It's better to talk about it

This is an amazing article (admittedly an angry article as referenced here) about the suicide of a part time public radio host in Seattle.

The author is a guy who lives with suicidal ideation and sees, as I do, society's silence on the matter of suicide as being harmful.

It's been terribly difficult to get people I love to talk to me about my suicidal feelings and impulses. It's terribly difficult to live with them, and then feel as though talking about them is as bad as acting on them.

Obviously, it's better to talk about it than to do it.

Right now I am NOT feeling suicidal (after two hellish and frightening weeks in which I actively planned my demise - but I'm a slacker and know I'm not that committed to actually dying anyhow, I just want the pain and fear to end), and the breathing room that affords me is definitely appreciated.

For a long time I saw my suicidality as a laziness or a habit, but now I am seeing it as something I may never have complete control over, necessitating a lifetime of vigilance over those impulses. It boggles the mind to imagine that many people have NEVER seriously thought about killing themselves, when I've thought about it on and off for 20 years.

That said, does my tendency toward this darkness and these self-destructive thoughts make me irredeemably mad? Obviously not. If I just kept my silence about all of the 'symptoms' of my mental and philosophical states, I'd seem like a quirky but relatively normal person.

But being shunned when I AM in these states only leads to darker more self-destructive places, and I refuse it. I really don't know where or how, but I feel drawn to sharing my experiences (although usually you don't get to talk about your mental problems until you have conquered them, so that might be tough).

update: I went away then came back and read this and realized it could be taken the wrong way - I'm just saying: this is not a subject which will go away for me and I am going to talk about it when I need to. I'm not airing dirty laundry or making accusations, just talking about my experiences and feelings.