Suicide Month

Saying goodbye to people is affecting me more than I thought it would. Think it's a bit unsettling seeing people leaving en masse from Zim again and makes you look at why you are still staying. Yesterday I went to get some presents and quite a few of the gift shops were charging different rates depending on whether you swiped, paid in bond notes or had US dollars (haha who has US dollars?) Swipe was the most expensive. Technically according to the government it is illegal to have a parallel market but it is a reflection of the value of what we're trading in.

Am feeling a little sensitive to things as I'm fighting an infected tonsil and inflamed trachea. On a strong dose of antibiotics. It's similar to what I had earlier in the year which was the beginnings of bronchitis. Hopefully have caught it in time to prevent it spreading. Any way to cut a long story short, the topic of suicide has come up a few times this week. In Zim we often refer to October as suicide month because it is so hot and also as there are quite a few suicides at this time of year. I always think back to my first year of high school when a girl in our class of thirteen year olds came to school but went out the side gate, caught a taxi home and took the gun from her step father's safe and shot herself. As usual I arrived at school late the next day and was greeted by all of my class filing out the classroom ashen faced and crying. I tried to find out what was going on and was told Lisa had shot herself. I was misled to believe she had done it right there in the classroom. I remember trying to grasp what had happened and how I had to look at the bunches of roses placed on the empty desk in front of me in class for the next couple of weeks until our class teacher told the class we needed to move on. Little did I know then that I would reach the point of being suicidal myself in my twenties.

On Friday a friend was describing her ordeal of being admitted to ER to myself and a doctor. When she said casualty was full of people at 4 am the doctor replied that it would probably be lots of failed suicide attempts who were wasting everyone's time. The discussion then turned to pain and they said there was real pain and then imaginary. This stung as it is hard for someone who has never experienced mental pain to know how intense and tormenting it can be. At the braai last night the conversation briefly turned to suicides and one of the others did at least say the pain that drives you to that point must be unimaginable.

I am doing much better on the high dose of lithium I am on but it has been a long journey to this point and at times you are left helpless to the chemical imbalances in your brain. I have to go for blood tests this week to check that I don't have a toxic level of lithium in me as this can stuff up my kidneys and thyroid. It's a fine tightrope one walks and you are envious of those who don't have to battle to be stable and function mentally at an even keel continuously without being dependent on strong medication which makes you gain weight, messes with your metabolism and is possibly not a permanent solution. There is still so much unknown about mental illness and its treatment and the stigma of it all just adds to this.