Fighting Suicide with C – Week 39

This hardly even warrants an entry, but in my obsession for complete records of my psychotherapy with C, I am going to write at least a rudimentary account of it anyway.

The reason it doesn’t merit a post is not so much because it was a useless session – though in some ways it was – but more because I was dissociated through most of it, as I was stressed, agitated and strongly suicidal.  The whole session, insofar as I remember it, essentially consisted of me repeating, repeating and repeating some more that I wanted to die, that I didn’t care about anything except bringing about my own death and that I took no pleasure in anything in my existence whatsoever.  Another clichéd expression was, “I don’t have a life; I have a mere existence.”

We talked briefly about my name change, which has now taken place (w00t!), and he asked me how life as [my new name] was.  I said, “it’ll take a while to get used to being called that.  As for the life thing, well – that’s not going so well.”

I decided to be honest and just tell him that I wanted to die.  Generally I’m careful about being so direct about it, as I know he can contact a psychiatrist or my GP if he feels a suicide attempt is imminent.  But I was so desperate and miserable that I just admitted to the strength of my suicidal thinking.

I said, “at the minute it’s very much a case of when, not if, I do something.”

He came off with some blather about how some people try to conceive of things after death – a contradiction in terms to someone like me, who doesn’t believe in an afterlife.  He therefore suggested that I didn’t really want to die, because I could apparently still imagine the relief that might come from death.

This annoyed me.  Does he really think I don’t know this crap?  How stupid would you have to be to not understand the distinction between death and thinking about death?  Fuck’s sake.

“That’s exactly the point,” I protested.  “I want that nothing, that permanent unconsciousness.  I don’t want to conceive or perceive anything.  I.  Want.  To.  Not.  Exist.”

I exemplified my point by telling him about an operation a few years back when I was under general anaesthetic.  At one point I was panicking like fuck because I was petrified of being awake during the procedure — then the next thing I knew, I was crying in recovery with a nurse sitting beside me, informing me the operation had gone without incident.

“There was nothing in between,” I said to C.  “That is what I want.  Permanently.”

“But you awoke from that nothing,” he went on.

So?  The point is I want the nothing to be permanent.  Having been through that experience, I now know the nothing, or rather I don’t, because it isn’t anything.  That’s the beauty of it.  I would genuinely welcome it.

I berated myself for not having had the balls to properly attempt suicide as yet.  I reminded him that I was a frequent visitor to a pro-choice suicide newsgroup, and to that end, that I knew exactly how to complete the act.  I said I kept imagine my body flying off some of the highrise flats near where A and I live.  I even suggested I had images of me with a bag over my head, a connection to helium tank being hooked up to it.

At one point I must have gone really mental, because he kept authoritatively calling my name to try and break into my consciousness.  I remember sitting with my hands around my head, then pulling my hair to try and reorientate myself.  C asked me to join him in some breathing exercises; for the most part I think these are shit, but I didn’t have the will to protest.

He asked if I ever tried these exercises at home.  I lied and said that I did, but added – truthfully, I believe – that the scalpel was much more effective at ‘grounding’ me.  I think he responded about the usual crap – about how that was true, but that it was self-destructive – but I don’t remember clearly.

It became apparent to me at one point that he was under the impression that I wanted him to do something about my being actively suicidal.  I can’t remember what it was that he said, but he must have made some inference to this effect.  I therefore responded by yelling at him that I didn’t want anything from him, I just wanted to be dead.

C said, “but you do want something from me – you want me to help you and not to abandon you…”

“I don’t care!  I don’t care anymore!  I just want to die.  I don’t have the energy to fight that battle.”

“It’s not a battle,” he alleged.

Oh really?  Why did I have to write to two advocacy groups and your Chief Executive, then?  Why are you still telling me my psychotherapy is definitely ending in a few months?  Why is the psychiatrist going around telling me to get some perspective?  Sounds like a battle of wills to me.

Eventually, he said to me, “I can’t be with you all the time [oh really?!  After 40 odd weeks of seeing you for only 50 minutes once a week, I would never have worked that out, C.], so you have to take care of yourself between these sessions.  Do you remember we discussed ways that you can care of yourself?”

“I don’t want to take care of myself, C, I want to die.”

“No,” he said.  “Who will you contact if you feel you are in danger?”

“Not the Samaritans nor Lifeline, as you have previously encouraged.  Aside from the fact that they’re not much help, however well-intentioned they may be, I’m absolutely petrified of using the phone.”

“OK.  But you need to contact someone, or get yourself out of danger.”

“By sitting in casualty for another 12 hours?” I cried, incredulously.

“Yes!” he said, raising his voice slightly and taking an authoritative tone.

This pissed me off, and I heard myself exclaiming, “fuck that!  That’s an advertisement for suicide, if ever I saw one!”

He had no response to that.  Hahaha.

When I knew it was near the end of the session, I went into my usual self-critical mode.  I said something like, “grow up, you stupid fucking brat,” in reference to myself.

C opined that this exemplified my thinking in extremes (more splitting); either I am very “concerned” for myself [not sure about that], or I am very angry with myself.  Well done, C.  You are truly the most insightful human being I’ve ever known, my friend.  (Actually, quite often he is.  But this was not one of his most outstanding moments).

I explained to him that that wasn’t necessarily the case.  “I feel that I have to convince you that I’m not going to walk out of here and top myself,” I told him.

I realise, on reflection, that this statement was pregnant with ambiguity.  I had not intended it that way; what I meant was I wanted to convince him of something that I believed to be untrue, so as (a) he didn’t phone the bin and (b) he didn’t worry about me (as if he fucking would anyway).

However, what I now think he understood from the comment was that I genuinely wasn’t going to walk out of his office and do myself in, and that I wanted him to know this.

Obviously as you can see I haven’t topped myself, but every second of this week has been a fight against the urge.  In part I’ve managed to resist it because A had to have a minor operation on his eye this week, which has needed a lot of follow-up care from me*.  But when he is recovered I am not sure for how much longer I can fight this.  As I say, it strongly feels like when, not if.

PS.  * This has just reminded me of another conversation between C and I in this session.  I told him that I was worried about A’s operation, as if they screwed it up, then he could possibly end up completely blind.  He has no sight at all in his left eye thanks to a botched operation when he was a baby (even though this recent procedure was on his left eye also, I managed to convince myself that they could easily fuck up the right one while they were at it).

I told C this.  He said, to my considerable chagrin, “do you think this treatment [ie. my psychotherapy] is botched?”

I said that I had been commenting on one of my boyfriend’s experiences of the NHS and that I could not see how that related to my own in the least.  I defended my use of the word ‘botched’ on the grounds that that was exactly what it was; the anaesthetist had been working for something like 18 hours and, exhausted, administered an overdose of anaesthetic to A’s eye.  The only way to save any of his sight was to sever his optic nerve to his left eye.  Sounds like a botched operation to me.

C said that I had every right to be angry and concerned about this in itself, but he wondered if that didn’t actually translate to my own necessary treatment.

For fuck’s sake.  Why does everything I happen to bring up have to come back to my relationship with C?  As I said to him, I understand the principles that underpin psychodynamic therapy, and am fine with that for the most part, but honestly – surely you can have some independent thoughts that are just there for their own sake?!  Thoughts that are not connected to the relationship, or transference, or your childhood experiences?  Surely that must be at least theoretically possible?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  Fuck off, psychology

Related posts:

1. Flogging a Dead Horse with C – Week 35
2. Angry Therapy – C: Week 16
3. Remonstrations with C – Week 29