Don't panic! I am not thinking about killing myself. But with recent high-profile suicides all over the airwaves, and newly recycled statistics that show an increase in the numbers of people taking their own lives, I will admit that I am drawn to reflection on my own encounters with darkness and how I have gone about surviving.
If you know my story, you know how my own life was once devastated by the suicide of someone I loved. And you also know how close I’ve been to that edge—not once, but over and over again—as I have sought to reconcile a deep desire to relieve the suffering of my own depression, anxiety, and PTSD (and the stigma around them) with my will to, from their wreckage, create a life of beauty and meaning. It has never been easy.
The edge used to be closer, the drop much higher and the tiniest nudge was enough to send me over. I spent the better part of my twenties and early thirties attempting to end my life in various ways – some quite intentional, others tragically accidental. I was reckless in a thousand ways and had an affinity for any object, substance, or activity that could change my reality and take away the pain of self-loathing, the shame and exhaustion of depression, and the ever-looming terror of traumatic memory. In my own malfunctioning mind, I was not just unlovable, I was a monster. I wasn’t just worthless, I was a drain on everyone around me. I wasn’t just without a place in the world, but the world would be so much better without me in it. I was either so invisible that my absence would not be noticed, or such a burden that my absence would be celebrated.
When I get online and read about suffering people that have taken their own lives, I deeply understand the darkness that they crawled through to get there. The agonizing trade-off when the demons demand your life for a measure of peace. It can feel so impossible to resist. I was incredibly fortunate to have people in my life that simply would not let me die. Some of you are reading this, you know who you are, and I am grateful for you every day.
Still, I cry as I read the judgments on the screen in front of me: So selfish. He had everything. She should’ve asked for help. This from individuals whose nights are lit by stars and give way to the rising sun – individuals who will never know the sucking vacuum of true, unending darkness so thick and black it feels like breathing tar. But I get it. I get how, from another perspective, the manifestations of mental illness can appear self-centered, ungrateful, irresponsible, lazy. I get why people in their “right” minds look for an easier answer, something more logical, more palatable than that their friend, sibling, child, parent, rockstar idol was in relentless, blinding, intractable pain.
More than 20 years have passed since the last time that I intentionally tried to end my life. Things couldn’t be more different now than they were then. I like to think these battles are over for me, but I know that it’s something I will be working with for the rest of my life. When people look at me, they see a high functioning, competent individual with a good life—good job, dogs to cuddle, people to love, financially stable, laughing with friends. And most days, it feels just like it looks. And then there are the days that they don’t see, the days I can barely move, when the muddy waves start lapping at my feet—the fear, self-doubt, unworthiness, shame. And I always wonder if this will be the time it pulls me under.
In his poem Adrift, Mark Nepo writes: Everything is beautiful and I'm so sad.
It’s still an edge. It will always be an edge.
Here is the thing that I most understand: We cannot know the pain of a stranger’s heart. We cannot know what their disease of despair is doing to them, or the ways in which it has ravaged their life. What we can know is that, but for the grace of whatever gods may be, it could be us, or our dear ones. It may have already been at some point in our lives.
And as we grow into this understanding, may our reactive judgment and blame be replaced with empathy and compassion for all who suffer in this way, those that don’t make it out of the darkness, and all the people who love them.
The edge used to be closer, the drop much higher and the tiniest nudge was enough to send me over. I spent the better part of my twenties and early thirties attempting to end my life in various ways – some quite intentional, others tragically accidental. I was reckless in a thousand ways and had an affinity for any object, substance, or activity that could change my reality and take away the pain of self-loathing, the shame and exhaustion of depression, and the ever-looming terror of traumatic memory. In my own malfunctioning mind, I was not just unlovable, I was a monster. I wasn’t just worthless, I was a drain on everyone around me. I wasn’t just without a place in the world, but the world would be so much better without me in it. I was either so invisible that my absence would not be noticed, or such a burden that my absence would be celebrated.
When I get online and read about suffering people that have taken their own lives, I deeply understand the darkness that they crawled through to get there. The agonizing trade-off when the demons demand your life for a measure of peace. It can feel so impossible to resist. I was incredibly fortunate to have people in my life that simply would not let me die. Some of you are reading this, you know who you are, and I am grateful for you every day.
Still, I cry as I read the judgments on the screen in front of me: So selfish. He had everything. She should’ve asked for help. This from individuals whose nights are lit by stars and give way to the rising sun – individuals who will never know the sucking vacuum of true, unending darkness so thick and black it feels like breathing tar. But I get it. I get how, from another perspective, the manifestations of mental illness can appear self-centered, ungrateful, irresponsible, lazy. I get why people in their “right” minds look for an easier answer, something more logical, more palatable than that their friend, sibling, child, parent, rockstar idol was in relentless, blinding, intractable pain.
More than 20 years have passed since the last time that I intentionally tried to end my life. Things couldn’t be more different now than they were then. I like to think these battles are over for me, but I know that it’s something I will be working with for the rest of my life. When people look at me, they see a high functioning, competent individual with a good life—good job, dogs to cuddle, people to love, financially stable, laughing with friends. And most days, it feels just like it looks. And then there are the days that they don’t see, the days I can barely move, when the muddy waves start lapping at my feet—the fear, self-doubt, unworthiness, shame. And I always wonder if this will be the time it pulls me under.
In his poem Adrift, Mark Nepo writes: Everything is beautiful and I'm so sad.
It’s still an edge. It will always be an edge.
Here is the thing that I most understand: We cannot know the pain of a stranger’s heart. We cannot know what their disease of despair is doing to them, or the ways in which it has ravaged their life. What we can know is that, but for the grace of whatever gods may be, it could be us, or our dear ones. It may have already been at some point in our lives.
And as we grow into this understanding, may our reactive judgment and blame be replaced with empathy and compassion for all who suffer in this way, those that don’t make it out of the darkness, and all the people who love them.
