I personally used to think that suicide was a selfish act. That you were punishing the people you left behind to deal with your mess. To handle their own sorrow. The remainders of your complicated life are left on the shoulders of the surviving family and friends that loved you so dearly.
As my life began to unravel with complicated medical problems, uncontrollable pain, financial poverty and a life-long history of genetically derived depressive disorders the idea of suicide became a full-time ideation as a way to control what had become uncontrollable.
I first began experiencing suicidal thoughts after my first child was born. Most people consider this as “The Baby Blues”. Hormones are flexing up and down at a crazy rate. I was put on the medication amitriptyline to treat the depression, but it made me too sleepy to take care of my child so I stopped taking the medication. I was only 19 years old at this time and had no idea how to advocate for myself or how to navigate these new feelings.
My resolve during my maternal episodes of depression was the continuous thinking to myself “Nobody is going to love my children like I do.” I would often think about which family members I would ask to adopt my children or who might offer to provide for my children if suicide was my plan back then, but I couldn’t answer those questions. My father once gave me the solution to just give them all up for adoption to solve my problem of stress and financial burden, but I couldn’t do that either. The answer for me was still the same. Nobody could love MY children the way I do.
“The truth is that suicide is complicated, and the combination of circumstances, emotions and motivations that precede a suicide attempt will be different for each person. While many people who kill themselves have been experiencing the extreme distress we might think of as depression, that’s not always the case and is rarely the whole explanation.
People have been known to kill themselves as a consequence of intense shame, or because they see no way out of a moral dilemma or a future that appears bleak. Many who attempt suicide may not really want to die, but seek instead to escape unbearable psychic pain. There are those with ongoing difficulties who may, in part – and perhaps misguidedly given the often profound effect of a suicide on the person’s family – be seeking to release another from what they see as a burden.
And although it may be uncomfortable to think about, for some people the motivations may involve anger as well as desperation. It is important to be open to the range of meanings of a suicidal act and to acknowledge that those left behind may also experience complex and sometimes bitter feelings.
Invoking the idea of illness can sometimes be helpful, but it isn’t the only way of connecting to people’s despair and of offering compassion and help without making value judgements. An alternative is simply to recognise that people can have a tough time. Surely that should be enough.” *
Now that I am aging and a more mature adult the idea of suicide is more real than ever. My kids are grown into adults so the need for me is not as great. As the kids grew so has my own depression. For every mistake, for every failure, for every divorce, for every bad body image, for every ache and pain. This also includes for all of my dreams I didn’t fulfill, for all the questions my parents never answered, for all the things I still want to do but feel like they are empty clouds of glitter filled fantasies.
I was a hard worker for 29 years of my life that suddenly skidded to a halt. The stress of my 27 year old son being stabbed multiple times over drugs and almost losing his life took an emotional toll on me that I never expected. I felt like a freight train wrecked my ripped me apart. A month later my 17 year old daughter had been experimenting with a prescription drug overdose! My life froze and began playing in slow motion frames.
I lived in Texas while my children lived in Utah but I trekked home to stabilize my daughter. Once she was home and back in school I returned to Texas a completely shattered person. My foundation as an individual was turned to dust. My inner soul and spirit completely torn to shreds. My body could not understand what was happening so it too gave in to the anxiety, to the inflammation, to the nerve damage, to the scoliosis, to the facet joint disorder, to the hip dysplasia, to the migraines, to the depression, and to the mother FFF***ing PAIN!
I lost my job after 6 months of short term disability. I lost my income when I lost my job. I have applied for Social Security disability but that is a long and hard road to travel. So I have no income, no insurance, no prescription benefits and a whole lot of difficulties that tell me to make the choice of putting a gun to my head or filling my gut full of pills.
Sometimes suicide feels like the only option.
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