why did "spaceman" work when nothing else did?

Note: This post deals heavily with suicidal thoughts and ideation. While I don't feel that way now, I did. It gets better. Maybe not easier, but you become better equipped to deal with it. You recognize the beauty in the mundane. Just hold on a little longer.

Whenever I try to stitch together the quilt of memories that makes up my early teenage years, I realize too late that I've run out of thread. I can hold individual panels in my hands, but I don't know where they belong, what colors and patterns are supposed to surround them. They float, loose in the corners of my mind. I remember "Spaceman" being my first iTunes purchase, listening to it on repeat in the back of my dad's truck during a road trip in fifth grade, but no, that can't be right. Things didn't get bad until middle school. Right?

Middle school is universally known for being shitty. Hormones, imploding friend groups, new hobbies, issues at home--you name it. My particular combination, that I can't quite remember enough to articulate, left me feeling like death would be better than any possible future. I didn't form a rational plan because somehow I knew that I would have to go through with it and despite everything, that terrified me. The fantastical became an escape. I dreamed of guns stored in freezers, ice cold on my temple as their bullets blazed through my head; pressure plates hidden under floor tiles, ripping me limb from limb on my way to Algebra 2; jumping from each building passed, consciousness ending not when I hit the ground but a second before, so I never had to learn what death felt like.

It didn't matter where I was or what I had at my disposal, I always found that train of thought, no matter how outlandish. That meant taking my mind off of it wasn't as simple as throwing out the sleeping pills and locked up the cutlery. To get through to me, the message had to be on my level. If it didn't outright say I tried to kill myself. I regret it, then it could spread through all of my possible scenarios, and I could pretend that I never had the problem to begin with. We were talking in hypotheticals. Probably not the healthiest route, but it got results.

"Spaceman" checked all the boxes. It was catchy, metaphorical, and comfortingly clinical. Space doesn't care about you, as much as some people try to wax rhapsodic, and that's a good thing. You can do whatever you want without worrying about what the world may think of you. Who cares if you mess up and have to start over? It's just between you and the deep-blue sea. The best part comes in the chorus, when Flowers implores the audience that The storm maker says, "It ain't so bad" / The dream maker's gonna make you mad / The spaceman says, "Everybody look down, / It's all in your mind". If you can learn to separate the too-smart-for-its-own-good, animal part of you that wants, it's possible to acknowledge those thoughts and move on. Tomorrow comes, you get angry, but there's always another day waiting. Thoughts may not be able to be killed, but they can be comforted. Glossed over. Redirected. I'm sure hundreds of OCD specialists have put it better than me.

Remission came slow, a day at a time. When my blood started to boil, I pictured myself being wrapped up in toilet paper like a little kid on Halloween, preventing my organs from flopping unceremoniously to the floor. If I couldn't move, the weight of self preservation was taken off my shoulders. I had to get better. Sure, I might still need that fantasy to get me through my tough days, years later, but Flowers doesn't see that as failure: I'm fine / But I hear those voices at night / Sometimes.

 

Listen along: Spaceman by The Killers