Depression: The Death
Fantasy
by Samantha
Weaver
zone3
Depression affects 1 in 3 people in the UK and can vary from mild to
extremely severe. Having suffered severe depression for the majority of my
life, I feel equipped enough to be able to discuss the way the mind works
in relation to the topic of depression and death.
At some point while suffering with severe depression, I began to start
thinking about death. Death I eventually began to believe as being the
only option available to me to rid myself of the pain I was experiencing.
Of course, I now know that it is not the only option, but I sincerely
believed that it was at the time.
The death fantasy that those who suffer with severe depression begin to
experience had pounced on me and was starting to cloud and distort my
mind. There wasn’t a day that passed that I wasn’t thinking about death in
one way or another. At first, I had simple thoughts. What would my funeral
be like? Who would attend it? But over time, these thoughts became more
isolated and the questions I began to ask myself started to turn into
images in my mind. I could actually picture myself following through with
suicide.
I would question how easy it would be to kill myself? Could I just step
out off the pavement into the road and in front of oncoming traffic? Could
I jump from a bridge? Could I hang myself or poison myself? Which of these
methods would be the quickest, the least painful?
Of course, I knew what I was thinking wasn’t right. I knew I should not
be torturing myself with this type of thought, but I couldn’t stop myself,
I couldn’t help myself and I started to think about things more deeply.
How long would it be before someone noticed I wasn’t around? How long
would it take for my body to be found?
The worst times were when I was sat alone, at home with nothing on TV,
no-one to talk to and no-one around that could distract me or talk some
degree of sense back into me. If I went to the kitchen to make a sandwich,
I was troubled when I picked a knife out of the cutlery drawer and began
considering how I could use it to slit my wrists. I only ever made my
sandwich and never became a self-harmer, but the thoughts were there, the
death fantasy always lingering in my mind, in my daily routines, ready to
pounce on me if things got too tough, if I found I was unable to cope with
something. It’s like it became an opt-out ‘option’ there if I needed
it.
I started to question if this type of thinking meant that I was crazy?
Maybe I wasn’t right in the head; maybe I actually was a loony or a
psycho? For certainly any ‘normal person’ wouldn’t be thinking about
death, wouldn’t be as fixated on it as me?
Many people think that suicide attempts are a ‘cry for help’ but I can
categorically say that they are not necessarily that. Depression distorts
the mind so much that all a person can think about is the negativity in
their lives and a way out of the pain - death. They hate to feel sad, to
feel depressed, to feel as thought they are unable to function. No-one
that suffers with depression wants to feel the way that they do and it is
a very scary thing to find yourself contemplating your own death in your
mind.
Thankfully, I managed to get myself into my GP’s practise. But the fear
of telling a professional the type of thoughts that you are thinking is
huge. I worried that I would be sectioned, worried that I would be thrown
into a straight jacket and dismissed as crazy in a mental institution. The
courage that I had to find to discuss what was happening in my head was
immense. However, it took strength, courage and a strong belief in that I
was doing the right thing to help myself.
And the advice I would give anyone else who may be suffering depression
and in a similar position to that which I was in is to seek the help, to
talk to someone, to try to do something before considering the only option
that you think is available to you. Because death isn’t your only option -
you can get better and have a life depression free. I am living proof.
Author reserves all rights to this article (c) Samantha C Weaver
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Samantha Weaver is the Author of Saving Samantha: A Young Woman's
Escape from Childhood Hell, due for release Apr-2006. Find out more at: http://www.samanthaweaver.com/
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