Ideations

I’m not being dramatic when I say I came within inches of dying violently yesterday. I was driving home on Highway 30 when I suddenly realized a car was barreling toward me in my lane as it tried to pass a line of four cars at once. I swerved onto the shoulder just as my brain registered what was going on … which was literal seconds from a potential impact.

I somehow kept on driving with no more concern than someone who’d successfully avoided a pothole. But last night when I climbed into bed it hit me that there was a potential narrative where I wasn’t home to climb into bed.

And today at work I got a sudden gut punch from the decades of suicide ideation I’ve been managing as my bipolar medications ebb and flow in efficacy. What if I’d been in that mindset yesterday afternoon? Those thoughts and feelings hit me at least once a week, which they’ve been doing my entire adult life. I’m very skilled at seeing them for what they are and holding them at arm’s length as mental abstractions until they pass. But I could very easily have let them literally take the wheel yesterday and steer me into my very last impulsive act.

 
I’m not even sure where I’m going with all of this by posting it here. But I guess I wanted to acknowledge it in a way that wasn’t just a grainy movie in my head.

 
Be safe out there, everyone. Make smart choices when you’re driving. Talk to someone if you feel like your thoughts and feelings aren’t healthy for you or for the people around you. Love. Be loved.

 
And try not to shit your pants going 55 on a rural two-lane highway.