Life 'Got Better,' But Secretly I'd Still Rather Be Dead

I have a good life. In fact, I have a great life.

I look around at everything I’ve been able to do in my short 26 rotations around the sun and go, “Damn, I did that.” I have friends who are supportive, consistent, and honest. I’m fully convinced I have the best mother on earth. My job is fulfilling (and I’m not just saying that my boss will probably read this) and I look forward to logging in every day. Every day I’m surrounded by beauty and love and I wake up knowing the illicit privilege I have to live a good life.

And still, I’d rather be dead.

It’s not that I’m actively suicidal. I’m aware that I live with chronic suicidal ideation as a result of my mental conditions. Wanting to un-alive myself is almost as “normal” and “natural” as breathing or wondering if I turned the coffee pot off when I leave the house.

When you first start experiencing suicidal ideation and you voice it, you get hit with “Hang on! It gets better,” and they’re not wrong because it did. I’m weight restored in my eating disorder. I’ve marginally healed from a lot of childhood abuse. I’ve reclaimed my body, time, and mind from the vice grip of bullshit I’ve had to endure in life. It got better.

And yet, I’d still rather be dead.

I’m waiting for the moment where something so spectacular happens where I’m happy I’m still here. I want to look back at my actively suicidal periods and say “Wow! I’m thrilled that I’m still here and I made it out of that darkness, because now I get to experience this.” I’m waiting for an up so high, that my lowest of lows is overshadowed by pure joy and bliss, but it hasn’t happened and I don’t know if it will. Sure, when you’re dead you don’t get to experience the good, but you’d also not have to experience the bad either and that’s more tempting than my bed after a night out socializing with people I don’t really care about in places I don’t like. 

I don’t hate my life. I love my life. I adore the life I have created from the ground up. I feel blessed to live in this skin and look like me, think like me, and to be me. All my dreams are coming true, but there seems to be a cap on my happiness, because lingering in the back of my mind is the constant whisper of my suicidality. 

I’m safe. I’m not going to do it, and I mean that. I’m here to stay. There’s more people for me to love, places to go, and simply life to live. However, my confession remains the same.

There’s more life to live, and I hope there comes a day where that actually excites me.