At 27, I’ve settled into a comfortable coexistence with my suicidality. We’ve made peace, or at least a temporary accord negotiated by therapy and medication. It’s still hard sometimes, but not as hard as you might think. What makes it harder is being unable to talk about it freely: the weightiness of the confession, the impossibility of explaining that it both is and isn’t as serious as it sounds. I don’t always want to be alive. Yes, I mean it. No, you shouldn’t be afraid for me. No, I’m not in danger of killing myself right now. Yes, I really mean it.
How do you explain that?
A few decades ago when I was a teen I stayed up for New Year. I told my mom that I didn’t think I’d make it through that year and she looked at me like I was crazy.
She didn’t understand, and I have kept that shit to myself ever since because it was embarrassing.