(The Politician’s) River Feels Everything, And I Do Too
There’s a point in The Politician when River, who takes his own life, explains to Peyton why he did it — or Peyton’s imagined ghost form of him does. He says that he feels everything, and so there are lots of positive and negative thoughts swirling in his head. He did what he did because one day the bad thoughts outweighed the good ones. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more perfect explanation for how I feel.
I want to be honest. It would be the easiest, hardest thing to be. But I am aware that not everyone wants to hear the truth. I can respect that. The more I’ve learned and understood over the years, the truths of the world, the more complicated and painful it seems. However, I would still rather know the truth than something palatable.
Every Day Is A Choice To Keep Living.
Every day is a choice to keep living. I’m taking the positive perspective today. Some days I’d say, every day is a choice not to end my life. I live fully aware that I could make the choice to not keep doing this and so being able to affirm that I’m going to keep going feels empowering.
I didn’t always deal with my emotions so easily or clearly. I can’t even really remember the first time I had thoughts that led me to question if I should keep living, it is engrained in my memories, though I think the early teenage years catalysed it. It wasn’t prompted by anything, to my knowledge. I just began to find life harder and realised that I didn’t have to keep going on an uphill climb.
Looking back, I can see that as a child I was very open and aware of my feelings. I felt them, out loud. Situations and growth prompted me to reconsider if I should be so free with my emotions, leading me to begin to bury them. I forced my feelings away. Which, of course, means they didn’t really go away, they just become solidified in my mind rather than expressed. I separated my outward emotions from my inner ones. In my early twenties I would start to refer to this feeling as being “behind my eyes” — the idea that I existed only behind my eyes and was watching my own body do actions that I was no longer connected to.
Mental Agility
I began to reassess my relationship with my mind and my emotions in my mid-twenties. I felt alone, though I was around people. In part because I’d experienced a series of betrayals from close friends, people with their own issues who lashed out or used me as their crutch and then reacted out of fear that they had let me in. I was drinking a lot, working in a bar, and the mental agility required to convince myself that I shouldn’t take action to end my life was becoming too tiring to maintain.
I remember lying on my bed in my room tearing at my head, silently screaming into a pillow and crying. I wanted my mind to stop. I wanted it to stop thinking. I couldn’t figure out how to stop my brain from trying to destroy me from within. External forces were doing that enough, having the call coming from inside the house was becoming too much to bare.
A realisation struck me one day. I found myself questioning if I was stuck in a cycle and so began to think of ways to break the habits that I’d been used to. In part, it meant cutting myself off from certain influences, letting go of some toxic friendships and focusing on me in a way I hadn’t done before. I challenged myself to run every day for a month. I did it, for the most part, even though I’m not a runner and really dislike it. But even the short runs, mixed with walking, must have fired off enough endorphins to help me to fight back.
Over time, I made little changes in my focus to restore positivity and control to myself. I fed what gave me joy, which was often creative outlets and plenty of long walks with loud music. I was still lonely but at least I was in control.
At last, a momentous change occurred. I think about this day every so often and marvel at it. I can recall the feeling, like the most real dream. I was sat in my usual coffee shop, on a high stool looking out of the window. I was sketching quietly and then a thought appeared in my head. “I wouldn’t kill myself today.” It was so fleeting and by-the-by that I almost didn’t take it in. Then I processed what I’d thought. For the first time in years I didn’t want the option of ending my life.
This thought formed part of an upswing that allowed me to develop more coping mechanisms over the years and to identify when I was becoming overwhelmed by thoughts and feelings that were at odds with how I wanted to feel. Now, I would name them as depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide. I didn’t know they were called anything then. I thought that was just how I was supposed to live, until I decided not to.
This Little Voice That Lives Inside My Mind
I feel lucky in a way because, as much as I have always felt everything; often to the point where I unconsciously take on the emotions of people around me, I have also been an over-thinker. I worry about almost all my decisions. I can only act spontaneously by consciously not thinking. Which sounds like a riddle and feels like one too.
The over-thinker has given power to this little voice that lives inside my mind. This presence that always holds on no matter how powerful the darker feelings get. I can see it in my mind when I am really struggling. I’ve given it strength and resolve too by imaging it has a forcefield around it and me that allows us to keep the dark thoughts at bay.
Recently, I’ve come out of a harder time and into a period of positivity. Remission from suicidal thoughts. At thirty years old, I am more prepared than ever to deal with the return of these emotions but preparedness won’t keep them away forever.
Even this is a form of therapy for me. Being able to put down in words the feelings gives them a little less power, especially when I feel myself going down the old thought rabbit roles that would cause me to isolate myself, punish myself, gorge myself and become paralysed with fear that I’m running out of energy for the little voice.
But I’m here. I have a way of coping. And I am getting better at letting my emotions out. I can feel everything and now I know there are also ways to express those feelings rather than keeping them contained within my mind.
Are You Considering Harming Yourself?
Help in the UK: https://www.giveusashout.org/get-help/
Help in the US: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
