plans.

I'm a planner. I always have been. I love making lists and filling out my (monogrammed - duh) calendar. I love feeling prepared and knowing exactly how things will play out.

Except that's not always how life works.

My world was getting increasingly messy pretty much by the day, and I was getting more out of control by the day as well. I felt like I was hanging on by my fingernails. I couldn't control how I felt, what I thought, or how I behaved. (Let me clarify - those were the days I believed there was nothing that I could do to get better. I felt like a lost cause. I felt weak. I felt like I would never be able to overcome feeling so powerless and isolated. I didn't think I was strong enough to take back my own life. I thought the only answer was taking my own life.) I was obsessed with making plans and finding things I could control. I didn't know how to change the direction of the ride, but I knew I could bring the whole thing to a screeching halt. 

So I started making plans.

I spent a lot of time daydreaming (I use that term loosely.) and planning my, ummm, exit - for lack of a better word. As far as I was concerned, daydreaming wasn't dangerous or sick or cause for worry. (I was wrong.) I didn't consider myself to be at real risk for suicide because I didn't feel brave enough to go through with it. (Brave. That was always the word I used. Now it breaks my heart to think about it.) But that didn't stop me from being swallowed up by the thoughts.

Without going into too much gory detail, I'll say that I kept a list. The obvious out was always pills. Being such a wuss, one of my most major concerns was that something would hurt. As in physical pain. (Please don't try rationally comprehend those thoughts. It won't work.) Honestly - it's that fear of pain that I think kept me alive.

I was consumed with reading about suicide - I searched books, blogs, message boards, and social media sites for anything related to the subject. I was obsessed.

Part of that obsession included this spot. I drove by here on a particularly bad day, and the only thing I could think was to wonder what would happen if I drove my car full speed into the barrier. I let the scene play out in my head a few different ways - all with the same ending. I always wondered what it would feel like. The scary part is that I found myself driving out of my way almost daily just to pass The Spot. I kept driving by it thinking that one day I would finally have enough nerve to go through with it. 

These sick games of chicken never took place when my girl was in the car with me. Ever. I was terrified of hurting or damaging her. I only wanted to hurt myself. I was so sick at the time that I didn't realize any damage I did to myself - whether physical or emotional or both - would have been magnified in its effect on her. A good chunk of the time I spend in therapy these days has to do with how my mental illness has affected (and will continue to affect) my daughter. I learned in treatment that I have to get better for me, but if I'm honest I have to tell you that she is my why. She deserves a mom. She deserves me. It's always in the back of my mind that she may have to fight her own battle with bipolar depression at some point in her life, and it scares the hell out of me. I don't ever want this for her, but I want to know that I can face it if it comes.

Thinking about it all now, it hurts. It breaks my heart to think that I was so close to taking away my little girl's mama. And it makes me angry to think that I was so selfish. My short-sighted thought was that taking my life would mean an end to the misery that was always waiting for me when I opened my eyes in the mornings, but in reality, killing myself would have only created misery for everyone else in my world. And while the misery I felt didn't have to be permanent, theirs would have dragged on forever - along with guilt and anger and resentment and a myriad of other horrible feelings that wouldn't have died along with me.

I got close to going through with suicide several times. I'm not at a point yet that I can relive those episodes play-by-play; it's still too fresh. And I don't mean fresh as in it's too painful to recount. I mean fresh as in - recovering addicts can't spend their days hanging out with their old dealers, and those death and dying thoughts were my dealer. I'm so much better than I was a few months ago, but I don't think they will ever completely disappear. I don't wake up every day wanting to die. (I haven't always been able to say that.) These days it's very much the opposite. I'm finally happy to wake up in the mornings. 

Until I'm not.

I try every day to keep myself from falling back down the rabbit hole, and the thoughts of how I would hurt myself are at best a slippery slope and at worst a one-way ticket back to the days of wishing to die.

That statement is absolutely dramatic and also absolutely true. Part of my disorder means lacking the ability to find or maintain an even keel. I don't know when, where, or how to stop the downward spiral after it starts, so I'm doing everything I can to avoid it. I'm not dumb enough to believe I'll never have another crash, but I'm not inviting it in any sooner either.

My days of obsessive planning are over. I still love to make lists, and I still love to monogram them. I just don't let them revolve around my funeral anymore.

xo.