Story on Hold Until Further Notice

NOTE: I am going to be talking about suicide, however, at present, I am NOT suicidal. My diagnosis is "Clinical Depression with Suicidal Ideation," which means that I'm never completely free of the thought, it's just a matter of what level it's at today. My mother raised me better than to lie, so I honestly can't promise you what's going to happen 20 minutes from now. However, I CAN assure you that there is no current danger.

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T. MaskedWriter here. I'm afraid that due to recent events in my life, "Whatever Gets You Through The Night" must be placed on hold. As I mentioned in the comments of the last chapter, I live in Anchorage and my house was hit by the earthquake two weeks ago. Luckily, my parents quake-proofed the house long before leaving it to me, so a lot of things fell off shelves and got broken, but the bookcases and credenza and such are still standing.

A week after the quake, my roommate took his own life. He'd dealt with being on the Autism Spectrum all of his 29 years on this planet. Two years ago, he was diagnosed with Relapsing/Remitting MS. Based on his note, it seems the stress of the still-ongoing aftershocks might have pushed him over the edge. He's out of pain now, and he's left all of it to those who loved him.

I've been there. I've held a bottle of pills and stared at it for an hour. I've selected the song that I want my body to be found to. Again, I have NO current intention of doing these things! I love him, I love his wife, I love their two cats; I could not do that to THEM!

Unless you count Susan, I try not to speak for anyone other than myself. Therefore, the following statements apply specifically to me, however, may also apply to people in your own life. It is for that reason that I am sharing these thoughts with you all.

People say that when your depressed friends look for someone to talk to, you should listen to them. I say that you may need to go one step further and reach out to them. When I'm depressed and feel the need talk to someone, if you're someone I specifically choose not to, one of two things has likely happened:

A: I did so on at least one occasion and you gave me the kind of "get over it/pity party/feeling sorry for yourself/everybody has problems" response that established you as "Someone I Can't Come To With This Shit." Seriously, saying that shit to someone with depression is the equivalent of asking an upset woman if she's on her period. Why the fuck would I trust YOU with something serious ever again? I came to you once before and you gave me that shit! If anything, you just put yourself on the "reasons to do it" list!

B: I'm past the point of hope or seeing any reason to go on and have already figured out in my head the many ways that you will be better off without me; one of which likely being that I won't be bothering you with my pity parties anymore. We all know that once the monster dies, everyone else lives happily ever after. And if I've somehow wronged someone or caused someone who doesn't deserve it to fear me, that is exactly what I feel like. I have seriously Googled how one goes about buying a cave, because caves are where monsters are supposed to live.

Allow me to dispel a suicide myth for you: It's not "a permanent solution to a temporary problem," you fuck! Bravo for those people who have worse problems than me; THEY can take it, I can't! It isn't one big thing, it's a pile of little things that keep adding up, and life continues to suck and suck until one day you order scrambled eggs and they bring you sunny-side up and that's it.

I still have no plans to do it. I'm looking forward to doing a bit of game-streaming with a friend tomorrow and I just spent a shitload of money on new Call of Cthulhu stuff. The new Masks of Nyarlathotep, if you know the game. I bought the prop kit too, so I absolutely want to run it. I'll be here tomorrow, is what I'm saying one last time.

Writing started as how I went on after my mother died, and I want to keep doing it. Right now, though, I just fucking CAN'T do a murder mystery. "Whatever Gets You Through The Night" will continue. However, I can't promise when now, except that it's going to take some time, and I'm probably going to have to do a Troy & Julie story to be able to get back into it.

I'm aware of the irony of delaying a story where Helen is refusing to stop her movie. Like Susan, though, I know that I am not Helen, and I need to figure out how I would deal with this.