***Trigger Warning: This post addresses suicide. Please proceed with caution***
Today marks one full year since my last attempt to take my own life. It’s a bit strange for me to look back and see what was going through my mind during this time. Nonetheless, I am eternally grateful that my attempt did not work as I hoped it would. I never imagined that today, just one year later, I would be living a life not only worth living but one full of hope and perseverance.
I’ve written about this same issue quite a bit. Why? I hope that someone out there, who is struggling with similar issues, will find that there is hope beyond adversity. I have experienced a lot in my life, a lot that I am not comfortable discussing on here. But what I experienced between February and May of last year is the most painful thing through which I have lived.
Little did I know at the time that during this time, I was in full-blown psychosis. I did not know what this disease even looked like until months later. My ex, the one at the heart of this story, asked me at one point if I had been diagnosed with psychopathy. It wrecked me to hear this. I am not a psychopath. I simply do not meet the criteria for this diagnosis. However, I have experienced psychosis.
What is psychosis?
Psychosis is a difficult disorder to understand, but it is one that I feel goes unnoticed in our culture. The short definition of psychosis, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), is “a collection of symptoms that affect the mind, where there has been some loss of contact with reality.”1 In this state, a person does not know what is real. To some, this might sound like insanity. But it is far different.
The thing about this disconnect is that a person later cannot remember much of what happened. From early February to late May of 2023, I have almost no recollection of what happened. The only clear memory I have is that fateful night, one year ago, when I ended my life. I have experienced hopelessness many times before, but nothing compares to the pain I felt that night.
It was then that I truly resonated with Psalm 88. Why, in my last post, did I write that I prefer the NIV translation of the psalm? A translation that strays significantly from the original text? Because the closing words summed up my place: darkness was my closest friend. The love of my life was, in my psychotic belief, dead. I was literally reliving the loss of my mother all over again. God was absent. God did not hear my cries. And yet, for whatever reason, some deity out there decided that it was not my time to go.
This is My Story
At 12:00AM on the dot, I overdosed. Every prescription I had I emptied into my mouth and chased it with an IPA. I then laid down and hoped that I would never again wake up. About 40 minutes later, my eyes opened and I jolted up. I staggered to the bathroom when I horrendously vomited a combination of beer, pills, and blood. I collapsed on the floor of my bathroom in fetal position, begging God to let this work.
For quite a few days afterward, I felt absolutely terrible. I did not do the smart thing and go to the hospital. I did not want anyone to know what I had done. I was ashamed; not because I had attempted once again, but because once again, my attempt had failed. The medication that once had kept me stable was gone. And for a long time, the ideations only became worse and worse.
I have told this story a million times in the last year. Now, in this post, I want to address the aftermath. Here I am one year later; and to be honest, not much has changed. On a personal level, a lot has changed. I am not presenting signs of psychosis; I am not suicidal; I am not drinking; I am not weighed down by the fear of losing someone in my life. I am still alive, for which I am beyond grateful, but there is something that bothers me.
An Urgent Call to Action
It bothers me that not a single person who knows my story has checked up on me. I do not have friends who have checked up on me or asked if I need help. As it always goes, I am expected to reach out to my support network if and when I need help. I have a serious problem with this. It is not my selfishness that bothers me, it is the cultural response to such crises that offends me. People who have survived suicide attempts should not have to make all the effort in relationships.
It bothers me that I am just one of many who struggle with this dilemma. The stigma around depression and suicide is so awful that I think, people are afraid to bring it up. Maybe people do not ask how I am holding up because that might trigger old thoughts. But that is not the case. It is the loneliness that led me to attempt in the first place, and it is the loneliness that makes accepting my actions so involuted. And I fear for the millions of others who have attempted.
At the time of my attempt, I was still working for a church. This was the last straw for Christianity in my life. In hindsight, I can recognize that I was afraid to tell my coworkers, leaders, pastors, etc. that I was suicidal because Christianity focuses more on the sin of suicide than the healing of suicidal individuals. The church should be a safe place for people going through such crises; but instead, it was a stumbling block in my path to recovery.
Christians have a moral obligation to care for those who suffer; yet, in reality, Christians would rather run and hide. It is a shame that this is the way the world of Christianity works. If I still considered myself a Christian, I would constantly bear the burden of viewing my attempt as a sin, not a cry for help. But at this moment, I am seeing that it is not only Christians who do not want to address the suicide crisis; it is the entire world.
The hardest part of today is reflection. That is why I have essentially journaled all my emotions in this blog; it is not the most structured blog I have written, but I really don’t care. What I do care about, and what truly bothers me, is that I had nobody to lean on one year ago today. Here I am a year later, I have told my story numerous times, and I still have no one to rely on. Is this true for everyone else who has attempted? Are we just expected to bear the burden of failure?
While my beliefs in God are pretty contrived, I cannot help but feel that some deity out there, whether the God or gods of the Bible or not, was the only help available to me. My decision to seek help was not the result of intervention. It was the result of me being tired of facing this alone. The ideations became too much to bear; I had no choice but to call 988. Nobody made me do it. And certainly nobody supported me doing it.
I survived suicide. And I hate to say it, but I survived alone. The closest people in my life, who know my story as well as I do, do not check up on me. They do not ask how I am doing. And for me, that is okay. But I fear for the people going through the same experience I survived. Nobody should ever have to feel that they do not belong in this life. No one should have to sit alone in the dark with these thoughts. But in such a cold, painful world, is it really too much to ask to check on your loved ones?
Conclusion
I do not want anyone to feel the way I did one year ago, or even how I do now. I sit here knowing that not a single person in my life cares that one year ago, I tried to take my life. I don’t want to make a big, self-centered complaint about this because that is not who I am. But I have to admit, it bothers me. It bothers me that people who struggle with being suicidal are expected to put in all the work, make the phone calls and ask for help, all while feeling guilty for experiencing situations they did not put themselves into.
Christianity could make the suicide epidemic all but disappear. And yet, it refuses to do so. Not only Christianity but the human race as a whole. Showing kindness is too much to ask of our fellow man. That bothers me. That is a serious problem. And nobody seems to care. I am alone in this battle, and there are millions of others. This should not be the case.
Dear readers, please check on your loved ones. Surely you know someone who has attempted suicide. Go, and reach out to them. Tell them that they are loved. They are valued. I know that is hard work, and it requires you to get over yourself, but do it. If you are not addressing the problem, you are the problem. This is a matter of life or death; we all need to be taking it seriously.
Although I am woefully disappointed in the human race, my inner circle, and religion, I survived. I survived and I am proud. I did it alone, but I did it nonetheless. Go, and be a light in the darkness. Because that person you are too arrogant and selfish to reach out to should not have to lie there and accept that darkness is their closest friend.
1 National Institute of Mental Health, “Understanding Psychosis,” https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/understanding-psychosis#:~:text=Psychosis%20refers%20to%20a%20collection,real%20and%20what%20is%20not.