REACH OUT WHEN YOU HAVE THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE

The Trevor Project provides crisis intervention 

and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ 

young people from the ages of 13 to 24.

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A disturbing headline caught my eye a week ago as I scrolled through CNN on my phone:

1 in 4 young people are reporting suicidal thoughts.

The report was based on a survey in late June by the United States Centers for Disease Control. Suicidal ideation was limited to a period of the last thirty days and “young people” was defined as 18-24 year olds. Among all people surveyed, 11% had suicidal thoughts in that same period with numbers higher for Blacks (15%) and Hispanics (19%). In any of these categories, the percentages are concerning. The article offered advice on how to get help, whether by reaching out to hotlines or establishing meaningful human contact, something greater than passing time with followers on social media. You can read the article here.

I’ve spent time this week debating whether I should offer my two cents. There is a danger when someone offers advice on such a critical subject that it can come off as pie-eyed and/or out of touch. I’ve been suicidal and I’ve both cringed and dismissed well-intentioned but off-the-mark words of solace. I’ve decided to offer my perspective in the chance it might make a difference to someone. I write, not as an expert nor as a life affirmer, but as someone who’s been there. In the throes of rock-bottom depression, grief and/or despair, I know it’s hard to connect with anything anyone says.

Hold on.

Click here for a link to international 

suicide prevention hotlines.

In my teens and early twenties, I came off as hyper, silly and basically fun to be around (if you were drawn to geeky people...and I’ve always embraced by inner geek). My laugh was loud and long. I’d often fall out of my chair, amused beyond control. In my circle, I was the life of the party. But in my journal, I wrote about feeling alone, rejected and hideous. I drafted suicide notes many times and there were occasions when I sat on the bathroom floor, tears streaming down my face, a handful of pills in one hand and a glass of water in the other. My greatest fear was that I’d fail in my attempt. People would know. I’d have to live with friends and family tiptoeing around me. I might even have to open up about things I wanted to be forever shut.

I trudged on, smiling, laughing, telling people my motto was “Life is great!” In time, I managed to discover a few passions: my work as an educator with young kids, my writing and, most of all, my two miniature schnauzers. To those around me, I was thriving. Really, I was just getting by. Alone, I often broke down.

Sometimes you have to ride it out.

At the age of forty-eight, I remember going for a walk along the waterfront of the small town near my rural home. I was beyond worn out. In fact, the thought that popped into my head was, “I’m done.” What startled me was that there wasn’t any emotion, as with all the other times. No tears, no anger, not even any particular sadness. The thought felt freeing. It’s over. I don’t need to try anymore. I can just go.

Except I still had one schnauzer to care for. I knew I would never check out of life and abandon my dog. He was eleven and had years to go so I cherished my moments with him while planning my death, getting rid of possessions, checking in with myself repeatedly. Do you mean it this time? There was no teetering.

Eight months later, my dog died unexpectedly. When the shock lifted, the self-hate spiked. I blamed myself. While my plan would take a few months of preparation so as not to burden my family who lived in another country and so as not to directly impact a school of young children where I was principal, I felt I didn’t deserve to live another day. I called a crisis line but worried I was taking up time from another needy caller. Would he or she get a busy signal or voice message? The person on the other phone wasn’t helpful, too quick to offer a “solution” that did not apply.

Sometimes helpers won’t be helpful. Persist.

I hung up and fled for a few days to a place I’d never been. In the past, travel always helped. Maybe I could buy some time.

It didn’t help. My feelings didn’t change.

As I drove home, I kept visualizing ways to kill myself. (I shall not share specifics here.) I struggled to complete the journey. The next day I broke down on the floor of my doctor’s office and he called Emergency to alert them that I would be there shortly, walking over, being escorted the two blocks by a receptionist in his office. “Don’t let them send me home,” I said.

They didn’t. I spent nine days locked in a psych ward, seeing and hearing things that triggered a level of anxiety I’d never known and that still cause me great trauma. Interventions are imperfect. Still, I needed to be in a place where I could completely shut down and surrender. Twenty-four or forty-eight hours was all I needed—I spent the rest of my stay fighting to get out—but it was essential. Without question, it saved my life.

I swore I would never go back, but it happened again, three years later. That time it happened as I crumbled in the office of my psychiatrist whom I’d been seeing weekly. This time, it was a sixteen-day stay. Again, the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours were most critical.

Three more years have passed. I’m still here. It could happen again.

Here’s what I know. I’ve hit the rockiest of rock bottoms. Loss of emotion. A state of completely giving up. For days and weeks and even months, I could see the sun in the sky and it would register that, yes, that’s a nice thing. I could observe a puppy bounding about in a park or watch a cute otter video. I could listen to favorite songs of my youth...something by Olivia or Andy or Barry or Donna. (Geek,...remember?) All these would register as positive things to me, but none of them mattered. I’d had enough.

So, yes, I think I know a thing or two about suicidal thoughts. (Again, I’m making a conscious decision not to share anything about my plans.) I’ve reached that actual point of the lowest of lows, something far more desolate than people who’ve made that expression a cliché would understand. I hit that point again a year ago but managed to avert another hospital admission. As someone who has been diagnosed as bipolar (among other things), I know that I may reach that pit of depression, despair and utter resignation again (and again).

This is me the day

before hospital

admission in 2017.

What gets me through now is knowing that, as agonizing and as emotionally stripping as these times are, they actually do pass. Getting through it hasn’t coming from anything a medical professional or a friend or family member has said. When I’m at that point, nothing they say helps, if it even registers. I’ve required support, but really it’s just been having a place to shut down. Last summer, when I crashed yet again, I had outpatient support at the hospital and a bed in a group home where meals were provided. My basic needs were attended to while I was permitted to cocoon to ride out the low point. So, yes, each time has required me to reach out and, I guess out of fear, I did so. I don’t need talk in formal therapy or something more casual. I’ve learned only in retrospect that, in my worst moments, my thinking process is off. It can’t be trusted even though it’s sending strong signals to check out once and for all. Again, I just need basic care until I can think and function again at a minimal level.

This is me last

week. Things

are okay.

That’s what the reaching out has meant for me. General supervision in the most acute moments as I bide time. There is a way through it. It’s messy, it’s scary and it’s agonizing but, for some of us, it’s what we have to experience. It’s not the end, even though, in the moment, it absolutely feels like it is. I despise all of it but, having gone through it several times, I realize it’s a cycle. I hesitate to say it gets better because I’d want to scream at anyone who said that to me when I was in the thick of it. “Better” has always seemed too lofty, setting up someone who is struggling to feel like he’s failing. Instead, I guess I’d say that, as unbearable as it seems in the moment, you do move through it, even when no movement can be discerned.

Do reach out. And know that many people won’t know what to say or do. It will seem like they’re letting you down but, when your life is on the line, reach out again, even when it feels impossible to muster up the energy. Call a hotline to gain time until your doctor’s office opens. Go to Emergency and make it clear that they can’t send you home. You MUST be admitted. Help is there. Not as a fix necessarily but as a gift of time for mental recovery.

Hang on.