Thread by @JoLuehmann

TW: Suicide.
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I haven’t shared much of this publicly, but this year I’ve dealt with a lot of suicidal ideation. Not only did I lose community time and time again, I also have dealt with loss of safety and significant financial hits that have left me in crippling debt*.

1/

Suicidal ideation isn’t something new to me, the first time I experienced it I was probably 10 years old, but this last year is the year I took more steps toward ending my life because I honestly found myself against a wall and without hope or a way out of it.

2/

And the thing is, I communicated I wasn’t ok, I was struggling, and still many close people to me met me with “get real help,” because I don’t do well with regular therapy and can’t afford it anyway. “Get a real job” because my job is the source of a lot of stress.

3/

These are verbatim things I was told after sharing what I was dealing with. After sharing that I felt like I was drowning in a raging sea, those phrases pushed me back under water when I was barely getting enough oxygen to survive. Then I was told I was exaggerating.

4/

When I heard the news about #tWitch and saw many “we really don’t know what’s going on with someone,” I was annoyed. We are actually not telling the whole story, we do know, given the climate we are in, you can be sure most marginalized people are struggling.

5/

I moved because I was concerned for my well being and safety in more ways than one. I have shared as much, and I am privileged enough that I could use savings and credit cards to move and get the health services I could without insurance, but what about those that can’t?

6/

We do know what most people are going through. Nearly 800,000 die by suicide every year. Suicide is preventable we just don’t fight for the system to change, we don’t even have bandwidth to show up for loved ones sometimes because capitalism is all consuming.

7/

We went through 2 years of a pandemic and rushed through it sacrificing the most vulnerable amongst us in the altar of capitalism. We aren’t even out of it but we are all pretending here it’s over while children with severe respiratory issues end up in hospitals every day.

8/

We went through Donald Trump and an insurrection, and the ways in which these two things have emboldened fascism should scare us all, and scare many of us. It’s not normal to live in fear and be gaslit when you say you are afraid because “fascism doesn’t exist in the US.”

9/

It’s hard to read people are shocked that someone else died by suicide when just in the US every 11 minutes someone loses their life to this epidemic. This is the reality we live in, a reality we can change if we fight for better conditions for all. We ALL deserve better.

*it’s important to mention I have been blamed for these things because I refuse to stop talking about oppression. I’ve been told I’ve chosen to lose safety, health, community and finances. That hurts, and it takes everything in you to remind yourself that’s not true.