A Death In the Making

By Bleletheth

welcome to A Death in the Making
an overly dramatic brain vomit,
courtesy of a loathsome creature.
feel free to follow me on twitter: @bleletheth

content warning:
suicidality, psychiatric system, occasionally gruesome
metaphors, brief mention of food
produced in 2020

anti-copyright. reprint/redistribute/remix/revolt!

Every visit with the doctor, no matter the complaint, they eventually ask: “…and what about your, er…thoughts? self-harm? suicide?” And I laugh. “No more than usual,” is my go-to response, and “no immediate plans” as a comforting follow-up. They invariably look so alarmed, and it confuses me. I forget that there are people wandering around in the world who don’t have a swirling miasma of anguish constantly churning through their mind. I forget that there are people who don’t want to die. I forget that there are people who don’t pause on a bridge and peer over the edge wondering how long will it take…how much will it hurt…will it be over before someone comes to help, please let it be over. I forget that there are people who look forward to the future.

The future is what you make it, though, right? Yes, but also no. It’s the sort of pithy bootstrap-loving platitude that exists to place blame onto individuals who don’t appear to be trying hard enough, even though they might be trying as best they can. A person can do all the ‘right’ things, play by the rules in the socially acceptable way, but most of the time they won’t have much power over themselves, let alone over the impacts of what the rest of the world is doing. And certainly not over what the ruling class is doing.

Case in point, I walk everywhere possible (bus for long distance), don’t buy much apart from food, have been vegan for many years, reuse & recycle, try to make sure the things I do buy are as ethically produced as is possible…and for what? We’re staring down the barrel of climate change, slave labour is still a thing, abusive animal agriculture persists. All this time spent trying to be so conscious and conscientious, yet I am helpless to unmake this future.

I am not enough. I know the cause of these problems is so much bigger than I am. I don’t want to live like this, weeping and flailing about with my head underfoot, beholden to bosses, landlords, banks, police, doctors, government.

I don’t know how much longer I can do this for. It has already been so long. Abuse after abuse, trauma after trauma. My soul is in tatters and I don’t know how many more times I can stitch it back together. I am alone and poor, I eat expired food with my breaking teeth and talk to myself because I have no-one. I scream into the void. I mourn the fallen. I am painfully aware that I have so much to give but I am hamstrung by circumstance.

I want to grow herbs and vegetables and fruit for people, I want to make things, I want to read books to people. No land, no money, no energy…it is hard to help others when I can barely help myself.

But, that is an intentional part of the design, carefully woven into the fabric of the oppressive system we are born into.

We are smothered by it, and told to be grateful for each shallow breath we are permitted to take. Every day as I go to sleep I wish with all my heart that I do not wake up again.

I lie to my doctors. I will always lie to them about this. They would send me back to hospital with a few keystrokes. I have been in and out of hospital my whole life. Put in the cells with paper clothes and a camera in the corner. On and off a list of medications so long that I cannot recall all their names. Seen therapist after gravely-nodding therapist. And most recently, out of desperation and under state coercion, endured electro-convulsive treatments.

None of it has worked. The problem isn’t me. Or at least, it’s not completely me. I am convinced that for both myself and a great many others, the main exacerbator of our issues is capitalism. Which is not to entertain some magical notion that if capitalism didn’t exist everyone would be free of any ailment, because that notion
is gross and also illogical bullshit.

Rather it is to point out that the stressors generated by capitalism really do fuck us up quite a lot, neurotypical and neurodiverse alike. It is a many-tentacled beast that meticulously flays us all day, every day, until we die. Even those who don’t know its name cannot ignore the pain of its ruthless, relentless embrace.

We are told it is our fault. We aren’t trying enough. We aren’t working hard enough. We aren’t taking responsibility for our own recovery, whatever that means. We don’t want to get better. We need to trust the same systems that have continually let us down. We need to shut up and take our medication. We should eat healthier, exercise more, meditate, journal, and if it’s not helping then obviously we just haven’t given it a proper chance.

We need to stop asking so many questions.

It gets slightly easier once you accept the fact that the mental health system, as with any centralised behemoth, doesn’t care about you, and it never did. It’s not about you and it’s not your fault. The goal of that system is to try to shoehorn people into being good little citizens generating capital for others, and to incarcerate those who are unable or unwilling to fit into that mould.

Our government, whichever colourful logo sits in majority, takes ample opportunity to hand-wring over statistics of depression, calls to crisis lines, and suicide rates, yet predictably refuses to acknowledge the systemic inequities that contribute to these things, and also further deepens those inequities with cruel policies while painting themselves as empathetic, compassionate, caring. They use us as tokens for their sad-eyed speeches while they fund golf courses and boat races for millionaires. We are expected to be grateful for hollow words from hollow hearts.

It cannot be healthy for us to live like this, pushed slowly through a meat-grinder, feeling every piece of flesh stripped away to become pliable homogenised product
acceptable to the blandest of palates. How are we to flourish when we can’t get enough nutrition, enough sleep, enough time, enough shelter, enough care? Is it any wonder that we are so miserable, operating in a society that wasn’t built to make us happy, funnelling capital to the already rich? The cruelty of the state and the cruelty of capitalism are hazardous to us all.

At the moment, I am existing largely out of spite and defiance. I am a notoriously stubborn person who has proven quite difficult to kill, much to my chagrin. To be clear, I see plenty of good in the world. Little shoots growing through cracks in concrete. So many people across the planet are protesting, doing mutual aid, reclaiming housing, rescuing animals, sharing knowledge, creating art, cleaning up pollution, building solidarity. I must remember that I am one of these little shoots. Alone, I won’t be able to bust up the dull concrete façade, but enough of us can turn it all to rubble, and we will grow freely, unconstrained.

I probably won’t die tomorrow, or the next day. I hope you don’t either. I probably won’t ever see the demise of this world, or the dawn of the brighter world that will follow.

This system might destroy me at some point, plenty of my blood is already on its hands and its gaping maw, along with the blood of so many others. Until then, I will continue to fight it in whichever ways I am able, even if it feels futile. I must remember that I am not alone, and neither are you.

A better world for all is both possible and necessary, and we anarchists are the ones building it.

https://awsm.nz/?p=6465