’t tell you how many times this upset me. In later life, yes, you have been there and you know many things about my childhood most people have no clue about (ie: my mothers response to my suicide attempt) and I do appreciate that and in no ways am I shutting you out or keeping tabs about what is more appropriate in terms of help (ie my father dying vs your computer issues). It has everything to do with me standing up for myself and not only to you, but to Jeff and to Danny. Jeff knows that I am upset at you but does not know why. He does not or cares not to understand my anger. While I am very prolific in my writing as you do know, i do not always get the point across until at the very end.
Again, my point is not to disarm our relationship OR to make you go away, I want you to really think about our relationship and really make sure it’s clear that you understand where I am coming from. I have felt that I have lived in being ostracized from you, Jeff and others simply because my way is different than everyone elses choice and I will no longer put up with anyone telling me that what I’m doing is wrong or crazy or anything else. I need for you to really understand that more than anything.
As for the computer issues, I am no longer feeling like I can do computer support for you because you do not listen to what I have to say. While you will say that i am the computer goddess you have fought with me before on doing things simply because even if my way is tried and true, you read something else that differs. If my way is so wrong than I would suggest that you find someone else to do support for you. However, in light of the recent Blaster Worm, I would suggest you download the following:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-026.asp
If you have Windows XP, download WinXP 32bit.
If you do not have the blaster worm, then download it anyways and patch yourself up. It will not require you to reboot however, download the following:
This is a FREE (as in no money) virus scanner. It runs everyday and will also do automatic downloads of virus updates for you.
Please do not respond until you’ve read this fully and then email me. I have no intention on ditching you as a friend, rather, I’m asking we take a serious look at our friendship.
Lisa

cut-off point

I told someone 30 was my cut-off point. If I don’t accomplish a lot of what I want to do before I’m 30 — I’m gone. Now before you start going “Um, Lisa, that is SUCH a cry for help” and calling your local suicide hotline, don’t bother. 98% chance that I won’t off myself (I made a funny!). Anyone who has known me for years that these things pass with time and I’m never serious — however, I know that many of us feel, that from time to time, life isn’t worth living. And sometimes I’m happy that I made it through my first suicide attempt 10 years ago, and other times I wish I would have died. But that is neither here nor there. I’m just telling you how it is folks, that is why you are here.
I will make no illusions that I’m being serious. For a few days, i was dead serious. But, I have (and will always know) that this passes with time. Being bipolar manic/depressive isn’t cool kids. It sucks major ass. Lemme tell you.
But things are looking up. I’m removing myself from one situation and starting anew life. I’m really digging someone I’ve been digging for 6 months and he’s mein gott(g). I had to say it to taunt him.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, there is so much, that you as a general public are not aware of. So much lies behind me then what meets the eye. Some people are not comfortable with knowing THAT MUCH about me — others want to own my soul. I give what I can — when I can. I give to those I feel deserve it and when I feel they need to have it. It’s not a game — it’s my life.
i’ve always been strong — and I’ve always attempted to make some sort of peace within my life. I’ve always strived to be the VERY FUCKING BEST that I can be. And that threatens people — and it’s harmful to others. My megalomania can be daunting. Fuck, I just created a new IM name: LishaIsGod. heh. Cos, I am god. this is my fucking world and I’m letting you enjoy it. If you piss me off, nothing a little DENY won’t work magic on.