Dark Places.

I write here when I am in my darkest thoughts.

I am so very alone. So are you. We both are now just in different ways. You are in darkness. I am not sure if you feel pain? If you see me? If you know whats happening? If you see us, I know you are torn to pieces.

Im going to say no. You wouldn’t allow anything to get in between us. So why now? So it must be darkness. Not sure what form. I am sorry it might be darkness- I know that scared you.

We were both agnostic. We both thought this was unfortunate. How lovely it would be to be comforted by Heaven. I wish. I’ve tried. I mean I got my degree in religion and attend a Catholic graduate school.

It doesn’t make sense logically and therefore I cannot get behind it. Yet, nothing makes sense also. What is sense? I know absolutely nothing.

I spend my day wandering through emotions. And rapidly at that.

At some point I am suicidal. I feel empty all day, but at some point it gets very intense. Too intense. Usually it’s at night.

The suicide hotline doesn’t help people like me. I am not saying it doesn’t help someone, just that someone isn’t me. The feeling is still there rotting in my core. Guess what? I do not care who reads this because I know many people feel this rot. Maybe not now they don’t, I surely didn’t before this. Now I do. I felt intensely sad before. I’ve even had bouts of depression here and there. But this? No.

How do I explain wanting to kill yourself? Hmm. So I suppose prior to this I would get upset about something and I would feel sad. Maybe it would be something pretty bad and I’d cry pretty hard. Maybe my day would be ruined. I knew it would pass though. It had to at some point and it always did.

This though, this is like you cannot walk. Instead of feeling sad someone has come to you and inserted a knife slowly into your chest. You are now trapped. There is physical tightness and pain. It’s pushing into you very hard. You just want release. Your brain is panicking not knowing how to release the figurative knife. Maybe you move some, the pain is still stabbing you. So you start crying, normally that works a bit. But here it doesn’t. It sticks around. So then you are begging your brain to please stop it. Your brain is clueless, no matter how many “coping mechanisms” you have been given.

So it says “end it.” It’s the only thing it knows. Truly knows. You may have exterior support but that’s not stopping the issue inside of your self that no one can get to. That uncomfortable itch cannot be healed by words or support. It just is.

I want to discuss this issue actively- not in past tense. When suicidal thoughts are discussed it seems to be in two limited ways. One being, “I used to have them,” or two being that the person actually went through with it. Neither of these are as helpful as saying it when a person actually feels it. People do not do this though, because of the consequences. So there is this weird line of we ask people to be open, but not too open. Fuck that. We do this with everything and I can’t stand it.

I don’t know if this is how other people felt, it’s just how I felt. The thoughts feel as though I haven’t eaten in three days and my brain is begging me to eat. Instead here it’s begging me to stop the pain and it’s suggesting it knows the way to do that. I tell it it’s wrong. Only because of the kids. How could you do that to the kids two times I say to it. I can’t. So suffering is the only option, not ending it.

My therapist has suggested the suicidal thoughts are another attempt at coping. Since this has happened my brain has thrown out to me so many weird “strategies.” This one is my brain saying “well, plan Z we could always end it.” It just wants to keep me safe and pain free. However 10/10 would not recommend the brain it’s not doing a great job with recommendations.

My therapist is aware of all these issues and says on the outside I am *killing* (icky word now) it. On the inside I am dying. All the great things I do for the kids: run them to sports, re-do their rooms, have every fun activity available at our home they could imagine… Surely I must be getting better… right? Everything is looking good. Objectively at least.

I have been depressed before. I even took medication for it. When we had an ectopic pregnancy in 2017 I became very very emotional. I almost died and I lost a baby I really wanted. I couldn’t go places without crying. If I heard a newborn cry I would get upset. My doctor suggested some medication, I don’t even remember which one. I was on it for a very short time. It made me a robot. I remember getting off it because I wanted to cry. I wanted to be able to have emotions. I remember feeling like I wasn’t a human without the hurt so I got off of them. It took me awhile, but I did come to terms with it. It makes me sad still but it was a different pain. It was more tolerable. That sounds bad. But I didn’t rot there I just hurt.

Here, I do not want to feel. Period. Emotions are not worth it. I have been keeping myself completely sober for the most part. I do take xanax and zoloft now. But I’m still hurting. I don’t plan to not hurt at all- just a little less would be nice.

I have thought about Jesse every waking moment since I got that nasty call. Every second. No breaks. No happiness.

I should be so happy right now. I have 4 beautiful children, I am almost done with school, I have wonderful friends, family support, I have a beautiful home. But no. I rot. I am so lost. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

I’ve never “lived for my kids only,” before, but I am now. I love them more than I loved Jesse and this was the same for him. Them first then us, then whoever else. This is the only lucky thing or I would be done. I know this would be the same for him. We did talk about this. But if anything happened to them- it’s a free game. How can you live when your family is destroyed? Items mean nothing.

If you read this and your first thought is something like: “try tea before bed.” Ugh. Please just don’t. This isn’t me having a bad day. I so wish it was. I loved tea. Those were the days.

It’s trauma like I’ve never known nor wanted to know. I want to go back to my stupid bubble so very badly. This is why I wish Jesse was a horrible father and I wish he didn’t care about me so much- because I actually know I could handle the kids and life much better. I just can’t do it as well grieving him and I can’t do it with my grief and the kids grief and my confusing feelings about Wren and postpartum depression. It’s entirely too much. So I am going to take some medication.

*Luckily* I think I am understanding what brings on the dark thoughts. There isn’t a set schedule but I tend to have them more at night or after Raiden becomes hysterical or when I am coming home to an empty house. It’s those kinds of moments where they may creep in. They last about 20 minutes so I know somewhere they will stop- but as I said- in the moment my brain is trying to convince me this will be eternity.

I will continue to live like this. I really don’t have a choice. I am not strong. I just am. It makes people uncomfortable if I mention I hate my life or I want to kill myself- but I assure you this is young widow 101. I have met more widows than I ever wanted to know and they definitely express this to me. They just can’t express it to anyone else because God forbid people are allowed to be miserable.

Today I spoke to Jesse’s aunt. I told her my life sucks. She laughed and said “yes, your life fucking sucks.” It is what it is. Pretending it’s not shit wont make me better. I just have to hope eventually something gives- but sometimes the ladies who have been long term young widows make this seem bleak.

Until then I guess I will just have a shred of hope I am not in a mental prison forever.