World Suicide Prevention Day 2016

** Trigger Warning **

She looked into the mirror - her eyes were blank... hollow, her heart was heavy, and her hope was lost. She was tired of struggling and of fighting... She was simply exhausted and had lost her ability to cling to life.

She had heard it all and she hated the words, their voices of encouragement, and their stories of recovery; it wasn't worth anything... she couldn't feel anything. Once the pull of death's comfort, peace, and ease had infiltrated her mind - there was no going back... No other way out... Nothing could change her decision.

She sat in the tub, filled to the brim with water and with a hair dryer in her hand: she crouched in the darkest corner of her room with the razor at her wrist: she sat on the patio with the pills poured out into her hand. Once death had claimed her mind, it was far too easy to know what came next, to follow through.

She didn't expect the moments of clarity that would take her breath away... It would be a few seconds at most as remnants of light blasted through the darkness - pieces of conversations surrounding recovery and hope and life, bits of memories filled with love and joy, reminders of hands reaching out - showing grace, friendship, support, and acceptance.

It was only a few moments and then the light vanished, the darkness and despair returning to cage her mind, filling the space, consuming everything except for one tiny speck... A glimmer... A sparkle.

Maybe, just maybe those moments of clarity were enough and still shaking she takes one last chance. She drives herself to the emergency room or she picks up the phone to call a trusted friend, a hotline, or emergency services.

She will be questionned - it will feel like an interrogation on why she is in crisis and she will have to repeat her story and her history to every person who walks into her room or tries to help her. She will fade to darkness and wish she hadn't made the choice to open up and let them in.

But that speck. Gradually it will grow a little bit brighter and so she doesn't fight them. She decides to stay, to muster any ounce of strength that she can find, to fight for that light one last time.

At her weakest point in life, she has become the strongest she has ever been. She faces anger, shame, guilt, and humiliation... She is stripped of her clothes, her freedom, and her choices. Still she sees that sparkle hanging there and she chases it, speaking up - revealing truth and suffering, voids and failures, grief and loss.

And as she does - that light, that bright speck, it becomes a star which gradually reveals the other stars, and suddenly the sun is shining and the world, her world, is brighter again; illuminating even the darkest places in her mind.

Once she is stable, she holds onto the light like a security blanket. It shimmers and flexes, fades and boldens as she mives forward, one small step at a time. She chooses to continue to speak about her experiences. She speaks and she listens, she accepts and she prays, and she helps and she seeks help. She becomes the glimmer in another person's darkness while she gains more sparkles to hold onto herself, in case the darkness ever threatens to return.

September 10, 2016 is World Suicide Prevention Day. Find your speck of light - it is never too late to find hope in the darkness as long as we never fall silent in our pain and our light, in our support of friends and family, and in sharing our own experiences.

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Doing Well - Living Life with Mental Health

Recently I’ve been left with a lot of time on my hands to question things - to do some reflection and determine where I’ve come from and where I’m heading. It’s something that I’ve done more often in the previous several months and for me, it’s a good thing. I need that. I need those reminders of where I’ve been – how bad it has been at times and how good the possibilities actually are.

A reminder from hospital, made during therapy.

Some days I also feel like a fraud. I’m here writing (and talking in real life) about how well I’m doing, how under control my moods are – how level I’ve been – and how well I’m managing the Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms… and really, I’m speaking and writing the truth. I am doing well. But it isn’t without struggle – something that I’m not always able to properly articulate in my blog posts because the fighting and the worry and the constant watching is all under the surface. It’s in the reminders that I have around the house, the conversations with myself debating whether or not I have a legitimate reason to be upset or happy or energetic. It’s in the everyday fight to maintain the good things that I took time and effort to set up – everything from routine to what/how/when I eat. It’s in the battle of my mind that still wants to creep up from time to time and tell me that I’m worthless, that wants to stop me from reaching out when I need support, and that worries endlessly that I will slip up – that I’m not doing enough, that it will never be enough to stay healthy and on track.

The beginning. I needed reminders to get out of bed.

At times it can be utterly and completely exhausting to keep up with myself, to stop and slow down racing thoughts and to force myself to remain in constant sleep patterns when I feel my mood start to go up. It’s more than a little tiring to force myself to get up in the mornings and get dressed when I feel like a cloud of depression is pushing me down, and some days it feels impossible to keep moving forward when all I want to do is lay down and sleep. And then when my energy is already depleted, to have to force myself to be open, to want to build relationships and stop pushing people away; to bite my tongue and not react viciously when the anger begins to build can almost be too much. And occasionally I slip. I fail. I’m not perfect and I don’t expect I will ever be.

But I can learn to cope, to take those moments of trial and use them to find things that work, to practice on building the skills I have learned and to be authentic with the people in my life.

A reminder of my last stay in the hospital, a painting I did in therapy.

I’m not a fraud. I am doing well. It has taken me many years of half-effort and lack of understanding to get me here. It has taken suicide attempts and hospital stays, psychiatrist appointments and support groups to help me understand. Mental illness is not something you can deal with alone and although it took a lot of ‘wrongs’ to get me to where I am, I’m glad I’m finally here, in the place that I can acknowledge it all.

Mental illness doesn’t have to be my weakness. It is one of the many things in my life that has made me stronger and more resilient. I have become more determined to change my life and I am willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen – doctors, medications, support groups, supportive family/friends, research, talking, writing, self-discovery and self-care. My journey isn’t pretty. It isn’t filled with a doctor that took the time to counsel all of the reasons why I am this way, a single medication that has fixed my life and made everything look like roses. It has been filled with tears and fights and denial and ugly truths and hard lessons. It has been filled with days when I wasn’t sure I could go on, when recovery and happiness seemed completely impossible but I pushed ahead anyways. It didn’t always seem like it, but I know that it has been worth it. It sometimes seems so dark that you know that you will never escape, but I promise there is hope. If you are struggling, find help – reach out, call a friend or a hotline, dig your heels in and try just a little harder and you will find the light. It is there, just around the corner. Life is always worth it, even when you can’t see your happy ending. 

One of my reminders, (semi-colon tattoo) because my story isn't over yet. 

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