On Wanting to Die

And the mystery of psychiatric medication

Jun 20, 2025

This is a continuation of my bipolar II Diaries: a public journal in which I share in-the-moment reflections and journal entries from my journey with bipolar. This particular entry features three different undated pieces from this year, which were written weeks or months apart from each other. It discusses suicidal ideation, major depression, addiction, and the consequences of medical intervention.

person taking photo of grey concrete stairs — Photo by Carolina Pimenta on Unsplash

I have come to understand that I’m not strong enough for this. These ups and downs, these angels and demons, this light and dark. I am the Baphomet, personifying the union of opposites, but that centrifugal force will pull me apart.

One night last week, I was suicidal. The next night, I felt powerful and euphoric. The night after that, the same. The night after that, the abyss opened again.

And that abyss — that embrace of absolutely agony — is more powerful than me. It’s stronger than me. I’m strong; I know I am. I have a high pain threshold, but I’m not strong enough for this. If this keeps going, indefinitely, it will kill me. No, that’s not right — I will kill me. Because this abyss — and here’s a philosophical quandary to keep one awake at night — is me. That abyss at the center of my chest that tells me to die has a name, and its name is Stephen Bradford Long. It is my mind, and I am identical to it.

No one can carry me through this, no one can walk me through this nightmare. This is above everyone’s pay grade, including mine, and I’m afraid it, I, will kill me.

I know what works: live a Spartan, monastic life. Eat cleanly, sleep religiously and consistently, hone my body, sharpen my mind, and adhere to a ruthlessly consistent schedule. When I do this, the demon is somewhat silenced.

But the cost is high, so high. It’s limiting life. This bipolar warrior monasticism, while badass on paper, leaves me resentful, even feeling weak.

As I write this, I want to kill myself.

It’s paradoxical. I had a good day. I went on a date with my partner who loves me unfailingly, who has been by my side for nearly 11 years. I have never doubted his love for me, no more than I can doubt that, as Shakespeare wrote, the stars are fire.

I had dinner with a mentor — a wise man I look up to who loves and supports me, who fields my late night texts, and has beheld my full catastrophic messiness and accepts and loves all of it.

I facilitated a men’s group tonight — a group of men I feel bonded to. I got to hug and spend time with these precious men I respect and love. Men who say, unapologetically, that they love me.

My dad called me today to compliment me on my latest article. I’d read him early drafts and he offered constructive feedback. An author himself, he is the man who first taught me to write. His love for me is fierce as an eternal fire, despite the fact that I’m gay and godless and don’t share his devout faith. Still, despite all our differences, my parents are the ones I reach out to be with when I’m in my darkest places.

Last night, I texted Kodiak, a dear friend I’ve known for years, that I was fucked up, and he responded,

“I know man. You've endured a lot and I pray you get some peace soon. Do some Netflix and just relax a while. I'm here for you, brother, if you need anything at all tonight. I love you, brother.”

All day, my texts were full of friends — people who love me and want the best for me. My best friend David texted to check in on how I was feeling and how my sleep was. Caleb wanted to hike with me. Sarah sent me heart emojis — a reminder that she loves me. My friend Rachel texted to remind me that we have a coffee date tomorrow.

Despite all this, when I find myself in the darkness, I want to kill myself. Yes, I know this is absurd, and that’s the truth of illness: it’s absurd. It’s all absurd.

I left the men’s group tonight full of love and yet feeling despair. How is this possible? How, I wonder, is it possible to spend the day with so many people I love and trust with my life and yet come home and want to die?

It’s tempting, painfully so, to reach for the all the maladaptive coping skills which fill me with white static, if only for a minute or an hour. Instead, I listen to music on blast — Ghost has been my go-to this month — blaring it in my headphones to silence the abyss at the center of all things.

This isn’t an ordinary despair, easily wiped aware by love. It’s a superbug, a monster that is diminished but not fully killed by the anti-bacterial light of love. This leaves me despairing even more and wondering when, if ever, I will be released from the darkness. Even with all these friends, the coldness is thawed but not fully removed. Even with the extraordinary life I have lived and the support I receive I still feel, on nights like this, that I am fighting alone for my life.

I am exhausted. One night last week, I was devastatingly suicidal. The following night, I felt on top of the world, as if I’d done cocaine. Back and forth, back and forth, from bliss to nightmare, over and over again. “It’s exhausting to me,” my mentor told me today, “and I was thinking earlier this week, “I don’t understand how he does this.” I can’t imagine how exhausting it is for you.”

Even when I’m managing, even when I’ve “got it,” I’m exhausted, and that compounds the ideation further. It’s a sort of chronic pain that leaves me exhausted. It corrodes my willpower, it reduces me, it narrows the margin of my life. There are so many things I wish I could have spent the past 16 months doing other than managing these heavens and hells. I’m only 36 once.

Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not going to kill myself. A Stephen of sound mind has ensured that I won’t, primarily by placing so many wise and loving friends in my life.

That other Stephen has written detailed instructions for myself and others when I get like this. He has made agreements and safety plans and social networks. He has fought valiantly for me — he has loved me enough to keep me alive. He is a hero, that other man, and I’m grateful to him. He is my own father, brother, friend, and closest ally. If I live the natural course of my life, it will be because of that man.

But I’m truly afraid that, someday, I will lose my fight to this monster, either slowly with addiction, or quickly with a gun. I’ve always known exactly how I would kill myself, and there’s something sublimely paradoxical in this. I’ve known since I was sixteen, and though the plans have shifted over the years, the clarity has never diminished. How does one unplan their plan?

I’m haunted by the statistic that people with bipolar live an average of 67 years — 13 years shorter than the national average. On nights like this, I see why. The past 16 months have been a battle of enormous proportions, and the cost of managing such a warzone is high.

I go to sleep imagining my death in absurd and dramatic ways, involving grisly contraptions that only Jigsaw could dream up. I imagine my body hanging from a hook and drained of blood like swine, or locked in a coffin deep in the earth and slowly falling into eternal sleep. Far from being frightening, these thoughts bring me comfort.

It’s been a good story, this voice says. I’ve lived a full life, more life than many in my 36 years. I’ve seen wonders and abominations; I’ve known ecstasy and love, terror and remorse. These 36 years have been full, so now seems like a good time to end the story.

I won’t listen to this voice, because that other Stephen — my knight, my brother, my wise friend — has made sure that I won’t.

I can feel my antipsychotic kicking in. It is my own blessed white rabbit who ushers me down the hole to sleep. If anything, it puts a cap on how long I can indulge in these thoughts. I have wiled away this time with writing instead of numbing out with addiction or brooding or crying. I owe this, too, to that other man — that other Stephen — who loved me enough to teach me the lifeline of writing on these dark nights.

It’s time to sleep. Not the eternal sleep, but the healing kind.

I’ve been on new meds for about a month and a half now, and it’s curious to wake up as a different person. Somewhere, beneath all the biomechanical folds of my being, molecules have changed how I experience the world.

The abyss is silent, as if it has been filled with cement. I’m relaxed. I’m at ease. But everything has a price. I met the devil at the crossroad and made a deal: take away my pain, take away my abyss. In exchange, he will take my ambition, my acuity of mind, my energy.

I’m groggy in the mornings. I spend several hours every morning feeling like I’ve been roofied, though that is slowly getting easier to manage. Writing is harder. The words don’t flow from me like magic. I have to push them out; I have to dig to find them. I feel like I’m speaking more slowly, even if others don’t notice. My mind is slower, and finding the right word is a struggle when it used to be lightning fast. I’m more comfortable with mediocrity. I’m less driven to create, less bothered by ambition. I can now watch hours of Netflix or YouTube in pleasant disconcern.

I’m content to lead an unremarkable, hedonistically comfortable life. I work, I lift weights at the gym, I ruck, I lounge about. I sleep in every morning and just don’t care that I missed my regularly morning routines. Sleep in, workout, go to my job, watch Netflix. That’s my life, now — one of blessed, tranquilized contentment and simplicity. I let a week go by without a Substack article because I just didn’t care enough to write. When I tried to write, the words wouldn’t come.

None of this is bad. It’s a relief; it’s a comfort. The list of side effects for antipsychotics are horrific, and a little slowness and grogginess is a small price to pay. I still have my sex drive, and my appetite for food isn’t unmanageable. I’m not gaining enormous amounts of weight. I’m not wildly suicidal. I’m not getting unmanageable facial spasms. I still feel love for other people. I know what could be, and I’ll take this gentle devil’s deal.

I’m told by friends that I sound like a different person on the phone. My partner is relieved to see me lie about the house watching Netflix. This is a Stephen painted in a different hue. If I think about all of this for too long, it becomes strange. We cling to a story of continuity of self — that the same Stephen who dropped out of high school because of his broken brain is the same Stephen writing these words — that there is some untouchable, unchangeable core that makes me, me. Psychoshamans fiddling with my brain chemicals expose the falsehood of this belief. If my experience of the world changes then I change because, from the perspective of consciousness, I am both perceiver and perceived, experiencer and experienced. The same mind that generates the observer also generates the observed.

But does any of this philosophizing matter? Not when I’m finally released from the pain. I’m not going to bed anymore wanting to kill myself. I have a chance at life because that other man is snuffed out and a new man has replaced him.

It’s scary and unnerving to confront the depths of my weakness. I have lifestyle, love, and social support on my side. These kept me alive, but they were not enough to remove my pain.

“You are doing everything right,” my therapist told me. “You have incredible support, you have incredible coping and cognitive skills, you have excellent mindfulness, and you keep yourself physically healthy. But you are still having serious episodes. I think it’s time you start looking into adjusting your meds.”

Social support, I’ve now learned, does not fix this gash in my mind, no more than it fixes a broken leg. Eventually, the doctor must come. Friendship and lifestyle alone, though life saving, are not enough to cure an infected wound.

Today, I will go for a ruck in the beautiful Appalachian wilderness. I will text my friends and tell them I love them. I will go to work. I will come home to my partner and my cats. And then, I will sleep. The abyss will be quiet, and for that, I am grateful.

Sacred Tension

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