A WAY OUT CANNOT HAVE AN END
I wouldn't be doing my part as a mental health blogger if I didn't a) address Suicide Prevention Month and b) with the importance it deserves. Get ready, Dolls. This post is elaborate because I hold it incredibly close to my heart.
THE REALITY
My mother always told me that suicide is a finite action for a temporary problem.
But nobody commits suicide because an eggshell got into their morning eggs, from stubbing their toe or missing a midyear test. Suicide occurs when that temporary problem feels omnipresent and never-ending. It occurs when minute incidents begin to feel devastating. People who commit suicide are aware that if they commit it, it's irreversible. But to them, not feeling anything at all feels easier to harbour than a life experienced in the intolerable fashion they're experiencing it in.
Many say that suicide is selfish.
And to this, I ask people to imagine every day that that person chose to live... All of the days where to them, dying would've felt less painful than being who they were. People are often suicidal for years before they commit the act. They spent countless minutes, hours, days and years trying to combat the battle that ultimately defeated them. That is brave, that is love, that is selfless.
BLUE
(A poem I wrote from the perspective of a person, me, who's continued to live despite being suicidial)
The first time I felt it, I was a child.
The first time I held it, blue smiled as I cried when I touched it.
I loved, even when it felt like a lie.
Blue burnt me like the sun.
It engrained its print on mine until I spun out of control, dwindling to the ground. And then it stepped on me, asking: 'Why the frown? Why little girl? Just be happy. Look around.'
But once I knew blue, it was all that I knew.
I never looked back until I recognised it by a name I found in an adult's magazine titled 'All the way down. Down. Down. So far, it felt like drowning.
Blue.
Now I know it a little to well,
A lot too well.
It was never a friend. However, I miss the days when it felt more like it.
We were kryptonite to each other, yet we danced on the horizon.
And then we watched each other become intoxicated as we drank from the cup holding our personal poisons.
It was blue, blue, blue until the day it became black, black, black.
It was black in the way that it cannot change back.
Blue.
Blue? I know you hear me when I cry, I know you see me when I hide from the world, I know you taste me when I can't eat anything at all, I know you smell me like your familiar decor because you studied me to learn me so well, the girl you turned blue until you made her lose and lose and lose herself all the way to the blackened core where broken-hearted singers sing their score.
Blue, if one day I stop fighting, it'll be because you won.
Blue, you're strong.
But every day I hang on, I know a part of you is proud of me because you know you made it harder for me than it ever had to be.
Blue.
Blue wasn't always me.
But now, blue, is the only way I know how to be.
I find refuge in the arms of the ocean that swallows me little by little but strongly, equally.
Will you please spit me out and allow me to be yellow or white or pink?
Will you please spit me out and allow me to think without the sound of you telling me that I'm a liability?
Will you please spit me out into one extraordinary moment of a world that only knows silence?
Or will I bleed blue steadily until it dies or more likely, until I?
Blue.
THE FUTURE
I wish I had the answer on how to prevent the tragedy that is suicide. But, Dolls, I don't. Panadol is a standard pill that relieves a variety of different symptoms of pain from an array of causes. But there is no one pill that relieves suicide. This is because the cause and maintaining factors of a suicidal person is an outcome of a unique set of delt cards. For some, antidepressants might completely absolve a person of their suicidal ideation. But for millions of other people, the root cause of their suicide will have no relation to depression. For instance, it could be trauma, abuse or bullying. Some people may not benefit in any way from a pill. Some may need a friend, the next might need a therapist and the next might need an inpatient setting. Suicide is one of the three leading causes of death and considering its inextricable complexity, you are not alone if you feel somewhat hopeless that there is not more structured treatment, access to help or prevalent support. So, whilst I do not have a simple answer, I do know that it is possible to prevent suicide. I know this because of my lived experience. I do not know if sharing the preventative measures that worked for me will help, but I hope with all of my heart that it will.
'Are you okay?' The education on the impact of these three words has sky-rocketed in the past decade, particularly because of R U OK day. I'm not talking about the shitty one liner with no genuine interest we ask people for the sake of asking and not really caring. I'm not talking about the shitty one liner that's met with another shitty one liner response of 'Yep, you?' from someone who's been taken aback and thinks you're just asking for the sake of asking. I'm talking about a friend, a family member, hell, a really nice stranger, who asks 'Are you okay?' and follows it up with 'No, really, how are you?' Any time I've felt that somebody meant the question, was there to listen, felt that I'd been not okay in any way and wanted to talk about it with me, there has been progress. There have been many times when that one question has saved my life, and otherwise been the reason my day turned around. If you're truly worried about someone, don't underestimate the power of this phrase. If you ask and follow it up, you could be the reason someone doesn't commit suicide.
My dog. He shows me how to live an existence in its most simplest, uncomplicated form. He shows me the natural rhythms of life, allowing me to find comfort in the simple, normal ways of responding to situations that, to me, may evoke anxiety, distress or fear. For example, he helps me at meal times with his excitement, desire and anticipation to eat when I'm dreading it or not wanting it at all. If you're at your wits end, please consider owning a pet.
Believers. At every point in my life that I've come close to committing suicide, I've had a mum, a dad, a nurse, a friend or a close family friend who believed that one day, everything was going to be okay. At my lowest points, their belief was so strong that it angered me because I'd given up on myself and it would've been easier to follow through if they could just give up on me too. When I reflect now, I can see that my anger was because their belief meant that there was still hope which meant that I still had a reason to fight for my life. And I knew I couldn't give up if I knew there was hope of things becoming better. If you are a family member, if you are a friend, if you are a mother, be the reason that the person you love knows that no matter how bad things are, you believe, unshakeably and entirely, in their future.
Shopaholics, living a life at war with yourself is an unfathomable pain unless you've experience it yourself. To prevent suicide, as a society, we must collectively add compassion, conversation and care, whilst eliminating judgement, stigma and silence. Nobody expects that everyone will say the right thing all the time, but imagine if the one time you try, it saves a person from themself. I know for certain, that there is power and effect in your contribution to preventing suicide.
Kisses,
COS x
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