You know you’ve finally reached the dark and dismal depths of a deep depression when you start planning your own demise.

It’s odd with me. Although I do get the vivid and detached images of the finished result, ie: me in some deceased state or other, it’s very difficult for me to work out the actual doing; the final act, if you see what I mean.

What I do end up doing when I really am at such a depressingly low point, is just planning my disappearance. Hoping then, that nature will take it’s course. Hypothermia, for example.

I also think it is important for me to state, even though I don’t and indeed can’t actually plan the final act, and only get as far as planning a ‘disappearance’, the end result has to be the same.

Planning a disappearance rather than the final act itself is not some form of cop-out or attention seeking, hoping someone will find me and rescue me.

It isn’t. I can assure you.

My bipolar disorder is severely debilitating, and the only thing that could possibly be worse for me is living a sectioned and thus state controlled life as a patient in a secure mental hospital. And that terrible life would start the second someone found me alone and by that time, in a highly distressed state, having ‘disappeared’.

This time – in bed, last Friday afternoon – I spent a good few hours going through all the procedures necessary for me to effect my disappearance, and wake up dead.

I calmly planned which day it would be, what time, and where it would happen. (I don’t wish to alarm anybody so I won’t give you the details.) I worked out where I would leave the car, my phone, my wallet and indeed my keys, and in which direction I would start walking.

Then there’s the practical stuff, like what shoes would I need to wear, and what clothing, and have I left any stupid clues – remember I’m not wanting anyone to discover what I’m in the process of doing so would need as much time as possible to do it before anybody realised something was wrong.

I then think about which of my friends would find out first, who tells who, what they say, and indeed how many days it would be before those friends would actually discover I had departed.

Of course, I naturally assume it will be weeks before my close friends find out I’m not actually here any more, which of course provides further self-justification for doing the deed, since obviously no-one cares.

Yes, that’s a fucking stupid statement, I know, but unless you have experienced a deep suicidal depression, you can’t argue with the logic…

Then you have to go through the whole ‘inquest’ thing. If and when I depart, I would have to make sure that it was very clear why I had died. I wouldn’t want some coroner thinking I must have just had a bad day and wandered off somewhere – another accidental death.

Er, no. Actually.

If and when I have shuffled off this mortal coil under such circumstances it will have been purely and simply because my mental health was at such a low ebb that my brain had finally succumbed to the (believe me) immense pressure of taking what at that incredibly desperate point was the only possible exit (indeed permanent relief) from my indescribable hell of depression.

And that the act was indeed a delibrate and successful attempt of suicide.

Sorry to sound so blunt, but suicide is just that – the act of killing oneself intentionally. It doesn’t just happen by accident.

I read recently, that in order for a verdict of suicide to be returned as the cause of death, the coroner’s court has to go through a process of investigation of the evidence akin to that of a murder trial. (I guess suicide is considered to be murdering yourself.) And, in fact, it is easier to get a conviction for murder, than it is to get a verdict of suicide. Which probably explains why most suicides are recorded as accidental deaths or worst still, left as an open verdict.

Anyway, I digress.

The point of this post is for me to recognise that I am indeed back from a particularly long period of a deep, dark and indeed suicidal depression.

Having had the best part of two weeks of this shit, where I’ve only left the house twice, lost nearly 10% of my body weight, and spent twice as many hours horizontal as I have vertical, I can now go through the process of rebuilding again.

And of course, for me at any rate, writing about it helps greatly.

Luckily for me, I understand that when I start the process of planning my demise, I am at the very bottom, and know the only realistic way out is back up again – I always come back up eventually.

And if for some stupid reason I don’t?

Well, at least this post should help to return the correct verdict of suicide.