Improving

 Feeling less suicidal.

I've been plagued by suicidal thoughts for a very long time.  Perhaps a negative thought pattern that has become a habit.  These thoughts have been with me since I was, at least, 16.  I have clear memories of driving along the interstate and just thinking to drive myself into a bridge column.

I do need to get rid of that thought pattern.  It's not healthy.  In some ways, I'm not too worried about succumbing to the thoughts.  There are two things that stop me: fear and love.

Fear is the first.  I've held a razor to my wrist.  I was scared.  I put the barrel of a gun in my mouth.  I trembled with fear.  I had always hoped that it was a love of life that kept me from killing myself, and it was a cold revelation to know that it was fear.

Love is the second, more recent and more positive reason.  I have a child.  I love my child so much. To kill myself would be to abandon them.  I can't do that.  I can't hurt them that way.  I could write letters telling them that I love them with all my heart, but my suicide would still hurt them and possibly scare them.  I can't do that.

But I still need to break the habit of these thoughts.  It may be a bigger issue.  I have all kinds of thoughts running through my head.  Bad thoughts.  I have never acted on any of them, and really intend never to.  Why do I think such thoughts?  I'll have to dig into that.

Last thought to get down: a waking dream of slicing my wrist.

I had a day dream a long time ago (pre-marriage, pre-child) that I took a razor and sliced my vein from my wrist up towards my elbow.  The vein split open and there was emptiness.  Blackness.  Nothing.  The idea that it was just an empty void weighs on me.  Why the emptiness?  Is it how I feel about what is inside me?