Suicide Beacons

I’ve just come off a manic.  A little bit too high I think.  It was back to the reckless driving.  I said went to the beach.  I did.  I also ran around yelling, screaming, chasing seagulls and jumping in the waves with my shoes on.  There were a couple of people walking dogs and some cleaning up after Airbourne.  They gave me weird looks.  Obviously. I must have looked like an A Grade nutter.  A 22 year old running round a beach at 6 in the morning pretending to be an aeroplane and making friends with the seagulls.  It may have been full blown mania.  I was hallucinating.  I said about the twinkling glow-in-the-dark stars.  By the end of the day I was attempting to stroke cats that promptly disappeared the moment I would have touched them.  I had a really scary one in which I was looking at my hand and then it slowly started to dissolve and continued up my arm.  I was so scared I couldn’t even scream.  Anyway, that abated.  Obviously I had the usual voice in my head, on the instructions of whom I went on a visit to Beachy Head.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and being a genius, I took my camera.

I got to the general Beachy Head sort of area and was confronted with this.

The English Channel on a Sunny Monday Lunchtime

Absolutely stunning.  You can see why people want to die there.  On the other hand, you can see why people want to live there.  The picture really doesn’t do it justice.  It was all so much bluer and sparklier.

So I wandered along.  There were occasional bunches of flowers and signs saying “Cliff Edge”  They might as well have said “Jump Here.”  It would have made me sad if I wasn’t in such a damned good mood.  It makes me sad now, thinking about it and looking through the pictures.

A Long Drop and a Painful Landing

You can just about see the flowers in the background.  They seem to be in clumps in various places along the clifftop.  Like Suicide Beacons.  And I like the sound of that, so I’m using it for the title of the post.  There are occasional gaps in the wire fences.  Nothing stopping you jumping.  It’s almost like they’re letting you jump if you want to.  So I walked quite a long way along.  There were only two or three places I’d consider jumping.  It looked as the you’d just end up tumbling down a lot of the bits.  There’s one very vertical drop and a couple of overhangs.  I couldn’t jump off a cliff.  I’d be too scared of living.  Although today I’m really happy to be alive.

One Big "Don't Jump"

I wonder if it’s ever worked…  I should think it probably has.  Maybe some people still have doubts when they get there.  In which case it would be best not to act on the thoughts and fantasies.  Save yourself for another day.  I worry about this thing.  It’s brown and it has no lights.  I’m under the impression that most, if not all, people would jump at night.  Most suicides happen at night, right?  You’d never see this thing in the dark.  Maybe it’s not meant to stop people, maybe it’s there to comfort others.  But I doubt it.  I took the *classic* shot of Beachy Head and the lighthouse.  I’m not a photographer.  It’s not postcard perfect, but at least it’s not blurry for once.

The Classic Shot

I was thinking that if I ever did jump it would be here.  Death by postcard.

I saw lots of happy, nice things too.  There were some pretty flowers, rabbit and badger holes, seagulls and a couple of birds that may have been buntings.  I’m not a bird expert either.  So I finished up my walk because my pay and display ticket was about to run out, drove like a maniac back home.  Then I painted and built a puppet cat.

My Friesian Cat

I have to admit though, I cheated this time.  It came it a kit.  All I had to do was paint and assemble.  Not designing, no cutting and only a tiny bit of gluing.  Although it didn’t really matter.  I wouldn’t have had the attention span for anything more.  So it’s a Friesian cat.  Why not?

I saw the new psychiatrist today.  He was OK, everything you’d expect.  He didn’t seem keen on the anti psychotic family of meds, so I get the impression I might end up being taken off them.  He says that they help the manics, but not the depressions. I thought they acted as a mood stabiliser.  Maybe they don’t.  Although I’m not seeing him for a month.  How good is that though!?!  I’ve got my appointment booked already.  It’s a good system apparently.  I’ve been investigating into getting some actual therapy too.  It seems kind of lazy just relying on the meds.  I’d like to get some control over my thoughts and moods.  CBT seems to be working alright for my sister, so I think I’ll try that.  And I’ll do some ringing around tomorrow.