Today is World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD). A day close to my heart, even though I kinda hate it. I hate that we have this day. Because it means that we have something as tragic as suicide happening globally so frequently that, 20 years ago today, they created WSPD to help raise awareness about it. I hate that we have to have this day. And yet, I am so grateful for it. It is a day that matters, a lot. It is a day that has allowed national and global campaigns – spanning days, weeks, months – to raise funds for mental health treatment and help spread awareness about the ways we can all play a role in suicide prevention.
Last year during this campaign, I wrote a blog post for TWLOHA that I didn’t set out to write – it turned into something much different than I anticipated – about why I host this fundraiser every year. I was able to bring forward what felt like a missing puzzle piece, something that would help tell the more complete story of how I ended up here. In that blog post I shared how, in 10+ years of publicly advocating for better mental health awareness and education, I had never been able to really admit the full truth of my own struggle – not only to others, but neither to myself. There are many factors that were at play, ones that I go into more detail about in that piece, but a heavily contributing one was my own inability to feel challenging emotions. For what feels like most of my young life I didn’t have the tools, the language, the safety to move through and regulate my internal experiences. My bottled emotional pain always forced its way through eventually – in the form of outbursts, “acting out”, and later chronic pain – but it would take me many years to understand the complexity of my experience. No…not understand, but have compassion, curiosity, and empathy for the ways I learned to cope and stay alive.
So no, I don’t actually hate this day, this week, this month – but I am very uncomfortable when it comes around. That discomfort exists because I still live in the same culture I grew up in; I am still fighting the old conditioning that was ingrained and unconscious for so long that I didn’t even realize how pervasive it was. It is really easy for me to channel the passionate, driven, inspired-towards-action side because I’ve learned how to succeed in that role. But to show my true vulnerability and share my other layers publicly, well, that’s deeply unsettling still. My desire to escape when this week rolls around – to hide under a rock and isolate – and the voice that’s telling me to shut up and sit down, those are the many-younger-me’s trying to get me to pay attention to them and their experience. My “hatred” of this day, that’s just shame cloaked in anger. My desire to push others away, that’s just old patterns trying to keep me safe from the paralyzing fear of being seen, being hurt. When I get down to the root of the discomfort, it is just deep grief that I feel. That grief is a heavy rock on my chest every time this month rolls around, and also every time I hear of someone succumbing to their suffering and dying by suicide. At the core of that grief, I’ve realized, is the little girl inside of me who struggled so much, who didn’t believe in the truths that I know now, who didn’t yet feel the hope that I am passionate about raising my voice to help others feel. She simply does not understand how I can be here, being so loud now, when she’d learned to hide parts of herself away, over and over again, so much so that she couldn’t even acknowledge the weight of her own suffering. That girl is still inside of me and fuck, this month really drags her out of her hiding spot and confronts her head on.
I believe in the hopeful, encouraging messages that tend to be highlighted during this month: the messages telling people to stay; to not give up; to fight to see another day; the ones emphasizing that it gets better; that we need other people. I say these things. I repost and reference these words all the time. And yet, even still, I sometimes find myself hesitating, cringing a little. While there’s a part of me that wants to shout these words from the rooftops, there’s another that wants to say FUCK. OFF. There’s an assumption of choice implied in a lot of these messages, and my education and continued interest in better understanding suicide has taught me that this is false logic.
More often than not, the rational, decision-making part of our brain is short-circuited in a suicidal crisis. Tunnel vision happens, “decisions” become much more black and white, and we are left in a hopeless, helpless cloud that convinces us there’s only one way out of the pain. Now, please note, I am NOT saying that every suicide is the same – this is a complex, multifaceted topic. Just as there are however many billion people on the planet, there are just as many individual lived experiences. One person’s suicide journey will be different from another’s. My point here is that sometimes those encouraging messages can be very off-putting if you cannot relate to the intended statement. I couldn’t.
The part of me that was cringing, that’s the part of me that remembers the girl who was so scared, so tired, so in pain, and so without the tools necessary to believe in something better, something different. The one who did NOT want to hear or read or see another hopeful, well-intentioned message about reasons to stay alive, because it just didn’t make sense to her; it didn’t reflect her experience. Back then, I tuned out the messaging because they were not true statements for me, and couldn’t/wouldn’t ever be true for me. I fully dissociated from it, from my own experience, and instead I channeled my energy into spreading hope and finding help for other people. I didn’t know it then, but I clung to the importance of sharing that hope and help likely because I was desperate for it to be true for me, too.
I am so glad that part was wrong, by the way – I don’t feel that way anymore. I have an appreciation for the events – the versions of me – that led me here, in a way that younger me cannot understand. I know that life is worth living for. Not because it’s perfect, and not because I never experience hard times. No, life can fucking suck. No one prepares you for the agonizing pain of watching people you love suffer – and there’s been a lot of that lately. This shit hurts. Even still: it’s finding the beauty in the mundane, the embracing of childlike awe and curiosity, the leaning in to experiencing all of it, that makes it worth it. It’s the depth of connection, the meaningful relationships that are only possible when you’re brave enough to bear the good, the bad, the ugly. It’s the discovery – the continued uncovering – of purpose-driven work and life-giving hobbies. I know that, even though it absolutely doesn’t feel like it in the depths of depressive episodes or despair, it does get better. That joy will be felt again, that the cloud lifts and that there is so much to live for beyond what I can tangibly imagine. I have learned that simple things – ✨ nervous system regulating things ✨ – will hold such transformative power in my life that I laugh at the woo-woo’ness I exude when I’m really honest about it all. I know these things not because I have studied them and am dedicating a career to helping people believe them, but mainly because I’ve lived through them. I’ve been there; maybe you have, too. And yet, even still, a lot of that maladaptive programming and helplessness is easily triggered. That little girl will forever be a part of me. I still cringe, and I still struggle to find how best to use my voice, because I know how much I don’t know.
An artist I’ve admired for a long time, Noah Gundersen, released an album just a few days ago. In a full circle kind of way, I know of him because of Jamie Tworkowski, the founder of TWLOHA, who many years ago shared Noah’s then-new album Ledges; I was captivated by Noah’s powerful storytelling and beautiful voice, and I’ve been a fan ever since. Just a few days ago, I was playing one of his new songs, “Better Days”, and I broke down about halfway through. I want you to listen to it for yourself, find your own meaning in it, but for me, I instantly connected to the experience of wanting to tell someone not to give up on better days. I had a whole scene play out in my mind, and this experience allowed me to get in touch with that little girl inside of me again, in a genuine way. It allowed me to see her, and to see my own reaction to this month, in a different light. Listening to Noah’s song cracked open the blockage for me to see that my discomfort with this day is really just because I wasn’t paying attention to, I wasn’t getting curious about, my own very real, very painful lived experiences that fueled my involvement in this cause in the first place. That little girl needed her fear, her sadness, her worry to be acknowledged. This moment of solitude allowed important waves of empathy, understanding, and compassion. It opened up peace, and released a massive weight.
Today, I write to her – all the versions of her. Today, instead of trying to say what I want to say to you about why you should care about this cause, I write staying focused on just her. I’m sharing below the words that came out when I imagined what I would say to her. These words are the result of that moment of solitude – words that I wrote to her, about her, with her – fueled from Noah’s lyrics echoing in my ear. If you are finding yourself in a place of struggle, maybe you can read this letter as though I’m writing it to you. Because, in a way, all the words I’ve said to you the last 10+ years about the importance of mental health and suicide prevention are really just words that I was trying to say to her, too.
Thank you for being here. Even still.
Dear younger one,
You are so okay. You are so okay to feel your feelings, they are allowed here. They are not too big. Let them out, they will pass, I promise. I hear you, I see you, I believe you. I am here with you. Lay it all on me now, let it all out. You are so loved.
Your pain is valid. Your fear is valid. Of course you are sad, and scared, and confused. I am so sorry. I am here with you. It gets better. I know you don’t believe me, that’s okay. I am still here, I am not going anywhere. But you can feel what you’re feeling, and move through what you’re moving through, and know it isn’t always going to be like this. Even though it feels like the ground is just going to keep falling out from underneath you, it won’t always. That darkness? It does shift. You will feel the joy again. Do you remember that innocent, childlike wonder you had a few years ago? You will feel that way again – only better. You will be able to experience so much more than you can fathom right now, and so I just want you to know you can do it. You will hold on, and I am here with you through it all. I promise you that, even on the days you forget who you are, or what you’re doing, or where you’re going, even still, it is worth it.
Meraki Healing Center, PLLC 
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