World Suicide Prevention Day

So, in a little under 2 hours time it is World Suicide Prevention Day, or #SuicideAwarenessDay.

Just a few thoughts, of course I have many more.

I will write to you about how I, as a person with the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder explained here:  and major depression episodes, as a person who lives in poverty, and as a person who has lost people who I have loved, feel about this day. I can only speak to you about my own experience, because every single person, experiences life, feelings, and everything they encounter differently.

To begin: I was 15 when I first attempted suicide. In Junior High School. I took all of the pills that I could gather up and brought them with me to my school. I took them all, in the bathroom basement of that school. I went to a few classes after that. Don't ask me what I felt or remember, because I do not. I was in a haze, for the rest of that day.

Later that night I went to my best friends house, I remember that she asked me what was wrong and that she took me to the doctor's office. The doctor called my parents who I believe came and took me to the Foothill's hospital. In my fogged memory, I remember sitting in a room for hours until they came in and gave me charcoal, I spent a little over a week there and I don't believe I saw a psychiatrist at that time.

It was a few years later that I experienced my first encounter with someone who took their own life. I remember the heartbreak and the sorrow, seeing the devastation it caused people, but also understanding the idea, and the thought and feeling and desire to not want to live any more.

In people with the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, 10% of people with the diagnosis successfully end up taking their lives. So far, I am lucky to be not one of those statistics. I don't know what the stats are of people with depression.

I can tell you, that the loss of a loved one carry through on their suicide plan, never stopped me from trying it again. Because I forget everything when I am in that state of mind. My thoughts are:

"This is the best thing for everyone, everyone is better off without me."
"I am a burden to society and by taking my life I will never be a burden again."
"Everyone hates me and I hate myself too, why go on? This will never get better."

Occasionally, I would cut myself. There is always that scar later on that will remind me every day just how ugly of a person I really am.

When a really good friend of mine took her own life I was actually jealous of her. How she could be brave enough to do that. Honestly, that was my thoughts and my feelings at the time.

I would talk to people, but....why bother? All they will tell me is those lies. "Things will be OK." "Those are lies." "Do you have anything to harm yourself?"

I would just like for people to say: "Yes, life does suck sometimes." "I can't understand what you are going through, but know that I will be here for you through this all."

Don't tell me my thoughts are "crazy", that I'm "attention seeking", that there is something "wrong" with me.

You see, it's a horribly dark, disturbing world there. And I have known a few people who have taken their lives. The family misses them, they love them. They will always love them.

I know that stats show that parent's who have taken their lives, their children have a higher chance of committing suicide in the future. My psychiatrist has told me this, nurses have told me this, police officers have told me this. It was not until I started my own intensive research that I believed their words.

Nevertheless, when you are in that dark horrible world, you honestly believe what your brain is telling you.

It's not that the person that took their life was not brave enough, or strong enough, or courageous enough. It's WHO they are while they were alive that matters.

But today is World Suicide Prevention Day. So all that I ask, from people for me when I feel this way.

1. Just be there to validate and support me. Don't tell me I need help or that I'm crazy or that there is something "wrong" with me.
2. Validate what I am going through. And listen. Don't tell me you "understand" unless you've actually felt it, experienced it, or been through it.

And for those that may be reading this, and are suicidal and/or thinking or planning their own suicide. I can say please don't. But who am I? Just hold on for one more day, reach out for help, and know that you are loved.

Even if you don't feel loved right now, or that supported right now, or you want to reach for help right now; pick up that phone, put down whatever you have that will take you from this world, and carry on, help is there.

I always play the song "Hold On." By Wilson Phillips. It tells you to carry on for one more day, and if that day comes and nothing is better, I play the song again the next day, until it is.