Manageable

Trigger warnings: self harm, suicide, suicidal ideation

My freshman year of college I stood sober in the midst of a party with all of my basketball teammates, and decided I no longer wanted to be there.

Without a word, I walked out the door, out of the building and headed toward my own. I had to cross the street to get there, and halfway across I decided I no longer wanted to be there. I sat down in the middle of the road.

Some time passed, though how much time, I couldn’t tell you then, and I can’t tell you now. My roommate had followed me out, found me sitting in the road. She called my name, over and over. Asked me to stand up. Begged me to stand up. I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. I was locked in my head. I no longer wanted to be there.

She called some of my other teammates, and eventually they lifted me off the ground and walked me to their first floor bedroom, unnerved to take me to my second floor one.

I began to cry. Not slowly. There was no progression. Just an onslaught, a barrage of tears. I cried about missing my friend Tommy that had passed. I cried about my Aunty Barbara dying. I cried for every single person I had lost up to that point. My heart ached in a way I could no longer bear. She took my phone, called my sister, or maybe she messaged her on Facebook, told her what was going on. My sister told her to stay with me, and to keep her posted. I cried and cried. I told them, plainly, truthfully “I no longer want to be here.”

‘Here’, meant anywhere, and some days it still does.

I have spoken ad nauseam about this backpack I cannot take off. This pesky voice in my head telling me there is only one way for this grief, and pain, and heartache to stop. This pesky voice I can go extreme lengths of time without hearing and then suddenly it is all I hear. Suddenly, my shoulders are slumped and my feet can barely go on, crushed by the weight of all I carry.

A month or two, the voice came back, in a way I thought felt manageable. I stood under the running water of the shower and imagined hanging myself from the shower rod. A day later I stood at the window of our balcony and imagined jumping to my death. More nights than I can count I have gone into the bedroom my partner and I share and cried silently, wishing there were a way for me to appease this voice without hurting her, or my family.

I still woke up everyday and checked all my boxes. I worked out, I drank 100 ounces of water, I went to work, fulfilled my duties— CRUSHED my duties. I spoke with coworkers, laughed with them, hung out with friends, joked and talked of future plans with them.

Manageable.

A few weeks ago, the voice got louder. Louder than it has been in a very long time.

I broke a glass, and stared at the pieces in the sink. I couldn’t remember which way to cut to bleed out. So I stared at them, trying to remember. Vertical or horizontal? Vertical or horizontal? Vertical or horizontal?

Frustrated with my lack of recall I joined my partner in the bedroom. I cried about things I didn’t even realize I had been feeling.

That’s usually how it goes, right? Feelings can be like a dam breaking. Far more water spills out at once than we could’ve imagined. I gave voice to things I thought I had made peace with. To insecurities and perceived shortcomings. To disappointments. To a desire to no longer be here. To a desire to no longer be anywhere.

“I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!” I cried to my partner. Then I went mute. I went still.

And then she got scared, and it brought me back, it snapped me out of it mostly. Sitting with the person I love the most, having them hold me and cry for me. Cry for the pain that lives inside me. Cry for the pain I work so hard on a daily basis to keep from coming to the surface. To keep the people I love from seeing. To fool them, to fool myself.

“I’m okay. Everything is okay,” I said. “I’m fine.”

Tears in her eyes, “You’re not fine, and that’s okay,” she said.

But the moment had passed, the vault had locked back up.

Manageable.

This is no cry for help, if anything, this is the acknowledgment that what I am describing as manageable shouldn’t be something to manage, and I’m doing what I can, as I always have to make this a place I want to be.