tw: suicidal ideation – oh my god, they were roommates

I’d love to hear your thoughts on Matt Murdock and his bipolar disorder and Foggy trying to be supportive and A Good Friend™️.

HI I DID A SAD THING. tw: suicidal ideation, mania, mixed states, depression

most of matt’s time with elektra in college was wrapped up in a manic episode that just felt like being in love–and it was love, too, but it was also his heart kickstarting constantly and energy staticky under his skin and his memory of it fucked up later, no idea how the time passed.

he doesn’t just fall into depression when she leaves him but the broken glass place between the two where he spends a week hooking up with different people from random bars and stealing the pills from their medicine cabinets

(eta: it should be noted that this wouldn’t be matt’s normal instinct, that this is the thing your brain pulls out when you’re trying to figure out the most harm you can do to yourself without actually hurting yourself, how reckless and stupid you can be)

he finally goes back to the dorm with the bottles in the bottom of his bag and wonders what foggy would do if he asked him to read the labels to make sure he’s not just taking a bunch of tylenol

foggy tries really hard to do the kind of things you do when your best friend gets dumped, but matt gets into bed that night and doesn’t care if he ever gets up again.

he doesn’t tell foggy that he doesn’t want to go find someone to hook up with because he slept with five people last week. that he doesn’t want to drink because he’s afraid of what he’ll say. he just wants to sleep, he says. he’s just tired. it’s basically the truth.

foggy’s there even when matt doesn’t want him to be. foggy’s there even when he shouldn’t be, skips classes to sit in matt’s bed and make him watch movies and doesn’t act offended when matt gets huffy or when he gets mean, because sometimes he thinks he’s mean to foggy just to see what will make him finally give up

“this isn’t a normal breakup,” foggy says one day, and matt stays quiet and still for a long time before he nods. it’s not a normal breakup and it’s not just a breakup. it’s him.

foggy makes him eat and sleeps in his bed with him and doesn’t make him talk. he listens when matt wants to. slowly, matt doesn’t feel like the world’s going to shatter around him if he steps out into it.

he didn’t need foggy to do this, because this has happened before–some of it’s new, the hot fast shaky fun now now now feeling, but he’s been pulling himself out of this pit since he was a kid. he would’ve been okay.

…having foggy around didn’t hurt, though.

he throws away the pills and takes an hour-long shower and practices breathing like a person and faking smiles and foggy says, “hell yes, he emerges,” emphatically when matt meets him for lunch the next day.

matt’s smile isn’t as fake as he thought it would be.

Okay, so. It’s World Mental Health Day. And I’m here to talk to you in detail about why I’m so obnoxiously open about my issues on this, the world wide web, the widest of the webs.

I didn’t address any of my mental health problems until a couple of years out of undergrad. I’ve had anxiety for as long as I can remember. I started dealing with suicidal ideation when I was twelve.

Ignoring problems like that does a number on your brain. It damages it. And after more than a decade of digging my way into the ground, even though I’m getting help and I’m fighting, it sometimes feels like I’ll never completely make it to the surface.

I didn’t do anything about it because I grew up surrounded by the idea that symptoms of mental illness were something to get over. It wasn’t a problem you were having, it was a problem you were causing. If you’d just get out of bed, if you’d just be less lazy, if you’d just stop crying and get over it, it wouldn’t be an issue.

I absolutely believed that it wasn’t something I could get help for or something I could change. It’s just who I was. It’s something fundamentally wrong with me. On top of that, I spent several years trying to convince myself that I could just pretend I wasn’t gay because, god, I didn’t know how I could be happy like that. I didn’t even know what happy felt like to begin with.

I finally saw a therapist after going through a major depressive period that put me in a place where I knew I was going to do something dangerous if I didn’t stop myself. I think it was the hardest thing I’ve done. A phone call to make an appointment and an hour long conversation with a nice therapist is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It sounds ridiculous.

Learning how to talk about my problems was a struggle but it opened up the possibility that I wouldn’t feel like shit for the rest of my life. That I could have a life, that I could make something out of the static I heard when I thought about the future because I spent a long time when I was younger convinced I wouldn’t make it past the age of twenty.

Therapy along with medication, including lithium which legitimately saved my life by pulling me out of a bad manic episode, has put me in a place where I’m beginning to understand and trust myself, where I’m starting to function like a person who doesn’t hurt herself or let herself be hurt, where I…might know what happy feels like? I might.

If I’d gotten help back when I was a kid, things could have been really different for me. I don’t like to think about that a lot, but I know I’ve missed out on things that I shouldn’t and I know all of the repression and the shame has had lasting effects. It’s important to know that. It’s important to know exactly how deep the hole is if I’m going to climb out.

And that’s why I flagrantly throw my mental health problems around on the internet. I didn’t have anyone to tell me I could be okay. The stigma is bullshit and people need to know that they don’t have to pretend it isn’t happening and that it isn’t their fault before things go too far.

I’ve had a few people tell me that they decided to go to therapy after reading my posts, which is amazing, and I’ll keep doing it if it might reach a few more.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TEDTalk.

what is it about 3am that always has me googling which of my meds is easiest to od on

I’d love to hear your thoughts on Matt Murdock and his bipolar disorder and Foggy trying to be supportive and A Good Friend™️.

HI I DID A SAD THING. tw: suicidal ideation, mania, mixed states, depression

most of matt’s time with elektra in college was wrapped up in a manic episode that just felt like being in love–and it was love, too, but it was also his heart kickstarting constantly and energy staticky under his skin and his memory of it fucked up later, no idea how the time passed.
he doesn’t just fall into depression when she leaves him but the broken glass place between the two where he spends a week hooking up with different people from random bars and stealing the pills from their medicine cabinets
(eta: it should be noted that this wouldn’t be matt’s normal instinct, that this is the thing your brain pulls out when you’re trying to figure out the most harm you can do to yourself without actually hurting yourself, how reckless and stupid you can be)
he finally goes back to the dorm with the bottles in the bottom of his bag and wonders what foggy would do if he asked him to read the labels to make sure he’s not just taking a bunch of tylenol
foggy tries really hard to do the kind of things you do when your best friend gets dumped, but matt gets into bed that night and doesn’t care if he ever gets up again.
he doesn’t tell foggy that he doesn’t want to go find someone to hook up with because he slept with five people last week. that he doesn’t want to drink because he’s afraid of what he’ll say. he just wants to sleep, he says. he’s just tired. it’s basically the truth.
foggy’s there even when matt doesn’t want him to be. foggy’s there even when he shouldn’t be, skips classes to sit in matt’s bed and make him watch movies and doesn’t act offended when matt gets huffy or when he gets mean, because sometimes he thinks he’s mean to foggy just to see what will make him finally give up
“this isn’t a normal breakup,” foggy says one day, and matt stays quiet and still for a long time before he nods. it’s not a normal breakup and it’s not just a breakup. it’s him.
foggy makes him eat and sleeps in his bed with him and doesn’t make him talk. he listens when matt wants to. slowly, matt doesn’t feel like the world’s going to shatter around him if he steps out into it.
he didn’t need foggy to do this, because this has happened before–some of it’s new, the hot fast shaky fun now now now feeling, but he’s been pulling himself out of this pit since he was a kid. he would’ve been okay.
…having foggy around didn’t hurt, though.
he throws away the pills and takes an hour-long shower and practices breathing like a person and faking smiles and foggy says, “hell yes, he emerges,” emphatically when matt meets him for lunch the next day.
matt’s smile isn’t as fake as he thought it would be.

i don’t want to be a bummer and talk to someone about how i keep thinking about killing myself because i know i won’t do it in the end because i never do but i also know a lot of people who would be upset if i didn’t at least try to talk about it and, anyway, my brain’s not letting me do a whole lot right now besides be kind of terrified???

also, there is a 97% chance i won’t reply to any nice supportive messages about this, at least in any timely manner, because i’m also in prime Why Do People Care About Me When I Am A Useless Waste Of Time mode, so don’t feel obligated to do that just because i’m being, like, attention-seeking, i’ll be okay, i usually end up okay

i just need to be sad for a second, scroll on

uggghhhh I’m going to have to ask my parents if they’ll hide the gun or the bullets so I don’t know where they are, because I don’t think I’ll do anything, but I kind of just…stared at it for a long time this morning? I don’t even want to be compelled to touch it, guns terrify me, but I don’t want to risk even knowing where it is.