[cw: suicidal ideation]

I’ve been waiting for this moment for four years.

I anticipated joy and celebration, but I just feel numb.

The past few days, I’ve faced personal issues, plus physical and mental health problems—unrelated to the election, but the stress didn’t help.

I’ve felt physically and mentally depleted, like there is nothing left of me but a shell.

When I’m at my weakest, suicidal ideation creeps in.

I ask myself how much longer I can stand the suffering.

Rationally, I consider my privilege and blessings.

But the pain doesn’t care.

When I’m in the midst of intense pain, it’s the only thing that exists.

I‘m a single-celled organism with one defining quality: pain.

I go into survival mode, something others who’ve survived trauma can relate to.

My only objective is to survive, to not succumb to the pain.

I’m writing this thread because talking about pain is one of the ways I survive it.

I talk about suicidal ideation because it causes me shame and intensifies the pain, especially if I try to ignore it.

Discussing it feels like confronting the monster in the basement.