Symptoms

I know I am sick when I start imagining myself dying.  


I know I am sick when I feel intensely frustrated and then start imagining my family discovering my limp body in the bathroom.


I know I am sick the way you know you are sick when you have a fever.  Officially sick.  Like, you can go to work with a cough or a headache, but if you have a fever?  take a sick day.


I have been round this carousel enough times to recognize the horse.  I know something is misfiring in my head when I think
 if I kill myself the day before my partner is set arrive from Europe anyway,
 the funeral will be more convenient.


This insight is helpful, because I know that I do not really want to die.


But like a hacking cough or a high fever, these thoughts of dying can't help but affect my general well-being.  They're distracting, distressing, and very disturbing.  They beg to be believed.


Even when I remember that these thoughts always retreat, I also remember that they always return.  I know  I am going to see them again, these old bullies who never grow up and never grow tired of tormenting me.


It's the certainty that this cough, this fever, these suicidal imaginings 
always come back
that makes them such a bitch to endure 






p.s. please do not worry, I'm on a horse of a different color today.