In the Shadows, We Find Hope: Breaking the Silence on Suicide

This was me, six weeks after I almost lost my life to suicide.

September is Suicide Prevention Month, and I’m sharing my experience because I want to help counter the stigma about mental health and seeking help. By doing so, I hope to offer a bit of hope or encouragement to someone who needs to know that even the darkest night can be followed by the most beautiful dawn. You matter. Very, very much. 

Note: My story involves a discussion of suicide and trauma. I share it because I’ve seen the light that shines on the other side of despair and have discovered that just when you think there’s no hope, it’s right there, waiting for you to find it. If you are sensitive to these topics or need help, first of all be kind to yourself. Know that you matter. Reach out to a trusted individual or mental health professional for support. I’ve included crisis resources at the end. 

Every morning, a new beginning

Every morning, I wake up to a life I didn’t think I’d live to see—a life I didn’t think I wanted or even believed could exist. I survived an aborted suicide attempt three and a half years ago, on a very dark night in 2021. I use the word “dark,” although in hindsight I see that even the darkness was bathed in light, and that even the shadow of death can be laced with life. 

I was living with undiagnosed depression, PTSD, and an eating disorder prior to that night. My own attempts to cope with trauma had only made things worse, and I truly believed that no hope remained. I’ll fast forward and say that I am beyond grateful that I lived to see another day. 

The thing about despair is that it’s difficult to comprehend unless you’ve lived it. It’s hard to grasp the chokehold it has—the intoxicating lure of death, the extreme comfort and temptation of relief when you start believing that the end might, in fact, be the solution.

I am outside of that despair now, at least for the moment, and I can tell you that life tastes different today than it did in those times. That degree of despair is like another dimension, another reality. That’s not to say it’s an altered state, but it’s fact that there’s something different about the grief and despair that will drive someone to the point of longing for the grave.

The weight of silence

I didn’t want to die, not really, although I wouldn’t have been able to tell myself that at the time. What I wanted was relief and escape. I’d experienced trauma from both a specific incident and an ongoing situation, the details of which I won’t delve into; it’s complex, deeply personal (days after the attempt, a psychiatrist described my situation as “torturous”). But I will say this: I stayed silent for far too long. I didn’t ask for help or tell people the truth about what was happening in my life. 

Silence about trauma leads to “the death of the soul,” writes Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. in The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, the work that just about everyone I’ve ever encountered in therapeutic spaces—from patient to provider—has either read or could cite as a seminal work on trauma and its effect on the whole person. 

Since that dark night, I’ve spoken about my trauma countless times—to professionals and to those I trust most deeply. I sought help and underwent months and months of intensive treatment. I’m not holding it in anymore. The weight of unspoken trauma no longer eats away at me.

But at the time, I felt trapped. My life, my situation, had become so entangled with trauma that I lost any sense of self-worth. I believed no one needed me. I only allowed in the voices—those specifically directed to me and those coming echoing my past religious culture—that tore me down and perpetuated cycles of abuse. I pretended everything was fine. My loved ones have since told me they knew it wasn’t, but they didn’t know what to do. I didn’t let them in—the voices who could have told me that the lies were just that: untruths.

It’s taken extensive, intensive work to build back a sense of worth and to truly believe that I matter. If I would have spoken up, I might have been able to counter the lies. If I’d let people in, they could have held me in that space, kept me afloat, and helped me build a sense that I mattered and belonged here. Even if I didn’t believe it yet, I could have allowed them to believe it for me. 

I see it now. For example, my parents would have been devastated by my death. My kids would have lost their mother. But in that moment, that night, I didn’t think they needed me. When I went into my children’s rooms and said goodbye, took one last look at their sleeping faces—the sweetness of their profiles, their little noses, their tiny lips—I was devastated. I loved them, fiercely, and the thought of what I was doing filled me with grief. Not the kind you can think through rationally, though. That kind of despair doesn’t work like that.

A fight for survival

Someone once told me that when you’re in despair and feeling suicidal, the body and the mind are trying to live. Each day, maybe even each moment, it’s a fight for survival. It certainly was for me. I’d been ideating for a long time; sometimes, imagining an end was the only comfort that allowed me to get through my days. I didn’t see any other way.

So when the time came, I almost left my children motherless. I left the house and I ran. I ran and I ran until I had nothing left, pushing my body past its limits, wringing out every last drop of energy and adrenaline until I tumbled and I fell. I fell—literally and figuratively. The details will stay private, but it was surreal to be in that moment, knowing I was actually doing it—the thing I had contemplated and rehearsed for so long, the thing I never thought I’d have the “courage” to do. I thought I was too weak to action—until it was time.

We need other voices

But there I was, alone and unable to talk myself out of it—unable to think rationally through the despair and that all-encompassing temptation. I had my phone, and I remembered all those messages we hear about crisis lines—about calling someone when you’re feeling suicidal. I searched for the crisis line on my phone, stared at the number, and wondered what the hell was happening, what strange existence I was in. But I couldn’t call. I didn’t want to be talked off the proverbial ledge—or at least, I didn’t think I did.

The unexpected fall had stunned me, leaving me injured and bruised. Elements of nature had intervened, leaving me with scars, but perhaps by that delay, they saved me from making my final mistake. While I couldn’t bring myself to call the crisis line, I remembered my children. I needed to make sure they would be okay.

I called my best friend. To ask her to advocate for my kids.

Imagine the friend you call when you’re at your lowest—the one who hears it in your voice, who holds you through the phone, listening without judgment as you bleed out all the secrets that have been killing you. She sits with you, gently reminding you of who you are, telling you that your children need you. And even when you still don’t believe it, her voice pours into the cracks like a salve. This is the friend who holds you with strength and stillness through the phone until your battery dies, and then she drives out to find you, late at night, even though she has her own family at home, even though she doesn’t know exactly where to find you.

When your phone battery finally dies, you’re drained, in shock, and you collapse. You can no longer even move, but you have survived. You still have to face the aftermath, but you’ll get there. You will live, and one day, somewhere down the road, you will realize you’re experiencing the life you almost didn’t get to live, and you’ll be so very, very grateful for the gift.

After I wrote those two previous paragraphs, I noticed that I had shifted from first to second person—a subtle way of distancing myself from the intensity of that experience. In a way, while I was letting the words pour out, I realize now that I was trying to tell you something: you matter, and your life is worth living.

In the depths of darkness, everything can seem so bleak that it feels like there’s no glimmer of another way. That’s what I meant when I wrote about despair earlier—how different everything seems in those times. When you’re in it, it feels utterly rational. You might think, Of course this is right, I’m clearheaded and this makes sense. Because it might even feel like relief. It might even feel like hope. But it’s not real hope—it’s something else, disguised.

There’s so much more I want to share about the days, weeks, and months that followed my own dark night, and I will. But for today, I want to leave you with this: in those darkest moments, there is something more. You’re stronger than you think. You can endure one more moment, one more day. Reaching out can change everything. Silence has a heavy impact. Let others love you and lift you up. 

You are not too broken or too far gone. Even if you can’t believe in your own worth, or feel like you have no one to tell you that you matter, there are resources. That night, I didn’t call the crisis line; I called my friend. But knowing it was there helped. There’s also 988. Please use it. I’m so grateful I reached out, even though I did it for my children and not for myself. Please remember this and do the same.

I’ll be honest—the past three and a half years of healing have required hard work. There have been many tears, months of intensive therapeutic treatment, and major changes in my life. But every single moment of it has been worth it. It’s why I’m here. This journey has not only helped me to heal my trauma, but it has also transformed me into a more fully-realized version of myself. I still face depression, and there are times when trauma responses resurface. But it’s different now. I can identify it when it’s happening, recognize it for what it is, and ask for support early on, to help me resist the seduction of despair.

I don’t have all the answers when it comes to suicide prevention. But I do know this from my own experience: there’s light even in the darkest of nights, and that even the most lost among us can find our way home.

If you’re struggling, please ask for help. Please. A phone call saved my life. It’s one step toward realizing that none of us are truly alone, no matter how it might feel at the time.

I wrote the following to accompany the opening photo as I left the desert where I sought treatment after that darkest night:

There’s a story here I’ll someday tell. But in the meantime, all is well. Take care of yourself today. Pay attention to your body—it has things to tell you. Connect with your heart and find compassion for yourself, not just for others. And listen for your voice, and never let it go. You matter.

It’s true. You matter very much.

_{Photo is a snapshot from June 2021. Other images created in Midjourney.}