Personally, I have struggled with moments of suicidal ideation since I was 12-year-old, when my world changed within seconds and my brain shifted into wanting to escape without my consent. I thought that these thoughts ended in my early twenties, but unfortunately, they returned in a season of grief after losing practically everything I had been living for due to divorce. I wrote this piece one evening in August 2024, three days into having COVID-19, when being fully self-isolated for that many days had started to get to my head.
The process of writing about suicidal ideation helped me recognize that this mental health issue was its own part of me and not wholly who I was. Viewing it as a separate part gave me more power over it and helped me understand that it would eventually quiet itself when it grew tired of speaking.
My hope in sharing is to help others be able to identify their own parts and recognize that our oldest, wisest, and strongest selves can grow to have the loudest voice of all.
Sincerely,
Vera Lynn
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“My Relentless Troll” by Vera Lynn
I imagine Suicidal Ideation as a warty, fat troll who magically chained himself to my ankle. He wears a tool belt filled with anything you could imagine using to end your life. He even carries a little coupon booklet of acts to be redeemed such as a nudge off a building.
Most days, I don’t notice the weight of the troll. There was a point where I didn’t even know the troll existed because he had been quiet for over a decade of my life. But thanks to his sidekick, Depression, I never received my happily ever after.
Instead, I am now battling this troll at my ankle more frequently. I try going for runs and lifting weights to become stronger than him. I try leaving town to escape him. I try going out with friends to avoid him. I even blew his cover by calling him out in therapy. Yet the monster won’t give up his grasp.
He stays calm most mornings and prefers to scream in the evenings when he knows most people aren’t awake. He loves riding in my passenger seat so he can encourage reckless driving in hopes to run me off the road or coerce me into plowing my car into another vehicle.
On his loud days, he overfills my head with noise to the point it feels like no one else exists. I begin to question why I exist.
He leans into my ear, screaming, “I AM NOT OKAY! I AM NOT OKAY! I AM NOT OKAAAAY!”
I close my eyes once there is silence.
I decide to take my dog for a walk. The fresh air will be good, won’t it?
Tears build up as the air hits my face. I notice puddles of rain collected on the sidewalks, then realize the probability of the weather means that no one else will be around. If only someone was close enough to notice my tears aren’t rain. It would only take a glance —then maybe, just maybe, they would ask the question and I could answer, “I am not okay.”
My enemy walks beside me in each step reminding me I don’t matter. Reminding me that I am not important enough to be noticed. Reminding me that no one is checking in on me. Reminding me I could just not… be.
I thought that calling him out would defeat him. I thought giving him a name would defeat him. I keep trying everything I can do to defeat him so I can survive.
I have not come this far not to survive. I have not fought this hard not to survive. I will survive.
I make it back inside. I shove a cookie down my throat to silence my own scream that wants to come out. And I thank myself for making it another day.
By Vera Lynn 
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