This entry is more for others than myself. We've reached the end of another Christmas season and there's a common misconception out there than it is a time when people choose to kill themselves. It isn't so. (http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/suicide.asp).
Folks inclined to suicidal thoughts can get them any time of year it seems and some more than others. I suspect I think about it far less than almost anybody, but I do get suicidal thoughts and I thought I would share them with you so you would have some idea what amount of catastrophic depression might be normal.
I get thoughts of suicide perhaps every other month. I often find them easier to come by when I'm sick. I may not even know I'm sick at the time, but the exhaustion imposed by disease on my body leaves me little energy for reading, writing a medical blog, or working on my ship models. Everything seems more like work than "activity". This feeling of constant disinterest in every facet of one's life is at the heart of the mental disease that carries the unfortunate name of "depression".
Depression brings to mind someone sad who just needs to take in a funny movie or go to Disneyland for the day. It's a very unfortunate name. The depression, I suspect is caused by the lack of energy one feels. It's like being sick. The brain doesn't sense the body's good health. It doesn't know it should feel good. Perhaps the brain is stuck in the mode most of us are in only when we're tired. The lack of willingness to do anything causes depressed people to fail to do anything which DOES make one sad. One does notice the wasted time and one can become very self critical over this failure to accomplish things even as small as enjoying one's day.
Setting the tangent aside, I am not and never have been depressed. Such people may be helped by antidepressants. They are thoroughly inappropriate for me. My suicidal thoughts are few and fleeting. All medical documentation I read tells me this is normal. My thoughts tend to be of the variety "What's the point in my existence? Why do I bother eating and working? What am I doing that will matter? How is any of my life useful or worthwhile?" These thoughts are usually followed up with something like "Good thing I've felt this way before and know I won't question the value of my life tomorrow morning. I'm just bummed and I won't be later. It's weird how this happens."
Then, sometimes, I do my trick.
The mind and body are connected. The mind can make the body physically ill. It's caused psychosomatic disease. Some are so "good at it" they can cause themselves to bleed. The most famous are called "stigmata", though many of those are faked. It works the opposite way too. Exercise is supposedly a mood elevator and my trick is another example I swear by. It was discovered that the expression on the face alters one's mood to match it. If something has made me sad or worried, I frown, my brow creases and my heart feels heavy. When I'm feeling suicidal, that's just what happens, so I do the opposite. I grin like a total idiot. Lips wide apart and teeth together, I look like I've just taken a double shotglass of Joker toxin from the Batman movie. It's eerily effective for me. I haven't had a bout of the blues survive this counterattack.
It's certainly a foolish waste of my life to stay blue. I've so little to complain about. Less and less lately. Some folks have much more reason and perhaps thinking suicidal thoughts every week would be entirely sensible. I mostly wanted to write this for those who are frightened by their thoughts of ending their lives just because they feel they have lost their way. I am exceptionally blessed and aware of it. I'm happier than most and yet I get the same thoughts every other month with no reason for it. If you have relationship issues, misbehaving children, legal battles, a diagnosis of cancer... don't go thinking suicidal thoughts make you crazy. I discourage serious consideration of such a rash, permanent course of action, but it may be some comfort to someone that the happiest and luckiest among us have these thoughts too and having them doesn't suggest weakness, insanity, or even that anything is necessarily wrong. Our tiny seeds of self-destruction are an inescapable, normal part of every human being. I hope this puts some troubled minds at ease.
* DM
Next: Ready, Set, OW!
Fitness Goals:
60 beats per minute resting pulse.
15 minutes hard cycling. (intensity 5)
Weights: 3 days - 100 lbs. - 6 cycles of 5,5,5,10 repetitions (2 cycles/day)
Current Fitness Record: (since last entry)
Pulse: 60 beats per minute (unconfirmed)
3 x 20min min cycling - intensity 1.5
0 day - 65 lbs. - 0 cycles
Blood Pressure: 125/69 11-2007
RECENT SYMPTOMS : weak knees
ONGOING SYMPTOMS: Slight pain in right knee when kneeling and shifting knee to the right. Hyperhidrosis.
DIAGNOSIS: Dry skin, tooth bone loss with pocketing of gum, Unknown injury to right knee, possible impact from small stumble onto landing of concrete stairs. Injured knee joints from sprinting.
DRUG REGIMEN: Aspartame. (3 diet sodas daily) Caffeine (three cups of coffee daily. One cola.)ONGOING TREATMENT: Moisturizer. Tri-Annual dental visits. Cycling / Spinning.
PROGNOSIS FOR FOLLOWING WEEK: Slow improvement of knee. Good health.
POTENTIAL TREATMENTS: Fish Oil supplements. Leafy greens. Axillary curettage.
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