September was suicide awareness month, and I was acutely aware of it this year, though I was not in any position to write about it during that month. I am feeling better now, and so thought I would share my experiences with you. I debated sharing them, as some people find the topic triggering and possibly too intense. The point of any Awareness month, though, is to attempt to make a taboo topic more accessible so that people who need support can feel safer getting that support without the typical stigma. Now, feeling a little better, might be a good time to share.
I have mentioned in past posts that I spent a most of my childhood and young adulthood feeling like death would be a better option than the pain of my life. I don’t know that I have given a great deal of details about why I had those feelings then, and details are not necessarily all that important to other people. The details are complicated. The short version is that I was abused, neglected, dismissed and invalidated by pretty much by everyone I that was supposed to love and protect me. I was also given the impression that how I was treated was how love was expressed. That was a load of malarkey, by the way. How I was treated was not love. It was abuse and emotional neglect.
My family was not so dysfunctional that anyone outside of it would notice. My parents were and are pillars of their community and well loved by many. I did not want for food, clothing, shelter, or other basic necessities of life. Unless you consider physical protection of my body a necessity. Unless you consider emotional nurturing and protection a necessity.
I also have not received any validation from my family that the conditions I perceived even existed. I was well loved and provided for, if you ask any of them. No one hurt me or neglected me other than the typical ways in which humans accidentally hurt and neglect one another. It was not as awful as I remember it, if you ask them.
I have, over the years, started to buy into the story that my perceptions of how I was treated as a child were mistakes, inaccurate perceptions, not shared experiences, etc. That I was indeed well loved. This has allowed me to be able to continue living in abusive and neglectful relationships throughout my adulthood. If you think that being screamed at, criticized, told you are not doing enough, dismissed and invalidated is love, how could you chose differently.
I have chosen to be in damaging relationships because I thought that was what love looked like. I simply didn’t know any better. I still am unsure if I actually know what real love is supposed to look like. I probably have never felt it. I have felt attached, obsessed, dependent, co-dependent, needed, needy, etc., but is any of that actually love?
But this post is about suicide, not love, so enough background. Over this summer, I made some attempts to get some accountability from my family. That went as well as it ever has. None was there to be had. This combined with other relationship stress triggered a depression dip, a serious dip.
When I was able to find a reason to live in my 30’s and beyond, first by moving away from my family, then finding a career path that truly suited me, I focused on service as my purpose. I existed to benefit the world with my expertise and supportive care. It took a long time to figure out how to do this without it being solely ego based, like I was some gift to the world. That was not actually ever my intent. It was just that I had been taught that the only reason to live was to serve. And that being of service made you special and important to the world, i.e. served your ego, which was the goal. Thank my family and the religion I grew up in for that belief. Service to others became my life and reason for living. It was effective, and I did learn to do service from less of an ego place and more from a humble servant place. Ego always has a place in a person’s life though, so I am not better than anyone else in that regard. Still, my life had meaning.
This summer though, something shifted. With this most recent set of dismissive responses from family and rejections in other parts of my life. I saw my service to others as hollow and meaningless. Like I was a vessel pouring out my soul to the world, but the vessel didn’t seem to be getting refilled anywhere. Yes, that is ego, feeling like I am supposed to be receiving, that there is something valuable enough in me to deserved to be refilled. Like I said though, we all have some ego in us. It is how we survive life, by thinking we are important enough to survive.
I have often stated that the universe had my back and made sure I had whatever I needed, and I do believe that. I have always had what I needed. Except now, I was realizing that what I also needed was love, and I did not even know what that was or how to find it because my family taught me bogus information about it. My vessel was empty because I did not feel loved by my family anymore because I saw, maybe for the first time, that their idea of love was not actually love at all. I suddenly felt very alone and empty. Like I couldn’t be happy, I would never know love, and everything I am that is meaningful is about others. None of what I am, is for me.
Depression is a funny thing. When it hits you, you don’t know what hit you. It’s just that sometimes slowly and sometimes all of the sudden everything hurts and there is only darkness in your existence. That was how I felt a few weeks ago. I started googling how to kill yourself. Funny thing that, you can’t actually google how to commit suicide because you get suicide prevention supports instead. I did look up how much of my medications I needed to take to kill me. However, I discovered that it would more likely just cause seizures and maybe disability, which would not improve anything. I just didn’t want to continue in this life anymore. I was in so much pain physically and emotionally, and I was so tired of it all. I was tired of doing for the world and not getting anything in return.
Previously when I wanted to be dead, therapists encouraged me to do something to help other people. That is a very common strategy for people having suicidal ideation. The idea was to find a purpose outside of myself. As mentioned, this strategy was very effective. I worked to find a purpose for my life. I did my work on myself. I healed my traumas. I learned to manage my emotions, actually feel them and manage them. I learned humility and vulnerability. I learned leadership and how to support and encourage others. I learned selfless contribution to others. This was worth living for, for a very long time. However, in this moment, I felt empty and like I had nothing left to give. I was tired of giving. I was exhausted, and started to wonder if any of it mattered anyway. It seemed no matter how hard I worked or how much I gave, the world was still falling apart, I was still in pain, my family still couldn’t see me or love me, and I was alone.
However, I am not alone in this world. Despite my family’s lack of support or even acknowledgment of my experiences and existence sometimes, I am not alone. I made a bold choice after several days of trying to figure out how to die, I told someone how I was feeling. I made an appointment with my psychiatrist, and my therapist. I asked for support from my work. I took steps to lighten my load in life. I reached out and asked people who said they loved me to help me. You know all those people that I learned to selflessly love and give of my time and attention? You know all of those people I have supported and taught skills to? You know all of those people that I have shown compassion and love to? Well, they returned that love, compassion, and support. It has been kind of amazing actually.
I felt loved. I felt seen. I feel those things now. I am still struggling to have the energy to do anything but receive that support and love. I feel very uncomfortable letting people see me feeling so small, weak and tired. I feel uncomfortable allowing people to give to me, and to receive those gifts. I have people in my life who give without strings. I did not know that before. I have created a full life with lots of people who trust and rely on me, and I also now know that when I need to rely on them, they will be there.
These people are not my family of origin though. I call them framily, since they are my chosen friend family. That is the key to living a life worth living. It is not about contribution. It is not about earning respect. It is not about collecting the most money or things, having a good career or income, being a servant or leader. A life worth living is one where you are able to be authentically yourself and develop honest and open relationships with others. When you do that, service, money, career, etc. pretty much manages itself in time. I have achieved all that. It has been a hard and long journey. Those relationships are not the ones I have always wanted them to be. I was not able to build that type of relationship with my family or my ex romantic partners. I didn’t even know all of those relationships I had until I started to lean on them.
I am still very tired. I am still struggling to feel like it’s worth it to be here, but at least there is a spark of life still in me. I trusted the people around me to lift me up when I could not stand on my own, and they did. I am overwhelmed and grateful.
Now I have to figure out more of a balance in my life. Authenticity is awesome, right? I just have to be what I am, when I am what I am, whatever I am, right? I have been working on showing up just exactly as I am for many years. I find that I cannot exist easily in this life if I have to do anything else but that. While that is scary sometimes, especially when how I feel is less than ideal, when I am crying all the time, breaking down when watching a tv show, or when I can’t think or process information, when I hurt so bad that I can’t breathe, it’s hard to show up still. What I learned over the past few weeks is that if I keep showing up, even if I am a complete mess when I do, the people who really matter in my life will see me. They will be there and not run, and they will help me clean up the mess.
And the people who choose to not show up, not be there, not care about supporting me, well, life is too fragile and short to allow them to keep being in my life. Grief will press on me as I let them go, and I will be better off without them. Which is more desirable to think about than that the world would be better off without me in it, just because they can’t seem to find a way to be there for me.
I am figuring out how to find meaning and purpose again, that is as much about myself, as it is about others. This balance is challenging, and still not sure it’s worth all the effort all of the time, but it is improving, and more and more, I feel like it is going to be okay.
If you are struggling in this really challenging pandemic or just because life is what it is, and sometimes it is shit, tell someone. Find at least one person who can show up and give you space to feel whatever you feel and just be there for you. Even if that person is your therapist, find them, tell them, and then start finding ways to move through it. It is worth it to try.
-Namaste