Maybe We Should Go Back

Squishy Brains: debunking an assumption

I was talking to someone the other day about their friend who is an addict.

"I don't get how someone who was so happy six months ago, who has never shown signs of mental illness, is now suicidal," they said.

No, no. That's not it at all! Addicts aren't suicidal, at least not in my own experience. You don't want to die. You just don't care about it.

"That's the same thing as being suicidal."

No, as someone who has been both suicidal and an addict at different times I can say it's very different. Being suicidal is a drive to die. You really want it. You want it like a human being wants food or sex. It's a desire that can't be quenched by anything other than the thing itself.

Addiction, while at first a desire, quickly becomes a need. You don't want things anymore when you are drug addicted. Wanting things implies having thoughts that aren't 100 percent consumed by drugs. Wanting things implies a desire beyond consumption, and there is simply no desire beyond consumption of the need. Your brain loses most of its human characteristics. I imagine it's the way a frog or squirrel sees the world. Simply: at this moment, I need. This moment is all that exists, and all that exists in this moment is need.

This explains (but not justifies) the incredible selfishness one witnesses when dealing with an addict. The addict will always choose the drug. Over their children, their loved ones, their own body and their own life. They are not doing this to be cruel. Cruelty once again implies some kind of desire, the concept of which would bring their brain back into some semblance of being human. You lose that as an addict. Your brain is reduced to its most primal foundations, goes back to the beginning of your evolutionary timeline.

I remember so many times thinking, "Maybe I shouldn't use this much or mix this with whatever-other-lethal-thing or fall asleep with all this in me." The next thought was always: "Oh well." Not, "I'll be okay." Not like I had to talk myself into it. Just, "Who cares?"

I didn't want to die any more than the next person. The concept of dying, the reality and finality of it, the aftermath for everyone I cared about, just ceased to exist in the face of the need. I look back now in total awe of how I am alive right now. How I survived chugging entire bottles of cough syrup mixed with opiates, alcohol and all the other shit I'm on or would take. Not only was I living; I was driving this way! I was talking this way. I was functioning (albeit not very well) this way.

A baby thinks their mom disappears when she hides her face behind her hands. "Object permanence," the concept that something still exists if it is out of sight, doesn't develop for some months after birth. This is why they have that look of shock and joy on their faces when playing peekaboo. The mother simply ceases to exist in those seconds behind her hands, and it's nothing short of a miracle when she rematerializes in front of their eyes.

That's like addiction. Life and death are the mothers hiding behind their hands, the hands are drugs, and we are the underdeveloped infants with squishy brains. I hope that answers some questions. This is why you have to treat addiction before you can treat any underlying mental illness which may or may not include suicidal thoughts. That veil has to be lifted in order to experience any kind of human existence once again. That's why treatment has to be twofold and just treating an addict for depression will never solve any problems.