I had been told that the highest likelihood for suicide was not in the winter months but in the spring, when things seem to just be on there way to
getting better. People who off themselves during this time look at it almost with optimism, for to them
suicide is like spring cleaning. It is often right at the point where things are looking up that people find themselves in the deepest stages of depression.
Let me note here for people's concern that while I have no real intention of killing myself ever, I will admit (and likely others won't when they've thought about it too, we all do) that it has crossed my mind. Usually it's in those sparse moments between the good things that happen in my life, most of which I can take pride that I have set in motion instead of waiting to befall me, where I am just tired of living. It is not such a desperate notion that if this or that didn't happen, I'd be dead by now. It is not because someone called or didn't call; it's never as single minded as that. I'll just be sitting on the toilet, looking down at my feet, my back aching, my face broken out, my breath smelling like two mornings, and I'll have a split second notion of crawling into the tub and slitting my wrists. But then, I wipe, flush the toilet, and get back out there. I've gotten back out there for 24 years, and I have the greatest confidence that I will continue to do it until I die of natural causes, or at least causes not by my own hand.
Whenever I doubt my ability to handle something, whether it's the prospect of moving or getting a new job or finally finishing up things I'd left hanging long ago, the only thing that dissolves them is the simple fact that I've made it this far. The only reason I believe that I can relocate without having a job or residence lined up is because I've already done it, and I made it then and I'll make it again. I can say the same about making friends even, that if I was able to make friends here while having no one I knew to cling to for support, I can do it again. I only wish I could say the same for love. I wish I could say that I am certain I am capable of love because I've been able to be so before, but I don't think I ever have. I don't have one healthy example of a good relationship to lean on as a success, so in that area I seldom think I can succeed. I sometimes wish I could switch my strengths, since I think I could handle being unemployable more than I could being unlovable, or better put, incapable of love. There's always the service industry if I can't get a real job, but there is no other option for love. You are either capable or you're not, and if you're not, you just end up hurting people or getting hurt because you don't understand yourself, you don't understand why it won't work.
So what gets me through is that I have friends that I love dearly that I seem to have little difficulty cultivating that love. I need them because I have always needed them. They are there for me because they always have, even when they weren't what I wanted right then. They are, aside from my own ability, the things I rely on to get me through. That and God.