A Lesson In Hope

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When I was fifteen, I tried to kill myself.

Both my sisters had left home. One left a note behind and didn’t look back. The other moved in with a different family just a few houses away. I stayed. I had a medical condition I couldn’t get my family to face and I hid from the rest of the world. I had just been diagnosed that September. Shortly after my diagnosis, a boy who went to my school and lived up the street died by suicide the same day we received our report cards. Peers recalled him being scared to tell his father he had received a B. Two other students attempted suicide after him. Then, I became attempt number three.

The day after Thanksgiving, my parents went to my grandma’s house for leftovers. I asked to stay home that night. Looking back, maybe that was a sign I knew what I was doing and I planned it. Honestly, I don’t remember. The truth is, I was so ambivalent in my attempt and so pressured by everyone’s reaction, I lied. I claimed my overdose was caused by distraction and a horrible migraine.

Years later, a college essay forced me to reflect on that day. I stayed in denial about a lot of things. I stood by that migraine, which I did have, and shifted my focus to the abuse I endured at home. At the end of the essay, I was required to declare whether I did or did not support the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. I couldn’t figure out where I stood on the matter, so I took a break from college to decide.

(That’s another lie.)

When suicide isn’t talked about in the community or the home, it’s easy to feel like we have to hide those thoughts. So, at age thirty-one, I repeated the past and my self-destructive uncertainty with a suicide prevention campaign on Facebook to mask mine. Just over a month into my campaign, my dear friend and affectionately-adopted sister took her own life.

During our last conversation, she mentioned feeling “broken but not suicidal.” She even asked me to check on her. I wish I had understood that she was opening a door, crying for help, even if she didn’t know it. I wish I had told her, “It’s okay if you are feeling suicidal! We can talk about that!” I wish I had gone to her house. I wish I would’ve remembered to reach back out. But I didn’t know the risks; I didn’t know the signs. I couldn’t save her.

With denial and grief in one hand and suicidal thoughts in the other, I began educating myself. The more I learned, the more I realized chronic suicidality has always been a part of my life, and my inability to heal from the loss of my sister, my hesitation to finish that college essay, those were a reflection of my own unresolved suicidal thoughts. The more I learned about suicide… the more I learned about my self.

Eighteen years and one tragic loss later, I finally understood why I tried to take my own life as a teen. And it wasn’t because my sisters were gone or because I lived in an abusive home. (Although, those were certainly stressors!) It wasn’t major depressive disorder like the doctors at the inpatient youth facility tried to throw at me. It was because I was trapped by my illness. It was because I was being rejected for medical treatment. It was because I couldn’t fight for myself, and no one was fighting for me. It was because the biggest stressor in my life was was looking in the mirror, seeing the diagnosis I was facing, and knowing there was a solution, there was a way to address it—for the rest of the world, for those who could afford it. But not for me. Insurance wouldn’t cover the treatment. Hope had a price.

I kept myself hidden and protected for as long as I could. I ran from the reason for my suicide attempt as long as I could, until I had my daughter. Then, I rose from the ashes to confront the demons still burning inside, and when I found my options for medical care hadn’t changed, I learned the hardest lesson of my life: Hope is temporary if solutions are out of reach.

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt sick and alone. I don’t know if you know how it feels to look at the future with fear in your eyes while family and doctors fail you, but I can tell you how to survive: Fight. Even when things seem hopeless.

It’s okay to fight dirty when you’re fighting for life.

If you are feeling suicidal, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1.800.273.8255 or text HOME to 741.741 to chat with the Crisis Text Line. 

There Will Be Days

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Love Changes People

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Evade, avoid, repeat. That’s my motto. Lately, it’s become more of an anthem. Some days, it works.

Tonight, for example, I didn’t notice that my open letter to my friends and my family wasn’t liked by even one of my family members on any of six social media outlets. I didn’t notice that out of 338 Facebook friends, only a handful read my letter or liked it.

In fact, It almost slipped right by me that out of my last 20 posts, only three family members interacted and the exact same 25 people.

No, I didn’t notice at all. It doesn’t bother me…

“It’s just Facebook!”

I also didn’t notice when child abuse, domestic abuse, and violence, started trending and not many shared my message then, either.

A few wrote to tell me “I wanted to share it, but…” I understood. It’s hard to think about that kind of violence.

I would know. I struggled to write it.

Approximately 3 million reports are made annually, which include more than 6 million children. But we all just continue to watch. Meanwhile, CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman, an “expert,” wants to refer to the line between discipline and abuse as a gray blur?

I guess she’s never been a victim.

The same thing happened the first time my work was published by Elite Daily. #YesALLWomen began trending on Twitter, sparked by the Isla Vista Shooting.

Instead of mourning the victims, we placed gender against gender and one kind of pain against another, rather than addressing that we have a culture of violence.

#YesALLWomen is an important and meaningful hashtag. As a woman and a survivor of sexual assault, I understood that. But as someone who experienced the death of two classmates and the tragedy of the Columbine Massacre when I was a high school student, it was frustrating to watch the world divert the attention away from the lives that were lost.

When I was 15, I remember thinking to myself that what I was hearing about would be a part of history one day. I never imagined we would allow it to become a way of life.

My friends and family struggled to congratulate me or share it the same then, too.

I called my mother and father and told them that day, even gave them the link to read it. Six hours later . . . silence.

No big deal. People forget how you made them feel, right? Maya Angelou reminds us that’s not true:

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

We all deserve to feel loved.

When I began advocating for suicide prevention, I blogged an article to kick it off:

Everyone is Talking About Homosexuality, But No One Is Talking About What Matters.

Less than 24 hours later, I realized that if I wanted my message to be heard, I needed to change the title. People wouldn’t read it and they definitely wouldn’t share it, if it alluded to a lifestyle they consider immoral, sinful, or perverse.

If I reference homosexuality or if I advocate on behalf of a transgender adolescent, I must be one of those people:

Leftward thinking people truly do whatever it takes when it comes to convincing others that their lifestyle — and other lifestyles — are simply equal expressions of human life.

As expressed by a Christian blogger.

Telling someone Jesus loves them is not the same as telling them you love them. Jesus can’t tell our children how much we love them or how important they are to us. Jesus can’t tell them how much they matter to us.

That’s our job.

Leelah just needed to know her parents loved her. She screamed it. She needed to know that her life mattered to them; she mattered.

When I was her age, I attempted suicide. It has taken fifteen years to admit that, but it took my church seconds to deem me unfit for ministry contract I had signed. In fine ink, it disclosed, “Perfection required.”

I guess I wasn’t called or anointed. I guess I’m not a leader. I’m just a sinner. My life didn’t matter. I didn’t matter. Only good Christians mattered.

At least that’s the message they sent. Now, as an adult, I know they were wrong, but back then I didn’t. I hid the truth, carried the guilt and blamed myself. I wish I hadn’t.

I’ve read the bible. For me, this was the verse that screamed among everything else:

Three things remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.

I can’t help but wonder how many people viewed Leelah’s suicide note the night before her death and chose to ignore it.

It doesn’t take a Bible or a hashtag to share your faith, show love or save people. If you want to change the world, it’s simple.

Go spread love throughout it.

Someone in your life is sitting at home right now and they’re wondering why they should go on living. They’re suffering in silence and painting a smile because that is what we’ve come to believe is normal, polite and expected. But they’re lying. They’re desperate, broken, hurting and alone, and silently thinking,

I don’t matter. No one cares. If I die tomorrow, nobody will notice. 

They say pain changes people.  I’ve come to find it true myself.

But so does love.


“Even God Must Get the Blues”

 

I Attempted Suicide & I’m Not Sure It Was Wrong

Posted in People, Politics by

It was just after Thanksgiving. My head was pounding, and I was freezing as my feet hit the pavement running.

My parents had gone to my grandma’s house for leftover turkey and dressing. I stayed home, eager for the time to myself.

While they were enjoying their family dinner, I took a bottle of Tylenol: 350 capsules. It didn’t help matters much that I had taken a muscle relaxant from my mother’s collection.

I wasn’t suicidal.

I had a migraine from running.

At least, that is the story I told.

By the time my boyfriend found me, my body temperature had dropped, my lips were blue and I was freezing.

I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

When I was 15, medical professionals tried to tell me that it was “depressive disorder.” Even then, I knew better.

While on Facebook, some days, just viewing my profile can cost me an entire day or a few hours. It’s one day one minute, and the next minute, it’s Tuesday.

The days just disappear and so do the hours. Facebook regularly prompts me to update my profile and poses this question:

What are some of your favorite memories?

I should mention . . .

I also have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).

As an adult, I have learned that extensive physical and emotional trauma have conditioned my brain to a specific, organized, way of thinking.

Some days, it feels like it did the same to my emotions.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what at the time, but something changed just before I started seventh grade. I stopped going by my first name. I adamantly went by my middle name and became verbally aggressive if challenged otherwise.

Please, call me, ‘Grace.’

I also took a creative writing class that year. When we returned from Spring break, we were assigned a writing project prompted with this question:

What was the favorite part of your Spring break with your family?

In tears and confused, I approached the teacher’s desk and quietly whispered that I had nothing special to tell about my Spring break.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

I can’t remember what happened that year. There were many hard years. My counselor tells me,

We have a way of blocking the hard parts out.

I’d like to know what she considers as hard. 

The teacher told me to write about any happy memory with my family instead. On that day, I realized I didn’t have any happy memories—not one.

Not that I never had any happy moments, that is just how my mind works.

Ethics

As a teenager, if had succeeded in taking my own life, would the decision have been ethical? Would it have been right or wrong? After all, I was the victim of an abusive culture and upbringing, innocent in my youth and my thinking.

I was a child.

If mental health did not play a role, but rather a pure response to real trauma, would you tell a child he/she is selfish for escaping abuse the only way the child knew how or does the abuse give a logical and acceptable justification to suicide?

Physician-assisted Suicide is legal in the Netherlands, currently being determined in Canada, and moderately approved (with restrictions) across the United States. According to the American Medical Association:

Physician-assisted suicide occurs when a physician facilitates a patient’s death by providing the necessary means and/or information to enable the patient to perform the life-ending act (eg, the physician provides sleeping pills and information about the lethal dose, while aware that the patient may commit suicide.)

If the physical need for an escape from pain or the fear of the pain that is coming is an ethical justification for suicide, then, wouldn’t the same be valid in the case of a teenager escaping physical abuse or other trauma?

If suicide is justifiable for any reason, what gives anyone the authority to govern who and who does not deserve to choose if they live or die?

If an adult, undergoing extensive medical treatment for a terminal condition, can choose to end his/her own life at will, why would an adult undergoing daily pain and torment not also deserve that same right?

Wouldn’t it be “ethical” to determine that is for the greater good of all who are hurting to cease suffering, if possible?

The problem is human nature. It makes the majority believe that the method by which death is achieved is not moral. 

I would by lying to say that I am not torn on the topic. Losing a loved one to suicide feels like a shock to the heart. It feels like an injustice, like a life was stolen.

A close friend who lived in my neighborhood was shot in the head during the summer of 1996. His name was Michael Lime. At first, they tried to claim it was suicide. Then, there was rumor and speculation of murder. In the end, it was chalked off to boys playing with guns.

But nobody really knows because we don’t talk about it.

Why do we fight against the justification, ethical theory and legality, of suicide being socially acceptable?

Morals.

If we determine and declare that suicide is an acceptable way of dying, what message do we send our children, friends and family, when they reach out during that moment when life feels like too much?

In those moments, we want to send one message:

Choose life!

So, we declare it unethical, immoral, sinful, selfish and crazy. But is it?

To want to escape something unreal, unimaginable and unbearably painful, is that unethical? Is that wrong?

I’m not sure, but I choose life and every good or bad day it may bring.

I choose life.

Suicide Prevention

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Defining The Line Between Discipline & Abuse

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Fifty-Six

Fifty-six was the amount of time that I was able to stomach the altercation that transpired between Ray Rice and his fiancé, Janay. As I sat and watched the video on TMZ, I wasn’t shocked that another story of domestic abuse made the news.

In just twenty-seven seconds, Ray rendered her unconscious as he delivered one swift, left hook, punch to her face. She collapsed against the elevator rail and slid down to the floor. She didn’t move.

I should have stopped watching then, but I didn’t.

I continued to watch.

He pulled her lifeless body across the elevator and towards the door, with one shoe missing and her feet dragging behind her. Then, he dropped her face-first on the floor with a thud. I stopped watching. I was enraged!

I was angry for every victim across the nation who has seen the hand of abuse. I was angry at TMZ for exploiting the video. I was angry at Janay Rice for marrying him a month later on March 28. I was angry that she publicly lashed out towards his team and the media via Instagram, and sent the message to every child in the world that violence and abuse are “what true love is.”

Four.

Four is the age of Adrian Peterson’s son, whose body has been at the receiving end of a tree limb, a hand, and a belt, in just the four short years that he’s been alive.

I should have known better than to go researching the latest and hottest NFL trending topic on Twitter, but still, I began scrolling.

Tears filled my eyes before I even started typing. My heart was racing with anger. I knew not to read too many articles and to know when enough was enough. I was prepared, this time, I thought.

I continued to read and I continued to watch.

When I came across a few short lines, among millions of words, that left me fuming and speechless with fury, I wasn’t surprised. As he spoke with police, Peterson’s son said,

Daddy Peterson hit me on my face. There are a lot of belts in Daddy’s closet.

Then, he explains to his mother that Peterson “liked switches and belts” and has a “whipping room.”

I was enraged.

Yesterday, my daughter slipped and fell on the bathroom floor. Today, I am still upset at myself for not being more proactive in protecting her. That’s my job as her mom.

I cannot fathom disciplining my child in such a way that bruises, welts, and cuts, are left on her body. I would never intentionally inflict pain upon her at all.

To Adrian Peterson, though, that’s just the way of life. 

So, the NFL waited a day to announce their commencement with former White House official, Cynthia C. Hogan, until one day after Peterson delivered his preapproved and professionally articulated statement.

A strategic move in keeping a lid on the latest domestic violence hype and Charles Barkley helped defend a culture of abuse claiming,

Whipping — we do that all the time!

Making sure to allude that it’s not a big deal, but it is. 

5.3 Million

The average number of men, women, and children, who will remain or become victims of abuse or neglect by the end of this year is 5.3 million.

According to the US Department of Justice, 1,300,000 women and 835,000 men become victims of physical assault at the hands of their own lovers annually. Black women suffering at a rate of 35 percent higher than white women.

An estimated 686,000 children, in 2012, according to the Child Welfare Information Gateway, had newly confirmed counts of neglect or abuse — 80 percent of them at the hands of their own mothers or fathers.

Approximately 3 million reports are made annually, which include more than 6 million children.

But we all just continue to watch.

Meanwhile, CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman, an “expert” defines the line between discipline and abuse as a gray blur?!

We blame our upbringing and culture while pointing our fingers at the NFL and the law for what our own hands are doing.

There is a line.

If you are disciplining your child, you are reinforcing positive behaviors and instilling respect. When you cross the line of abuse, you’re not only hurting your children, you are teaching them that it is acceptable and natural to hurt other people.

All states’ laws permit the use of ‘reasonable’ corporal punishment; simultaneously, they all prohibit nonaccidentally inflicted serious injury. —Doriane Lambelet Coleman et al.

If hitting our children results in a culture of violence and long-term disorders due to trauma (e.g. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, racing thoughts, severe anxiety, aggressiveness, relationship issues, suicidal ideation, etc.), those are serious injuries.

If you took your fist and you punched it into the wall would it hurt you? Would you feel it? Yes. If you take a tree limb, belt or wooden spoon, and hit the wall as hard as you could would it hurt you? Would you feel it? No.

When your hands are hurting your child is bleeding and bruised— that is abuse.

That is the line.

As a parent, you draw the line and you do not cross it because you love and do not want to hurt your child.

One

One famous NFL player had to have a video go viral to get our attention. One is the number of people it takes to speak out and bring attention to important causes.

One is the age of my only daughter and the number of times I held her in my arms before I knew that I would fight to no end to protect her beyond measure for the rest of my life.

There is something to be said of our nation when more than 5 million of our own citizens are being abused and neglected, and we do nothing to rise together and change it.

That is until it’s the beginning of the football season and our favorite players start missing from the field.

This Is How I Feel Most Days

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This is how I feel most days,

But to you, I wear a smile.

Everyone keeps leaning, needing,

Repeating,

Sweet, Miss Dependable

Me. It’s my own fault.

I love the loving

Like those in need of affection love lovers.

They inhale love.

Steal, ravish and consume it,

Quenching their thirst.

I’m afraid.

My heart has nurtured to the extent that it hungers.

Unloved, but still loving.

My love is volatile, leaking.

I have given in dangerous measures.

Still, I’m unlovable.

I will not cave! No, not I!

Bartender,  pour me another.

But to you, I wear a smile.

I am an addict and my heart is my dealer.

Toxins flow straight to my veins.

They still linger.

Secret poison to escape my hatred.

My own words betray me.

My strength’s a facade.

I’ll break. I will crumble.

I do break.

Like fine china on pavement,

I’ve broken.

Unloved, but still loving.

Bartender, pour me another.

I grab the mic and take a drink,

Sing, wave and take my bow.

Still, unbelieving and hollow.

But to you, I wear a smile.

I Wrote This In The Psych Ward

Posted in People, Poetic by

Saint Lukes

Today is my birthday and I was just released from the hospital. It was my first time to check into an adult mental health facility.

On my first day, the nurse yelled at the entire unit over cigarettes. She yelled about cigarettes while I looked at the ground, two floors down, wondering if the drop would kill me… I’m going to share more of my story in the days to come. But for now, I just want to say:

You can do this. You can make it through whatever you are going through! Stay one more day. I can’t promise it won’t be hell. I can’t promise you tomorrow will bring magical answers. But stay. New strength comes every morning.

If you are struggling, reach out. If your family and friends are not listening, reach out until they do! Pick up the phone and call the National Lifeline, drive to an emergency room, call 911, talk to your mom or dad, talk to your husband or wife, reach out to a teacher or a friend—anyone! Do whatever you have to do!

Because even if you don’t believe it, your life is worth the fight.

You deserve to get to the good part.

If you need support now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or reach the Crisis Text Line by texting “START” to 741741.

If you or someone you know needs help, check out The Mighty‘s list of suicide prevention resources!

Thirty-Five

Posted in People, Poetic by

I turned thirty-five today.

Just to paint a clear picture of the excitement: A random show is playing on Hulu, I don’t even know the title. My 4-year-old daughter is fully dressed in a bright red jogging suit and bright pink light-up shoes, trying to work the TV remote while dripping pickle juice all over the carpet. It’s a quarter ‘til midnight

Maybe I should be putting my restless Energizer bunny to bed for the thirty-ninth time, out getting drinks with friends, or pretending to hate a casual family dinner, but I’m not. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even get out of my pajamas. My birthday is the one day a year, no matter what, I feel suicidal.

I watch my friends with envy as they celebrate their birthdays and moan and groan about getting older. That part has never bothered me. I get tripped up by abandonment, insecure attachments, broken homes, missing family, and mental health. I get distracted by watching the hours fade away on the one day I should hear from my family. I get choked up by checking my phone and the mail, by checking painful doors and expecting lost love to be there.

I might be middle-aged, but I am still a little girl waiting to be surprised, waiting for her wish to come true when she blows out the candles, and crying herself to sleep at night. But I’m not writing this for me. I’m writing to those who know what worthlessness feels like. To the person who can’t stand being told they are never alone because every time they hear it, they’re surrounded by empty rooms and silence.

I’m writing to you. Maybe it’s not your birthday. Maybe there is another day of the year you always struggle to get through. Maybe you’re happy one minute and the next minute, you’re hopeless. Maybe you struggle with thoughts of suicide every day, you feel like your life doesn’t matter and nobody cares every day! Maybe suicide haunts you. Me too.

When you can’t celebrate your life because you are distracted by thoughts of your death, it matters. Because even if you get a million Facebook comments or tweets from random strangers, when you’re disconnected from friends and family, when the love you want to be there is missing, the only person really left to celebrate your existence is you. And if you haven’t found a reason, if darkness is screaming like a monster after five shots of vodka at a nightmare Sweet Sixteen party, no matter how many candles are lit, you fly blind.

Hopelessness and worthlessness become all you can taste. All you can hear. You play Russian Roulette year after year as they duel with your will to survive. Here is my biggest piece of advice: Prepare. Buy a new outfit. Find a reason to leave the house. Alone or with someone else, it doesn’t matter.

If you don’t make it, if you can’t open the door, dress up anyway. Get out of bed anyway. Text a friend. Answer all the Facebook posts on your timeline. Don’t have any? Announce it! That’s right. Seek love out! Celebrate yourself! Even if you’re struggling to understand why you’re alive. Fight. Have your favorite meal. Have a drink of your favorite wine. (Mine’s whiskey.)  Do something you’ve been meaning to do.

Protect your heart. I’ve spent a lot of birthdays wanting to die. Enough to know a lot of other people out there have, too. And I want you to know, as my birthday ends, I am celebrating each of you!

Love doesn’t always come knocking the way that it should. And sometimes, when it does, things like depression, PTSD, and social anxiety, get in the way of us answering the door. That is exactly what lifelines are for! Build them. If you do not have them, seek them out. Build them.

Love will come. In the meantime, my wish for you is to taste the frosting. Have a cake made just for you. And keep choosing life.

If you are feeling suicidal, please reach out the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255, or text ‘HOME’ to the Crisis Text Line, 741-741.