------Trigger Warning - thoughts of suicide------Poem: 'It is impossible'

[bluepalm]

------Trigger Warning - thoughts of suicide------

This morning I was reading articles discussing 'chronic' suicidality, and what 'chronic' conveyed and how best to describe constant thoughts and/or multiple attempts at suicide.   

https://themighty.com/2018/07/complex-trauma-how-to-live-with-chronic-suicidality-ptsd/?platform=hootsuite
https://tidsskriftet.no/en/2017/11/kronikk/chronically-suicidal

What struck me was how lucky someone could be, to be in such a safe place that they could consider intellectually whether the use of the word 'chronic' was helpful or harmful. I understand the helpfulness of this consideration. I appreciate the thought that goes into considering 'tips' to deal with such thoughts. And I feel so lucky that there is a sense of calm detachment now for me in my reading these interesting articles this morning.

The contrast between my current calm detachment this morning and what I remember as being the sticky, molasses-like turmoil of being caught in such feelings is sharp. I have been caught in these feelings in recent months, they hover always on the edge of my life, I can probably never fully escape them. And they have dominated my mind too often to count during my life.

I remembered a poem I wrote in the past about being so caught in a life lived 'skirting death' where I linked this to its cause - the void inside me that was caused by the hostile abuse and neglect I experienced from those into whose care I was born.

Being able to remember this and now know that my thoughts were a natural result of my circumstances - and that my poem (written well before the concept of CPTSD was formulated) was an accurate depiction of this - is one of the many ways in which having the framework of complex PTSD to understand my lived experience helps me.


It is impossible

It is impossible to pin pain down in words.
Words cannot stretch around
The aching, irrevocable sense of loss
that comes from a life lived
skirting death,
flirting with death,
taking death to heart
as the ultimate comfort.

It is impossible to fill words
with the feel of fear.
Thin words can never  encompass
the suffocating endless blackness
that comes when there is no human comfort to be had.
Long moments lost in panic,
endless moments spent running,
frantic for relief.


bluepalm

[RiverRabbit]

It is impossible

It is impossible to pin pain down in words.
Words cannot stretch around
The aching, irrevocable sense of loss
that comes from a life lived
skirting death,
flirting with death,
taking death to heart
as the ultimate comfort.

It is impossible to fill words
with the feel of fear.
Thin words can never  encompass
the suffocating endless blackness
that comes when there is no human comfort to be had.
Long moments lost in panic,
endless moments spent running,
frantic for relief.


bluepalm

I also find it is "...impossible to pin pain down in words."... I will pen them anyway.

I look back on anything I write and feel I have, once again, failed to "bring it across"... as it were.

My overuse of ellipses... a place-holder for the sub-audible rumble that fights to gain the surface, but always fails.

My grandiose ideals that float in the ether of my thoughts, but never become full flesh in my writing.

My knowing the prose will all be judged harshly... left on a rubbish pile of someone's nightly reading... to be quietly forgotten... its flame having died for lack of oxygen.

Why try?

... here is why...

Even in its imperfect form, it is a hand reaching out... it is an exposure, yes, to pain, but also to a possible connection.  It is seeking that which is worth more than riches... the connection of a shared tear.

It is an entwining through a shared experience... more than that... a shared suffering... a connection that is very rare in this world... and fleeting at that.

... and there... it is gone again.

[bluepalm]

RiverRabbit, you say:
"Why try?

... here is why...

Even in its imperfect form, it is a hand reaching out... it is an exposure, yes, to pain, but also to a possible connection.  It is seeking that which is worth more than riches... the connection of a shared tear.

It is an entwining through a shared experience... more than that... a shared suffering... a connection that is very rare in this world... and fleeting at that.

... and there... it is gone again."


No RiverRabbit, it's not 'gone again' - your heartfelt response, your attempt to reach out, connect, to my words and feelings is truly precious and will live always with me. Your suggestion of entwining through shared tears, shared experience, shared suffering, is powerful. It's true. It's what I feel when others respond to my thoughts. It's why I write too. And surely we can't expect to translate our feelings perfectly into words except occasionally, can we? Ellipses are needed sometimes to suggest at the depths and complexity, beyond words, inexpressible, that lie within us. Thank you so much for your thoughts in response to my poem and let's both keep writing.

[Kizzie]

Loved your poem Bluepalm in the sense that once again you articulated an issue that is difficult for survivors to talk about - suicide ideation as a way out, as comfort in the face of such existential threat and pain it can't be adequately captured in words.

RiverRabbit - I really liked your phrase "the sub-audible rumble that fights to gain the surface" - it is there constantly in me also. On the very few occasions it has made it to the surface and I have seen and felt it, the starkness of it has made me grasp for breath. If that is what I felt as a child no wonder I do not EVER want to feel that again.

This thread has made me feel less alone, thank you both for your posts.