Thirsting For Death
“Think of all the people who love you”, “Suicide is a selfish act” — these are some of the common things I hear from people around me from my parents to my peers. These messages are absolutely right — there are people who might miss me should today end with me lying in a coffin instead of my bed. But these messages are also absolutely meaningless when I’m in a suicidal state of mind. Here’s why.
Some Symptoms.
Emotional Emptiness. Please understand that we know, and believe whatever you’re trying to tell us. We really do. But the problem is that when we’re struggling with suicidality, we struggle to register emotion. There’s this strange vacuum that opens up in my chest, as if all the happiness in the world had been sucked out of my heart. The world goes grayer in my vision, colors become less vivid.
Those words become no more than waveforms in the wind. Those letters are as lifeless as ink on paper, as plain as pixels on a screen. It is a horrible thing to know you love someone, yet can’t feel the feelings that you so desperately want to feel. The terror and confusion of it all makes me want to cry — but wait, I can’t feel sadness either.
My ability to read, and empathize with emotions become severely curtailed. This sometimes leads to other strange situations. One of which is that I become incredibly indecisive. I spend inordinate amounts of time constantly walking back and forth between stores — unable to decide on what I want to eat for lunch. Sure, we all have our moments of indecision— but this is not one of them. Because so much of our preferences are pegged to the emotions that accompany them, when I can’t feel emotions, I can’t feel what I want. Nor can I care about the things I used to, or (rationally) want to care about.
In the 1990s, a famous case of a pathologically indecisive man named Elliot led to a groundbreaking study by psychologist Antonio Damasio on the role of emotions in decision-making. The study found that Elliot’s brain tumor, and people like him who’d suffered damage to the limbic system displayed similar symptoms of “analysis paralysis”, because they were unable to register emotion. Not unsurprisingly, neurobiological studies are finding similar patterns in depressed people.
If we seem aloof, or disinterested you now know why. And you now understand the torment of wanting to feel feelings which you no longer can.
Thirsting To Die. What slowly fills this horrid emptiness is a creeping thirst to taste death. When I was in basic infantry training, there were times where I had to conserve my water so carefully that I’d become maddeningly thirsty. If you’ve ever been that dehydrated, there is nothing you long for more than a sip of cool water. There is nothing you can think of, nothing you want to do, except to satisfy that tormenting thirst. Everywhere you look your eyes are peeled for the first sign of a drink. Except that in my case — all I want to drink is death.
My mind constantly races about looking for ways to die. As it grows stronger, all I can see is a hundred different ways to die. I get up from my seat, and walk out to the office lobby, and I am drawn towards the large glass panes that separate me from a 17-storey drop to the street below. I take the lift down and go out in an attempt to walk it off, roaming the street pretending I’m looking for someplace to go. Once more, my mind is drawn towards thoughts of rushing out into traffic. I try my best to tell myself that these sensations are neurochemical phenomena, nothing more than blockers and transmitters flooding my brain. It’s exhausting, trying to keep my head from going under.
What frustrates me even further is the growing mountain of backlogged work that piles up from not being able to do anything productive for hours, days on end — except to find new ways to distract myself from the desire to just die.
Nothing about suicidality is a rational choice decision, in the same way that nothing about thirst is a conscious choice. You don’t decide to feel thirsty, just as we don’t control whether or not we feel like wanting to die. It’s the same reason why people stranded at sea without potable water can hold out only so long before they give in to the temptation to drink the seawater that will cause their kidneys to eventually fail from hypernatremia.
How Can I Help?
This is a tough one. I don’t currently have good answers for each case or person. But I will say this — act in ways that help us regain a sense of control. Don’t call security on us like my therapist did, or try to force us to do things because we “have to, even if we don’t want to”. We are equally aware of our circumstances, in some cases better than you think — and we’re not ignoring your advice because we want to.
Doing or saying things which eat away at our sense of self-control only damages our belief that we are strong enough to steer our mental ships away from the pulling currents of the desire to die. Understand that we are straining to pull at the helm of a ship on the edge of a whirlpool. Be patient with us. Don’t try to take over — you’ll kill us both. Instead, pull together with us by doing things that show us that it’s worth the struggle to stay alive.
Final Thoughts
I wrote this as a way to help others understand loved ones struggling with suicide, as much as it is a part of my own journey to understand and overcome my struggles with suicide.
If you find what I write to be helpful, share this with someone you know might need it.
Follow me on Medium to stay updated as I dive deeper into diagnosing the causes of my depressive episodes. In a previous article, I explained why I avoid “professional help”. But if you feel that you are rapidly losing control, reach out to someone you trust or if necessary, a good mental health professional.
