The Writing and Photography Blog of Kevin J Sabo

I’m feeling better than I have in quite some time.

I’m feeling more rested, and much more at ease with my place in life.

That’s not to say I don’t have my bad days. Suicidal thoughts still cross my mind a few times a week, but at the moment they are nothing that I can’t push through using the skills I have learned.

The fact that suicide crosses my mind at all still annoys the hell out of me, as it seems to be a default setting for a stress response in my brain.

I am learning that thoughts have no power over you unless you act on them.

Yes, they can get intense.

They can get overwhelming.

They can even get frightening.

But they can’t hurt you.

In my experience, as uncomfortable as thoughts can be, that discomfort can seem to be more unbearable than the pain inflicted through acting out the thought.

I know how dark the world can be. There are days I honestly don’t know which is worse, the evil that man can inflict on each other, or the evil that one’s mind can inflict on itself. At least the evil of the world you can take yourself away from. The evil in your mind is trapped, accompanying you everywhere.

Through skills, I have been able to regulate my emotional response, but the intensity is just as harsh as ever. The skills have saved my life, but they are only so effective for so long. I have had points where they have stopped working.  Where I have had to reach out for the extra support.

That’s not a failure, that’s survival. A person can only withstand a constant emotional bombardment so long before a persons ability to cope is overwhelmed and the skills lose effectiveness.

That is nothing to be ashamed of. I know that now.

K