ON SUICIDALITY
Some years ago (over a decade, now), my life was not working out to be the way I had pictured it to be.
Sure, there were other pictures that appeared to be perfect, but my body was telling me that things weren’t right.
Instead of realising that the things that weren’t right were actually more related to the situation I was living, I inverted that and took to heart that there was something wrong with me.
Specifically, that there was something wrong with me as a woman. I’d not had a period in over a year; I could trace back to a conversation I had with my then partner, which had led to one of the most profound and longstanding feelings of rejection I had ever experienced*.
Long story short, the relationship came to an end, and I thought (rather dramatically) that life was at an end.
If I couldn’t have my cake (life) and eat it too (live it the way I wanted to live it), then f*** it! I was out.
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Truth was, I had been living very withdrawn and a far cry away from the actual love and building purpose that (in retrospect) was clear for me to embrace.
No, life hadn’t turned out the way I had been fed to believe it should; here I was, in my thirties, and essentially infertile (amongst a whole host of other things, not here relevant to the story).
The picture was turning out not to be true, but I had been CONVINCED it should be.
And so, in a combination of out-of-control-ness, scream-the-house-down-reaction (read: tantrum), the greatest up-yours-ness I had ever mustered, I found myself in the Emergency Department of the local hospital, having voiced some vague suicidal thoughts.
I slept on one of the hardest beds that night in one of the barest rooms, lest I attempted anything overnight.
I awoke next morning to everyone around me having a job, a focal point that was the next thing for them to do, followed immediately by the next thing, and then another and another and another, and there I was, metaphorically thumb in mouth, refusing to do all that was before me because it didn’t look like what I had wanted it to look like.
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Although this was one of the greatest wake-up calls I had had in a lo-o-o-o-ng time, I didn’t heed the call; the momentum was too great.
I had all these thoughts that flooded into my head – you know the ones – about how I hadn't done this right, or could have said that, or that I should be doing something else, or if only xyz would occur in life, then abc could happen.
Slowly these morphed into thoughts about life not being worth living - rather dramatically culminating in the thought 'life as I know it is over' ...
In a way, it was: not in the terminal sense, but in a fresh, new approach being offered for me to live, completely different to all that had been before.
Yet, because I had been entertaining all the ‘innocent’ and common, everyday thoughts, the more extreme ones began to gain traction until they were very loud.
But no matter which way I looked at it, no matter which mode or method of suicide I might fantasise about, I realised every single one of them would cause physical pain that I just wasn’t willing to undergo.
Cutting wasn’t a thing for me – it’s said that there is a physical manifestation of emotional pain that self-harm then gives a focus, which one can seek (medical) attention for, whereas the emotional and existential pain seems to be less readily dealt with.
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To me, deliberate self-harm introduces more pain that you have to deal with – on top of the pain you already find hard to deal with:
Now you have another type of pain you didn’t have to have in the first place!
The second point was that given that energy (i.e. everything) is neither created nor destroyed, it merely changes from one form to another (the law of conservation of energy, thanks, Émilie du Châtelet), I knew that my death by suicide would change nothing, that I would merely become another form once physicality ceased, and that more likely than not, I would come back to experience all that I had lived to that point and left behind in some future re-incarnation (I had early experience of knowing I had lived before, in my childhood).
Thus, not liking pain, nor the idea of coming back to all that I had left behind without a conscious trace on what had occurred and had led me to that point, suicide as an option was left behind.
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But the rebuilding process was long and at times painfully slow.
Because I had subscribed to a certain way of thinking, it took dedicated focus and effort to reorient my thoughts and my movements from the self-destructive type to nurturing and building, with plenty of mistakes made along the way.
We often get to our rock bottom and then reach out for help, but we do so irresponsibly, not wanting to admit our own hand in our demise, and that it has been undertaken in avoidance of the full and true reason you are here.
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Yep, I’m talking about your purpose in life.
At the time, I would have sworn to you black and blue (and probably did), that I knew what my purpose was in life, but the fact was (I can see clearly with retrospect), that was simply a picture that I had … get this… been fed whilst stoned.
Um, my life’s purpose – anyone’s life purpose – does not come from deep inside that true space within when one is under the influence of ANY drug (legal or illegal).
And it’s not to say that you don’t get suggestions or instructions, you do, but not in an ‘I’m hearing voices telling me to do things’ kind of way, but in subtle-but-tangible, everyday ways.
“I want ice-cream” or “I’ll just have some more food”, can morph into “I know! I’m going to experiment with going against the flow” (true story), through to “I don’t know how to deal with this”, and“what am I going to do?”
From that polluted space, we then reach up and out for help and assistance, but we don’t often discern the quality of ‘help’ that comes, because we are desperate and have long since given up on ourselves.
Often that help (though outwardly well meaning) helps itself to your power, which otherwise provides you with all the resources you've forgotten you have.
Help can come at your own expense.
I have been able to deal with that intrusion in my personal life and put it definitively in its rightful place – nowhere near me and my physical body, for it does not belong and never did.
Now, in my professional experience, the suicidal amongst us are often acutely sensitive and are withdrawing in reaction to life not honouring them in some or several ways.
The demand for life to treat us how we demand we are treated has not been met, and the entertaining of suicide becomes the biggest F*** U to life and to those around us:
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"you have wronged me and now I will wreak upon you the greatest payback… by taking my life",
yet not one of us realises the extent to which we are more than human.
In some ways I hesitate to print all of this, as I have already experienced how life and others can treat us differently when one has been ‘at the bottom of the barrel’ or ‘as low as low can go’.
But, and with deepest respect to those going through this turmoil currently – it is for you I share.
Because, as I learnt during the long recovery process:
You walked your way into it, so you can walk your way out.
This is not the condemnation it may seem, but there is no sympathy here.
Each step you take (or took), influenced by many unseen pressures and forces, is for you to reclaim.
Walking back over your less-than-loving footsteps can be very confronting, but I am here to tell you it is completely worth it.
For if it was not, I would not be here.
It is that simple.
Post-script note 1:
If you are currently suicidal, please visit our crisis resources page and use those.
Dr Stephanie does not offer a crisis service.
Alternatively, go to your local hospital emergency department or link in with your local mental health service.
If you can barely function, call Lifeline 13 11 14 – I know you can do that.
Post-script note 2:
Book yourself a mental health care plan via a GP.
More on mental ill-health will come to this website soon.
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Collaboration with local psychologists is also very much on the cards
Post-script note 3:
Meantime, focus on the basic pillars of life that support you to nurture yourself.
This includes going to bed earlier (before 9 or 10pm, if you can), getting up and showering, dressing and brushing your teeth every day, attending to school, work, and/or uni commitments, and doing physical activity, even if that is just a 15 minute walk, every day.
Post-script note 4:
Cut the devices, not your arms.
I’ll write more about their influence and the self-harm phenomenon soon.
Post-script note 5:
Doctors are only 50-50 at predicting whether someone will suicide.
This may in part be because of the erratic nature of self-destruction, and the willfulness of the spirit in charge of the person who ends up dying.
Your resolve to be here and face up to whatever gets you down is paramount.
Being willing to face it means being willing to take responsibility, and not wreaking your revenge on those around you: the ones you say you ‘love’ and that ‘love’ you.
*The rejection I had experienced was actually me rejecting me… which then played out as projections onto and in treatment received from other people.
So much easier to blame an outside source than to take responsibility for what we do to ourselves, no?
Apparently, but not so.
For related content, check out our relationships section, including:​
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