I’ve thought about suicide everyday since Robin Williams took his own life. The pain he must have felt at that moment must have been all consuming. I’ve been battling depression in the worst kind of way. I’m not sure how I got here but after Sophie passed I seemed to have gone over the edge. I talk about my grief and the onset of my depression in Drowning I and II. I saw myself slipping more and more into this darkness and tried to pull my way out with a plan that just went straight to hell in a hand basket one minute at a time.
After Robin Williams death my mind started racing and I started to panic. I even asked my therapist about suicide and she said that most people don’t give a lot of thought to it before they take their life. It’s an impulsive act. The person becomes all consumed at the moment in time and it seems the only way out. In truth it scared me. Right now my life seems to be on some kind of autopilot ran by someone other than me. No matter how hard I try I can’t seem to do any of the things that I set out to do. It’s like this, I say I’m going to go one way and I actually go another. Shit most days I don’t go at all, I just be.
I came to the conclusion that I’m tired.... I’m tired of thinking.... I’m tired of taking medication... I’m tired of trying to make life happen... I’m tired of being this super famous black woman with AIDS... I’m tired of doing it on my own.. I’m tired of trying to save those that I’m suppose to be saving... I’m tired of trying to make life work... I’m FUCKING tired of AIDS... I’m tired of deciding if I should buy groceries or pay my cell phone bill with the little money I do manage to get. I’m tired, tired, tired. I’m even tired of being tired, so I just be.
Most days I don’t have the energy to wash my tail. No joke, I can go 2-3 days without bathing. I say to myself, “Rae you stink” but most days I feel like I have a ball and chain around my neck and making it to the shower requires to much of me. So I do nothing. I marvel at the few times I’ve recently had commitments that were unavoidable and I was forced to make myself look like a woman with the world at my feet. When it’s all said and done, I come home and with the stroke of a cloth I wipe the facade off my face, inch by inch by inch, and then I just be.
Some days I make it to the kitchen to cook at least the meat but cannot muster up the energy to make a vegetable. It’s easier to eat cookies for breakfast and cheetoes for lunch. It requires only that I open the bag. Eating chocolate is even easier than washing fruit. I can’t remember to take my medication and that’s with my alarm set. I hit the button and I know what I’m suppose to do but doing it requires something of me. Quite frankly I’m tired of expectations, even those that will save my life.
I have never felt this level of hopelessness ever in my life. Even when mama was beating the living shit out of me I knew that she would eventually stop and I could go back to being a “normal” little girl just like my friends. Even when I was raped at 17 coming home from church, I knew deep down that when he finished his “business” he would roll off my body like water and I could go home and wash him out of my spirit. Even when my T-Cell count was 8 and I was on my third bout of PCP (Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia) I had faith that God still had a plan. In all of my life there was faith in what I could not see.
Right now, I’m even tired of faith. I’m tired of hoping and praying for better tomorrow’s in my right now pain. I want God to intervene in my right now, but right now he seems to be silent and His silence has exhausted me. I’m tired....
Be clear though, based on my history with God and my deep understanding of how God operates, I know that God has a plan for the rest of my life. Frankly, it is only that knowing of God that keeps me alive when I’m tired of living. I’m a tad curious on how this thing will play itself out. I’m probably just plain nosy, but for sure, curiosity and hope are two very different things
Yet at the same time, any hope in God’s plan for my tomorrow are overshadowed by my desolate right now. It feels like God has taken a freaking vacation on my life and just maybe some of my depression is connected to my faith; And honestly, church folk don’t help God out one bit. The fact that I haven’t been to church since the first day of Lent and the only thing any member of my church can tell you about me is what they read on Facebook is just... I’ll leave that one alone for now. I’m unpacking all of this in therapy.
For sure, I understand that all consuming feeling and it has exhausted me into a place of just being. Maybe the thing that helps to keep me alive besides my curiosity with God plan for my life, is that I’m just to tired to do anything other than just be.
Related Posts:
20 Comments
20 Comments