Radio Silence, or Eleven Days and Twelve Nights In A Stone-White Room.

I'm back.

I feel...

...I don't know. I don't know what I feel.

I read yesterday in this book, a book on why people who commit suicide do so, that two conditions must exist for a person who can and will commit suicide (as opposed to the equally-dangerous if less premeditated accidental suicide by suicidal gesture): they must perceive themselves both as a burden on their loved ones and lacking a community, involvement and belonging, to something, anything.

I guess that's where I am. I do feel a burden, I do feel removed from meaning, from belonging.

On November 30th, 2007, I checked myself into Harborview Medical Center for severe depression and anxiety with suicidal ideation.

It was good for me. Right after I got out, I was feeling a little (okay, a lot) better. But now, almost two months out, my meds have stopped working and all of the wonderful people who came out of the woodwork to support me have gone back to their lives. For the which I can place no blame; they have their own lives which I do not want to interfere with. I haven't been able to see anyone to get my medication adjusted. I can barely go to my day job, I rarely leave the house, I see almost no one. A few months ago I couldn't sleep past 9am; now, when I sleep, I sleep until 1pm, sometimes waking only to stay in bed, quietly and warmly, and wondering what would happen if I didn't leave.

The sole bright point, the only thing to look forward to without the guilt of my own absurd existence marring it, is a writing project that I seem to have fallen into with Mr. ARS. A rock opera. We're writing a rock opera. Which, since that's the most absurd thing I could possibly think of to do, seems right somehow. Good. He saved my life, too: he was the one who talked me down at the crucial moment when I am almost certain few, if any, others could have. He knew what to say. He did not cry, or beg, or coddle, or tell me that I had so much to live for. Rather, he calmly stated that, although not a sin, it would be a waste. He knew he could not stop me; he could only ask.

I understand that what I have is a disease. I do not hold myself to blame. I hold my parents somewhat responsible due to their abhorrent parenting, though not entirely because of the overwhelmingly vast mental illness streaking through my family, running wild like a sophomore on Spring Break in Tijuana.

Neither do I hold anyone else to blame. How could I? I only wish that I were a healthier person in order to be a better friend or family member to them.

I feel? Grateful that I have such a beautiful life, angry at my ungrateful self that I do not or cannot appreciate it in all its beauty. Utterly alone at times, although I know in my head that is a lie I tell myself, like the lie that I feel empty.

I know that I'm going to get up tomorrow, eventually eat, knit for a while, and try to breathe and stay calm.

But I do, oh I do, wish that I had a reason to get up tomorrow.