I originally wrote this for The American Association of Suicidology's Attempt Survivor Blog
I don’t remember how long it was after my suicide attempt that I knew I wanted to live. It wasn’t immediate, I know that. I didn’t wake up in the intensive care unit, fill my lungs with oxygen from a plastic tube and think, “Thank God I’m alive.” What came to me first was that I didn’t want to die. And as a person who has lived nearly 20 years of struggling with suicidal thoughts, I can tell you that there is a very big difference between not wanting to die and wanting to live. Until my attempt at age 20, not wanting to die was how I lived most of my life. I hovered just above the bottom, inches away from my breaking point and buried beneath mountains of bad memories, mental disorders and hopelessness. I was always just one step away from suicide but not really wanting to die. That certainly didn’t mean that I was safe from suicide. It just meant that I was able to keep my suicidal thoughts at bay, even if it was a constant struggle. But knowing that I didn’t want to die seemed to suffice for everyone around me: my parents, friends and doctors, even me. When asked if I were considering suicide, I could almost always answer a truthful, “No, I don’t want to die.” This became the way I learned to cope with suicide: one step from the edge, buried in hopelessness, alive but definitely not living. My first memory of this is when I was 8 years old and held a chef’s knife in my hand while crying uncontrollably. I was home from school alone one afternoon and doing the dishes as part of my daily chores. It wasn’t often that I had the house to myself, and I couldn’t help but notice how quiet it was. The TV was off. There were no sounds of nightly news reporters filling me in on the latest world tragedies. My mother and stepfather were not home yet. There were no voices shouting back and forth at each other, venting the dramas of the work day. It was just me, the sound of my breathing, the occasional drip of the faucet and the muffled clank of dishes sliding beneath soapy water. I was drying the dishes and putting them in the rack when I picked up the knife. My mother had warned me about how easily I could get hurt if I mishandled it. Sometimes I was afraid to even touch it, but on that day I wasn’t so scared. I held it by the handle in a firm grip and slid a kitchen towel down one side of the blade. I could see my face in the reflective shine. I could see my teeth, and the big space between them that I wished I didn’t have. I could see the cowlick in my light blonde hair that made me look messy, no matter what I did to hide it. I could see my skin, my nose and my eyes. I could see their sadness and their weakness. Tears began to form. At 8 years old, I hated my life. I hated that I was being molested and I had no one to tell. I hated that I was bullied for being a messy kid with a cowlick and crooked teeth, teased for being a bad student and disliked simply because I was me. I hated the thought of waking up each morning scared of what the day would bring. I hated the knot in my stomach that always seemed to be alive within me. I hated that I had trouble controlling my thoughts. I hated that I felt so weak inside and so sad. And for all of that, I hated myself. My reflection blurred as tears continued to well up in my eyes. I turned and leaned against the counter. I gripped the knife with both hands and imagined what it would be like to not have to wake up again, to not have to face another day. The crying turned to sobs. I breathed deep with heavy wails. I was so broken, and so alone. Slowly, I slid down the kitchen cabinet. I wished I was strong. I wished I was brave. I wished I didn’t live in my house or go to my school. I wished everything was different. I lay the knife down beside me, curled into a ball on the kitchen floor and sobbed for what felt like hours. The house remained silent. No slamming doors or heavy footsteps. It was just me, an 8-year-old boy lying broken on the floor, curled in a ball with my cheek pressed in a puddle of tears, quietly wishing I wasn’t alive, but somehow not wanting to die. For years this is where I remained. As a teenager, I was committed to several mental health facilities for treatment. I was consumed by depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and relentless anxiety. Each time I met with a therapist or hospital clinician, they would always ask me the same clipboard questions and would inevitably ask if I was suicidal. That question was always there, probing my darkest desires and gauging the criticality of my current state: “Do you feel like you want to die? Do you want to hurt yourself? Are you thinking of suicide?” But strangely, for all of the times I was asked that, for all the doctors, therapists and counselors I sat with over the years, not once was I asked if I wanted to live. It wasn’t until my suicide attempt at age 20 when I asked this for myself. I lay in the intensive care unit, tubes running from my mouth and nose, wires hooked up all over my body, and my hands and feet restrained to the bed. I thought about my life. I thought about how I had lived it, or rather how I hadn’t lived it. I looked back at all the significant moments that shaped me, all the things I had been through. And I remembered the quiet afternoon when I lay alone on the kitchen floor as an 8-year-old boy. I realized it had been more than a decade since that day, and for more than a decade I had allowed myself to remain there. All because “not wanting to die” was a good enough place to be. Over time, I didn’t just “not want to die,” I wanted to live. But a thought like that doesn’t come so easily after years of struggling with suicide. The reality was, I wanted to want to live. Although I’d love to say that I was grateful to be alive and ready to start over, diving headfirst into everything life has to offer, the thought of living life was completely terrifying to me. Living in my shadow was all I had ever known. Living in the darkness of my illnesses, no matter how devastating and dangerous, no matter how isolating, was the only place I knew. I had never known what it was like to get up off the kitchen floor. But I did know then that I was ready to. For all the difficulties I have had in life, I can tell you that making the decision to say, “I want to live” instead of saying “I don’t want to die,” was one of the hardest things I have ever done. It was facing a fear like none before, a step taken into an unknown world, a step forward into me. But fear, no matter what form it took, was something I had lived with my entire life. It influenced my decisions and kept my head pushed below the surface. Fear, in a large sense, was the reason I attempted suicide. So what was I so afraid of now? I had made a conscious decision to end my life. No matter what answers I gave to the questions of “what if,” none were as devastating or as frightening as what I had just gone through. The truth is that it couldn’t get any worse than it had already been, and my fears were weightless, empty and void of truth. I had nothing to be afraid of. I’m not sure how long it was after my suicide attempt when I was certain that I wanted to live, when I knew I was ready to pick myself up off that kitchen floor. I’m not sure how long it took for me to truly convince myself that living was what I wanted. It didn’t come immediately. Living life took time. It took work and acceptance. It took a full understanding of what life means to me personally and how I would choose to live it. As someone who has spent almost 20 years of life battling with suicidal thoughts, I can tell you that there is a very big difference between “not wanting to die” and “wanting to live.” One will leave us where we fall, letting us believe that we are safe and disguising us from our true potential. The other will help us up, dust us off, embrace us for our efforts and present a world which we’ve never imagined, a world worth living for.
41 Comments
Stacy
6/4/2014 04:28:42 am
Thank you for this compelling insight. We share a similar abuse background and my decedent's have mental health issues. Suicide never occurred to me until my GPA took his life when I was 16. Once the door was opened intrusive thoughts began but it took years for me to get to that place where it was time in my early 40s. I woke up so angry in the hospital. After several years of therapy I went from victim to survivor to thriver. But I still feel like "I don't want to die" because of the aftermath I will leave. Your words " I want to live" I think is the next step for me. I think my psychiatrist will be pleased to know I am chewing on that. Thank you again. Healthy thoughts and body. Stacy
Reply
10/9/2014 06:37:20 am
Neuroscience is a branch of biology which deals with the study of nervous system. Its categorization is under discussion it also relates to discipline chemistry and computer, neuroscience is a vast field in which we study the conduction of nerve impulses through which order are transported, processed and then action is produced.
Reply
10/21/2014 09:39:38 pm
Choosing the hair style not an easy task. Hair style is the mirror of personality. People are judging with their personality. Wigs help the people to choose their hairstyle. People can easily change their hairstyle after some time if they do not feel comfortable in it.
Reply
12/12/2014 12:41:42 am
Nice share. I think your website should come up much higher in the search results than where it is showing up right now….
Reply
2/11/2015 02:09:05 am
I am sure that your problem is familiar to many people! Thanks for sharing this idea
Reply
2/23/2015 02:41:03 pm
Thanks to your comment. It is so tough to change the mentality of folks, who consider they have to starve by themselves and conquer their bodies into the ground to see final results.
Reply
2/27/2015 07:47:55 pm
Great tips and very easy to understand. This will definitely be very useful for me when I get a chance to start my blog.
Reply
4/25/2015 12:13:04 am
Reply
4/29/2015 03:08:49 am
in ISLAM the education is compulsory for both man and woman. So the concept of not giving the education to the females if totally wrong every woman should learn the education foe her good future.
Reply
7/21/2015 12:05:24 am
Thank you so much, I am so pleased with the final outcome of my paper.
Reply
7/30/2015 08:46:34 pm
For writer: quick and with high quality; For support team: Instant and nice services. Thanks a million!
Reply
8/11/2015 08:10:39 am
Thanks for making such a cool project. I've been checking the site for the Windows version, but I never left a comment about it. I know you are working hard and doing it for free so you shouldn't feel rushed or anything. I hope you can continue this type of hard work to this site in future also. Because this blog is really very informative and it helps me lot.
Reply
8/27/2015 11:31:31 pm
Sad story bro. You are so life bored at the age of twenty so what will happen when you reach forty?
Reply
8/30/2015 10:22:23 am
I completely agree with the above comment, the internet is without a
Reply
8/30/2015 07:51:14 pm
No need to wait to live, do it right now! You are the greatest person (I love you already because of your writing) and you deserve it, you deserve great life!
Reply
10/13/2015 04:43:17 am
Fine information, many thanks to the author. It is puzzling to me now, but in general, the usefulness and importance is overwhelming. Very much thanks again and best of luck!
Reply
11/5/2015 07:22:14 pm
Reply
12/3/2015 01:06:02 pm
Thanks for sharing this blog its very informative and useful for us .
Reply
12/3/2015 02:49:39 pm
That is fantastic blog, I will pas this to the other peoples.
Reply
12/3/2015 03:49:01 pm
We are Number 1 in Ghostwriting Service. Hire a ghostwriter for interviews and research, Personalized Ghostwriting Process, Revisions & Proven Record of Publishing Success.
Reply
12/3/2015 05:42:50 pm
A case study evaluation needs one to address the company’s issue, analyze the alternate options, and propose the best answer using supporting evidence.
Reply
12/3/2015 06:05:25 pm
yeah it was such an awesome blog that i have updated.. :)
Reply
12/3/2015 06:37:15 pm
Thanks for sharing the info, keep up the good work going.... I really enjoyed exploring your site.
Reply
2/16/2016 04:33:07 pm
I like the valuable info you provide in your articles. I will bookmark your weblog and check again here frequently. I am quite certain I will learn plenty of new stuff right here! Good luck for the next!
Reply
3/17/2016 09:32:50 pm
This is great website indeed and I really very thankful to developer of this site to present such type of website.
Reply
4/10/2017 10:50:44 am
CASE STUDY HELP & CASE STUDY ONLINE HELP What a case study is and what it requires? Case study assignment is a must assignment that every student get.
Reply
6/7/2017 02:22:26 pm
Hi buddy, your blog' s design is simple and clean and i like it.
Reply
12/2/2020 03:39:47 am
Your thing with respect to making will be for all intents and purposes nothing hard to come by of amazing. This instructive article is unimaginably valuable and contains offered myself a superior answer for have the option to my own issues.
Reply
8/21/2021 12:36:04 am
Great job for publishing such a beneficial web site. Your web log isn’t only useful but it is additionally really creative too. There tend to be not many people who can certainly write not so simple posts that artistically. Continue the nice writing.
Reply
3/2/2022 11:23:46 pm
Very elegantly composed. This blog has every one of the necessary parts that I was searching for. The focuses are all around featured, expressing the genuine importance. Straightforward and read.
Reply
3/3/2022 03:29:31 am
I appreciate what you folks are as a rule up as well. This sort of astute work and inclusion! Keep up the awesome works folks I've added you all to my own blogroll.Also visit my site.
Reply
5/6/2022 12:44:59 am
Very valuable information, it is not at all blogs that we find this, congratulations I was looking for something like that and found it here.
Reply
5/23/2022 02:28:16 am
Yes, this is a good blog without any doubts. You really doing a great Job. I inspired from you.
Reply
6/3/2022 12:37:41 pm
Your blog is very nice. Wish to see much more like this. Thanks for sharing your information.
Reply
7/1/2022 11:34:27 am
This is very interesting website, Thanks for sharing such a good blog.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Craig A. Miller
A place for Photographs and general thoughts. Archives
September 2021
Categories |