I’m a suicide survivor who attended the Crisis Now Summit in Amsterdam this June. Here was my experience.
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For years I’ve felt the impact of shared stories in safe spaces and I fully believe that because I’ve been able to share my story and hear the stories of others, I’m still alive today. When I was invited to attend the screening of “Moving America’s Soul on Suicide,” I wanted to understand why storytelling could have such a profoundly positive impact on my mental health. How can hearing a complete stranger’s story of overcoming hardship--even if it’s a hardship I’ve never experienced--transform and illuminate my own suffering into hope and possibility?
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Today is my 35th birthday. And for the first time in a long time, I can truly say, I’m so glad I was born. I’m so glad to be alive. I’m glad that my attempts to leave didn’t work, and in honor of being 35—still alive—here are 35 lessons I’ve learned in life.
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Each month, I will be sharing a guest piece written by someone from my online community. November’s submissions includes a piece about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by Saleema Lookman. The work of destigmatizing mental health is a community one, and I’m honored to share this space.
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After 18 years of therapy, I feel…fine. Not euphoric, perfect, or “healed” like I used to aspire towards. I feel fine. In a wonderfully simple, stable, and settled kind of way. I’m fine. I’m enough. Life still throws curveballs, I get stressed, I feel insecure and fumble in conversations and struggle to go to sleep. I wonder how I’ll pay bills and freak out about a pimple. I get overly excited about french fries and spill beer…everywhere. I panic at meals sometimes and wonder if I’ll ever really love my body.
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The last time I cried at the airport I was 11 years old.
My family and I were moving halfway across the world—a move that filled me with rage for my parents & a fear of loneliness I’d never felt before.
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I care deeply about how my actions impact those around me, and pay attention to when the limits of my responsibility are met so that I don’t extend beyond the boundary of prioritizing my wellness or maintaining integrity of my identity. Beyond these boundaries is the realm of emotional babysitting, and that is what I am no longer participating in.
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On Monday, June 6, we got in a taxi and headed to Puerto Vallarta. We’d booked a studio and AirBnb for a week, and were as ready as we could be to embark on a project that neither of us had ever done, but one that sparked our creative juices and promised us an adventure of learning, play, and fulfillment.
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Hopelessness. Depression. Grief. Mourning. Anxiety. Trepidation. These are the feelings that cloud my morning wake-state. The slippery space between sleeping and waking. A fog and heavy cloud of doubt and desperation that oozes my subconscious. And the not knowing if it is my real existence or just a dream.
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