You’re Not Alone if the News Triggers Chronic Suicidality

On May 2, 2022, Politico exclusively leaked a draft opinion — since confirmed by the Chief Justice — showing that the Supreme Court has decided to overturn abortion rights, under the premise that there’s nothing in our original constitution that speaks to abortion – that it’s not rooted in our country’s honors and traditions. (Source: Politico news story)

When our constitution was drafted, it was drafted to protect a very select group of people – cishet, rich, able-bodied and minded, white men. Our country’s honors and traditions are steeped in nothing but white supremacy which protects them first, followed by white women (barely), and then everyone else wasn’t considered or thought of. Marginalized people were never a protected class in the states in the beginning of our nation’s history.

Twitter is full of slightly alarmist opinions that I do believe to be true – that this is only the beginning. In the same document, same sex marriage was highlighted saying it’s also in the same class of legislation that isn’t protected by our constitution. Roe v. Wade, Loving v. Virginia, and other bills like it hinge on the fourteenth amendment which details that we the people have a right to privacy. (Source: CNN news story)

If Roe v. Wade is infringed upon and recalled, that means as dismaying as it may be, other bills like it are next. This horrible moment in our modern history as a nation is only the beginning of an attack on marginalized folk’s civil rights. It’s not happening “next,” it’s already moving. It’s here, right now.

I’m a neurodivergent Black Queer woman living in a swing state, and I’m watching my supreme court make decisions that aren’t only barbaric and heart breaking, but that put my direct life at risk as someone with a uterus who belongs to a group of people with the highest pregnancy and birth-related mortality rates because my protection isn’t rooted in our country’s honors, or whatever. (Source: Reuters news story)

Today it’s my uterus. Tomorrow it could very well be who I’m allowed to marry and love. Then it could be where I’m allowed to live and work safely. I want to say my right to safety is being violated, but that would imply that ever existed to begin with, and currently I’m doubting that.

So I ask, what’s the point? No, not in fighting and protesting and marching, but in living.

I struggle with chronic suicidality. Usually it’s passive and doesn’t disrupt my life much. It’s those tiny little thoughts that happen so frequently they’re normalized in my brain, where I think about how much easier life would be if I just weren’t around. My friends and family can get therapy. They’ll heal. My job could replace me within a couple weeks. Life would go on even though I’m gone and I wouldn’t have to live a life frequently thinking about how my government is fighting to go back to the 1950’s. 

I wouldn’t have to worry about any of that if I simply ceased to exist. 

When these attacks to my freedom happen, it goes beyond basic anger and heartbreak, but it reminds me of how worthless I am in the eyes of the world and triggers some of the deepest parts of my suicidal ideation and thinking. 

I just want to love, have a family safely when I choose to one day, and actualize all of my ancestor’s dreams along with my own, but with every passing bill and piece of legislation, I lose a little bit of hope that I’ll live long enough to actually see it. Not because of someone killing me, but because I can’t take the despair anymore.