Denying my desire to die

Experiencing miracles in 40-second increments.

Content/Trigger warning: suicide attempts; suicidal ideation. If you are in danger, please seek helpline advice or contact your local emergency medical services.

Sunday morning on the altar of surrender

“I’m not okay.” The words came out of me like a whisper. Without poetry. Without explanation.

“I know,” my husband replied, sitting down next to me. The sofa cushion has a permanent indent that marks my search for solace.

I wept, recognising I have no fight left in me. For the past 19 years, whenever I’ve felt like giving up, when I’m certain I can’t endure any more pain, when I know I’m at the end of the road, I’ve fought that little bit harder. Picked up another tool. Acted my way into a better place. Taken the first micro-step. Done the next right thing. Currently, nothing I do seems to shift this desire to die that has been consuming me, with various intervals of respite, since childhood.

I had a call with a therapist recently to discuss a round of EMDR, a treatment I’d found effective in addressing trauma back in 2015. She looked at me with the kindest eyes, asking if that was what I really wanted to do because, in all honesty, I looked exhausted.

“I am so tired.”

She nodded. I cried. We both agreed it wasn’t the right time for me to embark on any more “work”.

No more work. No more masking. No more action. No more guilting myself that I’m not doing enough to beat the beast.

All I can do is surrender.

And that is the opposite of giving up.

Backyard blues. A view from the trail behind our home in Bailey’s Bay, Bermuda.

When miracles don’t feel miraculous

Statistically, a person dies by suicide every 40 seconds somewhere in the world. Who that is likely to be – in terms of gender, income, trauma, illness, experience, background, etc. – varies depending on the country. However, according to the World Health Organisation, “by far the strongest risk factor for suicide is a previous suicide attempt.”

My second, and last, suicide attempt was on a Sunday in June 2005. I was 20 years old. A law school student baby. In an alternate reality, I died that summer and never graduated or reached the milestone of 21. In this reality, that was the expected outcome – an eventuality my family were told to prepare for. I woke up in the now-defunct Middlesex Hospital in London to medical staff asking me what day it was. I thought of movies where the concussed athlete is asked a simple question, and his correct answer indicated good health and inspired relief. Unbearable fear devoured me as I grasped onto fragments of time in my mind. I didn’t have an answer and took a desperate guess.

“Tuesday?”

It was Thursday. The sinking in my stomach was swiftly replaced by searing pain and further conversation was interrupted by black blood emerging from my mouth. I was yellow with jaundice due to my failing liver. My kidneys had waved the white flag. No transplant listing for this self-destruction risk. My time was up.

Except it wasn’t. I prayed for the first time in my entire life to a God I didn’t believe in. I promised I wouldn’t waste anymore of my life being depressed. I would be happy, if only my life would be spared.

And it was. It took nearly nine years until my liver function tested in normal range, and my kidneys needed another three, but I survived.

But I wasn’t happy. At least not most of the time. Because living with mental illness and trauma and addiction I hadn’t yet recognised is more complex than that. I had made a promise I simply couldn’t keep.

I have, however, managed to not take my own life every day since then – even on the days that death is calling its siren song.

I often wonder, ‘How?’

Wearing the mask. Within 24 hours of this photo I tried to take my own life.

Cracking the mask

Yes, nearly dying was a wake-up call. But honestly, I’ve felt as desperate many times since then. Truthfully, I’ve felt that desperate too many times in the last two months. Surviving through this summer where pregnancy loss grief, postpartum depression and trauma have all collided has been a miracle. Being alive to experience the unbearable Bermuda heat transition this week has been a miracle. Hitting the age of 40 in August was a miracle, despite being an unwelcome one.

These last two months have held no shining bright light, nor booming voice of God, nor celebratory relief.

There has simply been the continuation of my breath, in and out, a wish and a prayer; and using that breath to speak the desperation I feel.

Last month, when Ajala asked if I had ever told anyone my plans before my two suicide attempts, I answered no.

I can feel immense shame over sharing how terrible I feel. We were all told the story of the little boy who cried wolf and whose sheep all died as a result. I don’t want the sheep to die. And the incongruence of suicidality is that I don’t want myself to die either. My husband’s question reminded me that, by refusing to stay silent about my pain, I have been saving my life for nearly two decades. In 40-second increments.

“It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.” - Leonard Cohen

There’s an article by Rachel E. Moss that Google tells me I “visit often”. It’s called Dear Suicidal Friend. Reading it is both a sign that I am not doing well and a sign that I am. Because I’m choosing to be reminded to stay alive. Having lost her husband to suicide, she writes so knowingly about the thoughts that exist inside me. The thoughts that exist inside all of us who struggle to choose life every day. If you’re a member of this forsaken family, I hope it helps you too.

Because, frankly, the help we need often doesn’t come. Like me, you may feel like you’re calling in the dark and the only voice that answers is your own echo. Accessing help, especially when you’ve already trodden down well-worn avenues, is far more exhausting than it should be for people who are using all their energy to simply keep breathing.

But using that breath to say how I feel, to unmask for no reward other than knowing I’ve bought myself forty more seconds, is often the bravest thing I can do.

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I post this essay in recognition of Suicide Prevention Month. While I haven’t been able to write much (as explained in my note) I’m risking some tapping on my laptop, because it’s how I heal (my soul, at least - my hand may disagree).