a little bit about mental crises

i had a person tell me he wanted to die, last week. that might be an abrupt beginning to this, but he told me very abruptly as well. i was cooking dinner. he was looking to tell someone. and he’d just gotten back for signing up for treatment. he wasn’t the first one who has told me so since i moved here for university, but he was the first one where i had no clue something was wrong. i told him as much, during our hours of conversations since.

but this isn’t about him, it’s some thoughts i’ve had afterwards. on a very personal level i’m glad i feel like a safe person to tell for more than one. on the other hand i’m the absolute worst person to tell because i have no distance or objectivity, having lived with pain and death and pain and death hanging over my head for so long. i tell everyone of them that, scared that i might make things worse by my understanding too much. not that i think i’ve ever really felt the deepest pits of depression.

a big problem with conveying mental health issues is that you need to be a damn good story teller to be able to portray it correctly. this guy’s descriptions and metaphors were vivid and won’t leave my head. whatever i’m feeling i can’t describe as eloquently.

i’m doing great since the move, really. since beginning university. that doesn’t mean i don’t live in a cycle of constant chronic pain because of illness and is tired down to my bones, sometimes. and sometimes lonely. today it’s because i really need someone who understands me and feels safe to hold around me and i haven’t yet found that here. i will, eventually.