An Open Letter To A Suicide Survivor

Dear suicide survivor,

            I have been where you are, right now. I have been in every stage, of a suicidal mindset. After 22 years of struggling with mental health, I am here to say, “it gets better”. Cliché, I know but it’s true. I had people tell me for years, things would get better but truth is, when you are in a mental state of considering taking your own life, you don’t really care what anyone tells you. They are telling you things will get better… eventually, not today, not right now. We want to be freed from the pain now, not in a couple of years. 

            I think people who love us, try their best to understand and help. I had friends who told me they were going to tell my parents or call a hotline, if I didn’t receive help. In response, I got upset and used every route to push them away. We don’t want people to find out about us because then we will have to face reality. When you face reality, you deal with having to receive help and deal with your problems head on.

            Short backstory about myself. I started struggling with mental health problems, at the age of 4 years old. I started being conscious of my weight and started holding my hand in front of my stomach in pictures, throughout my childhood. I developed an eating disorder in high school, excessively working out and pretending to eat. I attempted to throw up and cut myself a couple of times but never picked up this form of release. I pushed away everyone who cared about me and learned to become guarded. I had a hard time letting people in and letting people help me. I was suicidal throughout high school and never knew when I was doing it as a cry for help or actually considering doing so. 

            I had my struggles with feeling suicidal. I think not being able to be open about my feelings, made things harder to deal with. Suicide is such a taboo topic in society, the subject is only now starting to become normalized to talk about. So, it sounds weird saying even 10-20 years ago, I felt scared to talk about it openly. A couple of years ago, I had my first breakdown in the bathroom at 17 years old. I started to have an anxiety attack and cried for 2 hours, screaming about everything I held inside from my childhood to present time. I was so terrified. I never felt that way before and experiencing your first anxiety attack, followed by two hours of yelling about everything that destroyed you up to this point, is scary. Although it was very scary to have gone through, it was also a weight off of my shoulders when I finally cried and let it out for the first time in years. 

            About two years ago, I was at one of my lowest points with my depression. I was lying in bed and I started thinking about all of the things that were negative surrounding my life, the problems I never resolved and the people who were impacting my life in a very bad way. Although I have always been strangely comfortable within my mental illness, I have also never been so terrified I wouldn’t make it through the night. I remained on my bed lifeless, feeling the energy drain out of me. I didn’t want to be here anymore but I had no energy to actually go through with it. I couldn’t even move my hand a couple inches to grab my phone and call my sister for help. 

            I have never been so happy throughout my life, I have been stopped by the world around me, from ending mine. I have worked through my issues for years and although I’m sure it would be nice to resolve everything in a year or even a couple of months, that’s not realistic. Every day you have to continue to work on gaining knowledge and insight on what your problems are and how to resolve them. You need to progressively take steps toward changing behaviors and practice problem solving, every time you are faced with an obstacle. Life is hard but it is worth living.

            I know what it feels like to feel defeated every day and to feel as if nothing will ever get better. You try and try to come up empty handed but life is not an easy thing. Life hands us good and bad experiences, it’s up to us to decide how we will move forward and continue to live our lives being handed both. I finally feel in a place where I am happy. Everything in my life is not where I want it to be but I am healthy and okay. Instead of continuing to remain sad because my life wasn’t exactly where I would like it to be, I started counting the blessings I do have. 

            When I was struggling within my suicidal mindset, I was always focused on everything that was wrong with my life. I never took the time to appreciate the good. When I started to, I started to value my life more and more. I have amazing friends who have seen me at my worse and best. They have been with me through everything and I am so lucky to have them. I had them when I was dealing with my issues but when they tried to get me help, I pushed away. I started feeling alone because I stopped letting people in. Now, I appreciate how lucky I am to have them. I started reminding myself daily of the good in my life. I am surrounded by beautiful humans, who are there for me through it all. I have a job and a car to get to that job. I have healthy family and friends. I have my new healthy mindset with my mental health. I have a new found respect for myself and my existence. I have a stable income, being able to provide myself with clothing, shelter and food. I am very lucky to be alive and I remind myself of this notion every day. 

            Even my mindset was skewed when I was younger. I was only a kid when my mental health began. I was putting all of this pressure on everyone around to fix me, when they didn’t know what was going on and I never let them in to help. My friends were kids themselves when this all started and these problems were new to everyone. I was dealing with what felt like adult problems, with kids who just wanted to be kids and enjoy their childhood. I was dealing with adults who believed everything was a phase or would say, “Oh, you’re fine”, anytime I had the courage to finally reach out. So, I believed everyone abandoned me and didn’t care, when in reality they just didn’t know. After they found out, most people asked me why I never said anything and the truth is, I was projecting and assumed they didn’t care.

            So, my advice and wish to you is to be happy and live. Life is hard and everyone has their own battles they face. You will deal with hurt and pain throughout your lifetime. You will also experience love and amazing memories, if you stay around long enough to see for yourself. I know it feels like the end of the world but I promise you, it’s not. Once you actually make it to the other side, you will hug yourself for staying and smile, knowing you didn’t end your life when things became unbearable.

            Looking back on my life and remembering how many times I almost decided to leave, seems crazy to me now. I have experienced amazing friendships, new job opportunities, writing opportunities, falling in love for the first time, watching my friend’s little girl’s first year of life, traveled to amazing sites, seen beautiful sunsets and so on. I would have missed everything the world has to offer. I started looking at the good and stopped focusing on everything that was wrong. I am not saying this cures these feelings, I am just saying with therapy and working through my issues, I have been able to live a healthy stable life for myself. 

            I was talking to a friend the other day, about death and I told her I was really concerned about this celebrity that passed away. I was almost obsessed with trying to wrap my head around how a healthy, young person, could die so young. I didn’t understand why I was hurting so much over a stranger’s death. She said to me, “Do you think you feel this way because you now have a life you are scared to lose? You see this healthy, young celebrity, that had so much to offer the world and so much left to do and you feel that way about yourself. You used to not want to exist and now you have built a life for yourself, you are proud of.” Suddenly, it made sense. I finally felt enough to exist in this world with all my baggage attached. I believed in myself and was finally happy with the life I built. 

            I always wondered if I choose happiness or if happiness, chooses me. I have come to realize it is I, who chooses happiness. Things may not always go the way I planned or how I would like them to go, but in the end, I get to decide. The truth is, we all have choices and can choose to be happy or we could choose to wallow in the negatives in our lives. It may have taken me ten years to figure out but I’m glad I did. We create our own happiness every day, through the choices and decisions we make. So, do what makes you happy, help others often and be the best version of yourself. It is the greatest gift you can give to the world and to you.