Tapwater’s SBG Content

In the post, they mentioned not understanding why Aiden “didn’t just kill himself” since he’s suicidal, and I need people to understand that not only do a lot of suicidal people deliberately choose not to kill themselves despite liking the idea (or even being okay with dying to outside influences) or stop after a failed attempt (maybe because they’re now scared of the pain with no results, or maybe because they’re simply hopeless that any future attempts will work), but some avoid it because they can’t go out the way they want to. I had access to plenty of meds I could’ve overdosed on and there was plenty of sharp objects around, but I didn’t want to go out in a super painful way. My plan was to wait until I was old enough to leave and find someplace as high as possible to jump off of so the fall would kill me instantly (I know that’s fucked up, I’m better now). I wouldn’t accept any other way. That’s also why the old ‘Blue Whale Challenge’ drew in so many suicidal teenagers, because it made them feel like they were accomplishing something before death.

I think this is the exact reason why Aiden is still sticking around despite so obviously being suicidal. Do you remember his first thought after he died? “The rush was nice, but I don’t like how much she’s shaking”. The rush was nice. He doesn’t just “want to die”, he wants to go out on a high note. But he’s too young to do any form of skydiving or bungee jumping on his own, which means every available suicide method that could end in a rush of adrenaline can’t be accessed by him yet. Hell, he could even be hoping for a random accident he can’t prepare for. Him choosing not to take his own life yet isn’t because he’s actually not suicidal or he suddenly has people he wants to stick around for. It’s because suicide isn’t as simple as “I wanna kill myself so I’m going to kill myself”. Both suicidal thoughts and depression are messy as shit, they’re complex, they’re like a switch flicking off and on, they’re not linear.

AND IT CANNOT BE FIXED WITH LOVE, HOLY FUCK, IF I SEE ONE MORE PERSON MAKING A CLAIM THAT EVEN REMOTELY SOUNDS LIKE THAT, IMMA STRANGLE SOMEONE, THAT IS SO FUCKING INSULTING!! People with depression can love so many people in their lives even more than themselves and still choose suicide. Stop acting like we’re making some sort of choice to stay this way, I will fucking bite you.

Anyway, that aside, I also want to bring up the fact that people can be both neurodivergent and depressed/suicidal, and if anything are more likely to be depressed/suicidal if they’re neurodivergent. But that doesn’t mean you can take symptoms of depression that line up with their neurodivergence and write off said depression because it HAS to line up with their neurodivergence only. It can line up with both, I need people to stop writing off others’ depression because they believe people can only experience one or the other (yes, this relates back to that Reddit post I talked about in the beginning).

If you’re going to write a character (canon or otherwise) with depression and/or suicidal thoughts, don’t feel the need to make it always known or expressed. Let them be genuinely happy, let them have loving connections, let them be SAD (yes, I know, crazy, I’ve seen a huge switch in “people with depression are always sad” to “people with depression can never EVER experience ANY emotion EVER”), let them be a person, and let them be messy. Let them change their minds, let them hate themselves and others, then let them love everything. But most of all, let them be confused and distressed, even when they know the issue or even root cause, because there’s nothing the world likes to do more than tell a depressed person how they should really feel.