Don’t Give Up: You Matter
Wednesday morning, I woke up feeling fabulous. I hopped out of bed, greeted the pond outside my window, went into the living room, looked at my phone, and saw that I had a new text message.
It read: Jen died by suicide last night.
The color drains from the world. All day my thoughts are consumed by Jen and her family and the unbearable sadness I know they are feeling. I eat breakfast, go for a walk, and build Legos with my granddaughter. Yet, all the while, the voice inside me is saying. “You need to stop and sit with this. You need to acknowledge that place inside you that remembers wanting to kill yourself all those years ago.”
I’m deeply emotional and deal with emotions by thinking about them. However, I don’t like people to see my feelings, and I hate crying in front of people. As a result, the only people who knew I was struggling were those on the other end of my nightly calls to the suicide prevention hotline. As a result, I kept my suicidal thoughts a secret from everyone my husband, parents, and sister.
The nights were the worst. That was when the memories came flooding back. A dark house, with everyone asleep, brought back the feelings of HIM coming into the room where I was asleep — of HIM crawling into my bed. I couldn’t sleep. I could barely breathe.
I wasn’t much older than my girls when the abuse happened. I never told my parents. I pushed the memories away, buried them deeply in a dark recess of my psyche, locked the door, set a sentry out front, and forgot about them. The memories stayed hidden until the summer when I learned HE was planning a trip to visit my parents.
I couldn’t contain the memories any longer. I think I knew on some level that if I didn’t remember, if I ignored or denied it, there was a chance he might hurt my girls. There was no way I was going to let that happen. I had to protect them, and so the hidden memories came flooding out. It was too much, too soon. I was not ready to deal with all the emotions unleashed alongside the memories of abuse. I was struggling to survive, living minute to minute.
I felt so dead inside. I had an image of one of my grandmother’s empty Maxwell House coffee cans sitting inside of me just below my sternum. I felt that if I plunged a knife into that place where the can was, it would do no damage because that space was empty. Dead.
I also contemplated running into a tree on the rare occasions that I was driving alone in the car. I felt everyone, especially my young daughters, would be better off without me. The sadness so consumed me. I thought I didn’t have enough room to be the mom they deserved and needed.
So what stopped me?
I had read a story in Judith Viorst’s book Necessary Losses; if my memory serves me correctly, it was about a child being set on fire by her mother and still waking up in the hospital bed crying for her mother.
I thought that no matter how badly I was failing at being their mother, ending my life would be devastating for these little girls. And so I didn’t. But unfortunately, the emotional struggle didn’t end there. The suicidal feelings didn’t instantly disappear, but I was able to begin my journey out of that dark, scary place.
Last year a local woman who seemed to have everything: a successful career, a loving husband, and two wonderful kids took her life. The grieving community wanted to know why. Some asked how she could do that to her husband and children. I had no way of knowing what was going on in her mind.
I know that I felt like I was dead inside, and committing suicide felt like I would just be finishing the job, like taking an already dead fish from its hook and releasing it back into the water.
Call it luck, call it grace, but if I hadn’t picked up that book and read those few paragraphs…
The text that came on Wednesday morning was from my daughter. Of course, she doesn’t know any of this, but she is why I didn’t end my life all those years ago.
With Love & Healing Energy by the Pond,
Laurel
Post Script: After I finished writing this I sent it to my daughter. I had just returned from an extended visit to her house so that I could be there when she gave birth to her fourth child. A girl. This was her reply. “ I love you. I’m sure glad you are still here. I’m sorry you had to feel and experience any of this.
