Soaring Over Stress, Episode Six ~ The Scream of Suicide

The host discusses the topic of suicide and shares her own experiences. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing warning signs and offers support for those struggling with mental health issues. She also talks about finding hope in small moments and encourages others to do the same. The transcript includes a personal story of abuse and a near-suicide attempt. The host concludes by mentioning a tattoo she got with the phrase "nevertheless, she persisted" as a symbol of resilience. Hello, hello, mental health warriors! Welcome to Soaring Over Stress, an SOS for navigating stress and anxiety in the workplace and beyond. I'm your host, Amy Rae, coming to you with episode number six, The Scream of Suicide. I want to give a trigger warning, as this episode and the next few that follow it may be hard for some of my listeners. Today, we're going to talk about how a person struggling with suicide feels, what the warning signs are, and a little more of my own journey. I wish I didn't have so many attempts. I wish I didn't have so many examples and ways in which I attempted or contemplated ending my own life, but I'm glad, looking back, that I went through this because now I have the ability to help others. An article published by Suicide Prevention Resource Center states the following. People who consider suicide often feel there is no hope. They may often feel sad, lonely, or trapped. Some people who have survived suicide attempts have said that these feelings go away and do not last forever. I can say from personal experience that these feelings never last forever, but while you're in them, it's like a thunderstorm of emotions that are altogether frightening, debilitating, and draining. You're caught in this storm that is all-consuming at the moment. Your once dry and sunny outlook on life is now saturated in feelings of loneliness, pain, and isolation. Most recently, because of ongoing chronic illness created by Lyme disease with the co-infection Bartonella and more, I faced crippling depression and thoughts of suicide once again. As if the illness itself was not enough, the financial aspect and the reality of possibly becoming homeless has had me dissociated to a state of what I refer to as blank stares at a blank wall. I've thought at times it would be better to take myself out because I can no longer function or work. With attempting to get disability at a painstakingly slow crawl, like a snail going through molasses across a bumpy floor, I've thought it would be better to die. Let my ex collect the life insurance so my son could finish at the high school he loves. Desperation can make you believe unthinkable things are a solution. Somehow, I always manage to escape suicide's allure. I'm able to white-knuckle the feelings, the desperation, just long enough for one or more to change. My hope is that you can hang in there, too. There is this quote by Jim Carrey that I came across a few years ago, and I carry it around like some sort of mantra to my pain. He says, Do we not all long for our own absence? Whenever I'm having a bad mental health day, whether at work in the past or out and about getting some errands done, my heart seeks to lift others up, despite what I'm going through. I think that's true for many people who struggle with mental health issues. We want to help others. I think primarily it's because we know what it's like to feel this, and we don't want others to have to experience it. I know what it's like to be ignored, overlooked, or looked down upon, and I never want any human to feel that way. So I would ask the store clerk or a co-worker, How are you doing? And sometimes I get the response of, Well, I woke up today. I'm not six feet under. Any day that I'm alive is a good day. What a load of poppycock. I just can't get on that train of thought. Hell, I'm not even showing up at the station. To me, and maybe it's just me, the allure of no longer existing is such a comforting thought. No more work, no more worry, no more illness, no more turmoil, no more pain. Do we not all long for our own absence? Apparently not everybody does, but there are many days that I do. Maybe this, in and of itself, isn't a warning sign, although I'm not exactly sure if it is or it isn't. Perhaps it's just a malaise of life, a hard life, a life fraught with turmoil and pain. And yet, and yet, there are so many beautiful things too, so many good things and moments and times. That's what I stick around for. Well, for my kids, first and foremost, but then for all the other thousands upon millions of glimmers that touch each day. They are the towel over my shoulder in the pouring rain. The way the ant crawls along the sidewalk, carrying its heavy burden, looking like a mini strongman. The way my son laughs, or the pink and purple sky as the sun rises across the lake. The way the little girl chases bubbles, or the smell of pumpkin and cinnamon in the fall. That's what I stick around for. The things that money and health cannot change. Okay, so what are some warning signs of suicide? According to the National Institute of Health, they can include thinking or talking about suicide, misusing substances like drugs or alcohol, feeling no sense of purpose or belonging. For me, belonging is a big one. Anger, feeling trapped, feeling there's no way out, hopelessness, feeling like there's nothing to live for, perhaps withdrawal from family, friends, work, school, activities, or hobbies. Anxiety, reckless or high risk behavior, severe mood swings to highs and lows. Here's that last one again, severe mood swings of highs and lows. Suicidal people might start acting or appearing very happy. They may be really good at masking their pain. Next week's episode will discuss that and the actors, singers, and other famous people who have taken their own lives and everybody was shocked. Suicide is not always what it seems. Other warning signs can include looking for ways to die, i.e. checking the internet, looking for guns or pills. I have done this more times than I care to admit. Talking about hopelessness, helplessness, worthlessness, thinking about death a lot. Suddenly acting happier or calm after showing signs of suicidal warnings, just like I mentioned earlier. Loss of interest in things you used to care about. Visiting or calling loved ones to say goodbye. Making arrangements to put your affairs in order and giving away prized possessions. Being reckless is one of these signs. Twice, I attempted to crash my car and swerved the last minute away from the telephone pole. Of course, there was a season where I would purposely get drunk and then drive my car hoping to veer off the road and crash or flip so I could make the agony stop. I think this is one I hate the most as it could have hurt someone else in the process. Desperation can make you do a lot of dumb things. And then there was the day at the bridge. The bridge. That was a hard, hard day. Let me explain. Back around 2014 or so, I had a sort of brain injury. I was given medication by a doctor and then another doctor and although I did ask, can I combine these and was told I could, you're not supposed to. I had a kind of chemical explosion, if you will. All of a sudden, I started remembering things I never remembered before. It was as if my subconscious had been opened up and all of the memories slowly but painfully started filtering back into my brain. I would get glimpses of this incident, glimpses of that and I kept saying he, he, he, he, he, he, followed by whatever he did and I honestly didn't know what I was talking about or whom. As time went on though, the pieces of the puzzle began to click together and a picture emerged. The kingpin of that nightmare was my grandfather. I began to find out many things that he had done to me that my subconscious had locked from my memory so that I could survive. I kept fluctuating between telling my therapist what I would see or hear or remember and then struggle to believe that they were true. One day she said to me, Amy, I think you need to go to his graveside. I think you need to show yourself that he is dead, that you can tell your story now, but it's okay and that you're safe. She said to me, Amy, you see apparently while he tortured me, he told me if you ever tell anyone, I'll kill you. I guess that truth was so deeply seared into my memory that every time I spoke these hidden things that I would see in my mind to my therapist, I would leave the session believing he was going to find me and kill me even though intellectually I knew he was dead. I went to his graveside and I sat there for two and a half hours processing so much pain. I got up. I got back in my car and shut the door. The reality that my mom was not there for me then and is not there for me now fell upon me more deeply than the abuse ever could. Three days later I found myself walking to the middle of a bridge on 78. I couldn't walk across the top so I was walking across the trestles underneath. The closer I got to the middle, the more afraid I got. The river was almost non-existent. If I didn't kill myself, I would have at least most likely became quadriplegic from the fall. I don't even think that thought occurred to me. By the time I got about midway across the bridge and I was really trying to conjure up the courage to jump, I heard a little girl scream in terror at the top of her lungs. It was enough to stop me. It was enough to make me crawl back to my car and shut the door and scream a sound of agony I have never heard before. It was possibly the frequency of the dead or the almost dead. It was the cry of torture that must have its own perfect pitch from the depths of hell. The scream of the little girl saved my life. The scream in my car was the release of a tortured soul, the release of agony, the outward sound of inner pain. When I got home, I contacted my aunt and uncle in California. They graciously flew me out to their place for a week to decompress. It was a much needed distraction from my daily life, a time to pause, a time to get back on track. Years after that trip, I got my first tattoo down my arm and it read, nevertheless, she persisted. That motto was adopted from the modern day feminist movement in 2017 after an incident in the U.S. Senate where Senator Elizabeth Warren voiced her opinion against Jeff Sessions' confirmation as U.S. Attorney General. Men in the Senate kept trying to silence her and she didn't let it stop her as she read the letter. When the media asked Mitch McConnell about his attempt to silence her, he said, nevertheless, she persisted. And I too have persisted, not only through abuse, the alienation of my family and friends and the pain, but through the call to put an end to it all as well. In the middle of my tattoo, I have a semicolon. This is a mental health tattoo symbol used to remind those of us who have struggled with unwanted thoughts about ending our own lives, much like a period at the end of a sentence, that we should take a pause, take a breath, and let the story continue. I fear to think of all the things that I would have missed had I jumped off that bridge. My daughter's high school graduation, pizza night with the kids, the way the family cat purrs as if he's part motorboat, part bird, part chipmunk, the color of orange and the flowers I saw last week at the park, the way the clouds change shape just like the shape of my heart has a way of shifting. There is hope, whatever you're going through. I know it might not seem like it right now, but I promise you that it's true. And if not hope, then glimmers, things that don't change despite your current situations. Look for them. The one good thing about life is that it's ever-changing. Hold on to that promise, and if you need help, reach out for that, too. Remember, you can always contact the number 988, which is like 911 for mental health, or you can text 741-741. This is Amy Rae, reminding you that I see you, you matter, and your story counts.