Shrödinger's Suicide

I'm not suicidal, I'm just standing on the edge of a cliff waiting to be pushed off.

This is a phrase that came to my mind recently. I've suffered with varying degrees of depression for more than half my life. Whilst I was first initially diagnosed with 'mild' depression at 18, I was writing poetry at 13 that could have been dismissed as teen angst. I also admitted to a friend that I sometimes scratched at my arm with a compass. Not to mention that I developed chronic fatigue as I started high school, an illness that can be a result of great stress (read: mental breakdown).

I believe I was predisposed to be this way. My mother once informed me that my grandmother had postnatal depression. She developed situational depression whilst caring for her aging parents. If I had a genetic disposition, the trauma of growing up with an absent father and increasingly struggling to fit in anywhere socially didn't help. Even when I did make friends, I felt like a social drifter who didn't know where they really belonged. Interests changed as we got older and had less in common. Being a sober University student sets you apart from the get-go when the most socialisation centres around alcohol. My undiagnosed neurodivergence is another discussion all together, but not entirely unrelated here. Forever being the 'weird guy' can be a one way ticket to burn out before you even know that's a thing.

I first attempted to take my own life during my second year of University. I was in the middle of writing an essay that was due the next day. I got everything together, but had not thought it through so when I started hyperventilating I stopped myself. I carried on with the essay and submitted it in the morning as if nothing happened. My housemates never knew. In my third year, I took to self-harming again. I was struggling with my finances, trying to establish a relationship with the father who'd got back in touch with me and overwhelmed by the difficulty of University level study. I didn't turn up for three weeks and no-one noticed enough to ask about me or attempt contact. My thesis supervisor didn't seem to notice that I had not submitted anything. Granted, University is supposed to be mostly independent, but I often wonder if a better University would have.

Upon returning home from University my 'emergency fund' was depleted and I was deep into my student overdraft. I hadn’t really recovered from my breakdown, but by the end of the year I found myself trying something new. I started an animal care course with people 5 years younger than me and felt more at home than I’d felt in my three years at University. Unfortunately it was a very short-lived endeavour, thank to some government red tape that meant I could neither afford to fund the course nor be eligible to continue the course for free. As a result, I spent two years job hunting, doing some government enforced ‘voluntary’ work along the way. I eventually found a care work job, which I’ve held down for 10 years, but my body has started to betray me.

To rewind slightly, during a period of mental clarity I had the realisation that I was transgender. The following year, I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. I would be hospitalised twice for it in the two years after. It was feeling like every time I took a step forward or had got a hold on one thing, life would throw something else at me. I came up with the line “I tried to choose life, but life didn’t choose me” as part of a poem I wrote for a convention talent show. This line still rings true. I once made it to one year clean of self harm, but I have never made it to two years clean. In spite of this, across various medications and attempts at seeking therapy (which could be another essay in itself), things have never got as bad as that second year of University. Then the pandemic hit.

Before the first Covid lockdown, I was planning my first trip from England to America. I was going to visit Philadelphia, New Jersey, Baltimore and Boston to see various bands and friends. This trip was cancelled and my mental health spiraled. I had only started booking things a few months before the world would be sent into lockdown. It was what I was persevering through my increasingly difficult work shifts for. What I was enduring the fatigue and pain for. Gone. I know I’m not alone in losing things to the pandemic and that it has been tough on everyone, but something in me broke. As the Covid situation worsened so did my mental health. I held a key worker position but due to being immunocompromised I entered my own personal shielding. I earned a furlough during this period and was rebooking things as they got postponed but I was fractured. One night, I was curious about self harming in a more obvious spot than usual to see if it hurt more or possibly even just so I’d have a visible scar people might be inclined to check in on me for. This was a mistake that was almost an accidental suicide attempt. I got very faint. Luckily, I managed to get it under control myself and like before I cleaned up, dressed it and carried on as if nothing was wrong. Due to the mild weather I was able to wear long sleeves while I waited for the scar to form and counted it as a second attempt, even though that was not my original clear intention I think a part of me was doing it with the thought that I might not survive it. Again, the fight came back in time to reverse it.

One year on and I’m still off work. Except I realise I don’t actually want to go back. Whilst my mental health had suffered greatly and I had gained weight, I enjoyed being on my own schedule and not having to mask 5-7 days a week beyond the one I wear for my mother, whom I live with. I realised that in an ideal world I would leave work, go on disability benefits and just do voluntary work as I feel able to. I know this is a dream many people want and that it is not an ideal world but that is how I feel. I’ve tried thinking about alternative work I could do that could fit in with the new limits of my body but I just end up getting overwhelmed with decisions and resign to not even try. So the stagnation continues, which means the hopelessness continues. I see friends conquering their mental health, marrying off and chasing dreams yet feel unable to move forward myself. I failed to qualify for top up benefits let alone attempt applying for full time disability benefits, due to my conditions being invisible and the unfair system that makes qualifying for it near impossible.

I think of all the times I’ve been frustrated with people who you keep trying to reassure matter in this world and how I now relate to them. Kind words do not make a dent in my walls and I feel like I have given up on myself. I cannot find the energy or finances to try more treatments, more courses of therapy. Yet I am also not quite at the point of being actively suicidal and making plans to enact it. Rather than trying to die, I am simply waiting to. Deep in debt from the financial whims I tried to fill the void with during lockdown. Exhausted mentally and physically. Standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting to be pushed off.

Luke Elliott