Suicide and Remembering Life is Extraordinary

Suicide and Remembering Life is Extraordinary
At nineteen I tried to commit suicide and a few times before that with an ingestion of pills. There is a sense of shame now that I was in so much pain that I attempted this and that I felt so helpless. I was isolated, under a great deal of stress and didn’t know how to cope with it. At the age of nineteen it seemed as if I had reached the end of the line. The chronic drinking didn’t resolve the problems and so with a razor tried to kill myself. It wasn’t severe, but enough to send me to a psychiatric hospital for a week. The scars on the skin have diminished, but the evidence is still visible and the pain of that moment is still fresh after all these years. For you who are contemplating suicide-- Reach out, call, talk to a friend, talk to anyone, pick up a phone, and ask for help. Someone is there to help you or even a stranger, because life is filled with angels in all of their guises. The crisis now – a broken heart, a disappointment, a failure…this is life. Life is filled with disappointment, failures, broken promises, and more. Nevertheless, I can assure you this will pass no matter how difficult it is, no matter how shameful or embarrassing it may now appear. Time does heal all wounds.
The medical establishment tells us that our spiritual illness is a mental illness, a stew of chemicals, neuro-peptides, and so forth that need to be regulated. While those pharmaceuticals are stirring the pot, our spiritual illnesses are still simmering and raging. It is rarely about the chemicals in our brains and is far more about the spiritual malaise that festers deep in our soul…the lack of love and care, the loneliness in a sea of people, the isolation in a world of instant connectivity, the simple fears that leave us captive and imprisoned in our personal terror.
There is a shame in madness, but none if you’re physically ill. If you break a leg everyone sends you flowers and cards, but if your spirit is broken, you feel crazy and isolated, people shun you and in some cases make fun of you. Or if you’re feeling depressed they tell you, “Don’t worry everyone gets a little blue now and then, you’ll get over it.” A friend of mine passed me at the store and across her lips was a plastic band-aid, she looked at me terrified, and put her finger to her lips as to say “Shhhhh” and very quietly she slipped past me. I knew the pain, it was mine as well, being alone and isolated.
I have made this long journey away from suicide and though that possibility is always there, the option to end the emotional pain is sometimes tantalizing: Why leave heaven? Why leave this paradise? The simple pleasures of being incarnate: Making love, eating good fresh bread, drinking clean water, breathing the air, watching the flight of birds in the early morning and the dance of a breeze across the pond. When life is overwhelming and I too feel like I should walk around with a band-aid over my lips, I will peel it back and breathe deeply, allowing the sweet fragrances to fill my senses, I will drink from the spring and bathe in the cold waters, and my famished spirit will feast again.
Today some thirty years from committing suicide, I paused to consider this how immensely rich and extraordinary my life has been… I have been privileged to help others and traveled all over the world, There have been chasms of madness that have flooded and nearly drowned me, but I’ve managed in my stumbling way to find grounding and peace, in those moments of clarity, I’ve managed to step back and see the heaven around. I’ve never seen a tragedy or sadness in life that time doesn’t heal.
For those who are contemplating suicide, pause, pick up a phone, ask for help, and if there is no answer – simply look outside to these woods and fields, gaze spellbound at the moon, thrill to the morning flight of birds, hear the whisper of the wind to the new day as it plays across the tree tops, and if that isn’t enough… then take one of your fondest dreams and live it.