I've been torn about jumping in on this issue, but some people have said it's helpful to hear the stories, so you might as well hear mine. Also, because I've been thinking quite hard about the 'selfish for not trying to get well...' stuff.
When I was suicidal, I'd been on medication for three years, and was seeing a doctor regularly. I'd been through two lots of therapy. I had tried. I'd tried so bloody hard to prevent this happening, and I still got stuck there.
I have wanted to be dead, or more accurately in my case, 'assuming I should be dead' for quite a lot of the time, but I distinguish that from the times when I've been actively suicidal. Basically, between wishing or hoping or feeling the intense need to kill myself against the point where there are firm plans in place, and I'm prepared to take matters into my own hands. I'm lucky, because I've been actively suicidal for only about three weeks, and I'm exceptionally lucky, because I had just enough awareness that this was a symptom to be able to tell someone what was going on (and he was clueless, but it did at least give me the strength to tell someone else, who was brilliant).
The thing I remember most from that time, was the fact that it felt like something that was happening to me. Not something I had any control over at all.
Like I say, I've been depressed on and off for 15 years. I thought I knew all the signs. I've spent a lot of time not being able to plan beyond the next 3 minutes because I wasn't sure I was going to make it out of that 3 minutes. It was pain, yes, that's true, but it was also absolute terror that this thing, this thing inside me was out of control and I could do nothing about it.
I tried clever little things to keep me from harm. My planned methods in my 'I should probably be dead' state both involved a walk (I could never kill myself in the house where my children live), because I knew that the act of being outside and moving was likely to make some headway into the feelings of horror - I was likely to increase my heartrate and start feeling the wind and have something, anything, that was outside of me, and I know that these things can help just ease the blackness away a little bit.
So by these clever little methods, I tried my best to get myself through the next 3 minutes, and the next 3, and hope that slowly the feeling of intense, all consuming blackness would slowly ease up.
That is how I live. That's the reality. The thing is, that, above, with the sense of nothingness and blackness and that I just have to hold on with my fingernails and hope when there is no hope left... that's me basically controlled. That is NOT me suicidal.
What I hadn't expected was that it might get worse than that, and it did. Just this last April gone. I cannot adequately express what that felt like, apart from to say it was worse.
I had a plan. I knew when and where (not in the house), I knew who would find me (he's strong and sensible; he'll survive). I knew that I am without a doubt the most dangerous thing in my children's lives, and that I needed to remove that threat. They would be able to get well again; they'd have support, and they'd no longer have me, destroying them.
Even then, even through all that, it felt like it was something that was happening to me; not something that I had any control or choice over at all.
My exact words to my husband when I finally opened up to him was; 'we need to prepare the children for the fact that I can't fight this forever.'
I have been fighting it for years now, three minutes my three minutes, and I swear to God, I have worked and hung on and hung on. But I was absolutely, bottom of the pile exhausted, and I just didn't know how long those tiny, cotton threads would hold me. And it was terrifying. The pain of it; the physical pain was horrendous. Terrified to live, terrified to die, just utter terror, relentlessly. And having tried everything else, there was one certain way to stop that terror.
I'm not talking for everyone. I can't say that everyone who commits suicide is definitely ill, but having felt that terror, that pain... well, I just feel so awful for them. Of course I feel awful for those left behind, but... well. I just can't.
We're what, 5 months on from that 3 weeks of hell now. I'm still pretty raw. I'm on two sorts of medication now, and one of them is making me feel physically dreadful. Really unpleasant. The other makes me faint regularly. Still, I keep trying, because I genuinely don't want to fuck up my children's lives that way, and I have to do something about it when I'm basically well, because when I'm not, I can't.
Right now, I'm at the point where I accept that people think I'm better off alive, because they tell me so, but I don't see it and I can't feel it. I'm taking it on blind faith. People tell my my children are better of with me moody and changeable than not here at all, and again, I nod and say 'OK then', but I can't feel it.
What scares me beyond all measure is knowing how hard I fought last time, and how grueling that was, what will happen if that comes at me again. Will I be strong enough? I just don't know. The thought of it terrifies me.
Anyhow, I just thought I'd say. This is how it can feel from the inside, as it were.
Also, I know can I just say that arguing about the semantics of the word 'selfish' in this context is leaving me feeling a bit nauseous. We all know what people mean when they say it. I'm not proud of my past, and to be honest, I haven't got the spare energy to use on caring that people on the internet think I'm selfish. I'm conserving that for the fight that I'm probably going to be fighting for the rest of my life, hoping that at some point we find an effective treatment before I run out of strength. But it's grim.