I’ve decided I’m going to be A Whole New Me. Just kidding. It’s taken me years to get used to the old me. I admit there’s room for improvement (which I always think sounds rather like redecorating the spare room) but, here’s an old-fashioned notion, I really quite like myself.
Suicide. It scares people – both those who are not suicidal, and those who are. It’s almost impossible to talk about unless you are with somebody who understands, because they have been there themselves. When I am suicidal (or have suicidal ideation, as it is more benignly phrased by psychiatrists although it all comes down to the same thing; you want to die) I call a friend, who I met in the loony bin, ten years ago. We have been close ever since, not bound through mental illness, but simply because we love each other. Anyway, I call him, sobbing that I want to die.
Diagnosing somebody under the blanket term of depression and handing them a pill is like shooting in the dark and hoping the bullet will find its target. Which is why, every time I read about depression in the media or hear that somebody has just been diagnosed by their GP as having depression, I think, well, what form of depression? Oh, you know; depression. Yes, but what … oh, never mind.
Anybody else out there a lister? Not an A or a B lister (unless it’s buy milk) but every damn letter in the alphabet right down to “take trousers to dry cleaners to get Zipper mended.” I found a list the other day headed spk Phillip. Who the hell is Phillip? Then of course there are the lists of lists. The kitchen table is strewn with them, which simply adds another item to the list. Must tidy the kitchen table. I even add items to the list at the end of the day of things that weren’t on the list in the first place – just so I can immediately cross them off again.