How Not to Commit Suicide

Sometimes, late at night, I understand how someone could make that choice. I, myself, have been so close, have walked that fine line between here and the hereafter, suicide note folded neatly in my purse, while my inner demons duked it out with my inner angels.

“This life is intolerable” my demons argued. “There is no way forward, no way back, no way out.”

My inner angels empathized with their brothers’ pain.

“No one should ever have to feel this bad. Ever. But there’s something you don’t know:

When you are in this dark place, you can see no way out, but that does not mean it’s not there.

It just means that your vision is clouded.

You need to update your eyeglass prescription, get rid of that mirror that distorts everything you see, minimizes your beauty and maximizes your flaws.

Wash your inner windows. You’ll be able to see out, and know that the world is bigger than this dungeon that holds your heart hostage.”

I listened to the parties continue their discourse. It lasted for weeks, as I hung onto my life by a mere thread.

I was thirty-five, with three small children. They needed me, and yet that knowledge was not enough.

The demons were in desperate pain and threatened to take me down with them.

My will to live fought back as I angrily railed at life for throwing me into a perceived dead end, with no room to even turn around.

“You are not right,” my angels told me gently. “Your brain is not telling you the truth. There is a way out. You just can’t see it yet. But the choice is yours. There will be no divine intervention. Might we respectfully suggest you call a friend, ask for help, get a second opinion?”

I went to therapy one last time. I sat on the floor, couldn’t even look the therapist in the eye. She sent me to the hospital. Three weeks later, I discovered that the Dead End sign had been posted directly in front of a forest path. It was overgrown, and not well maintained, but it was a path, nevertheless.

It was slow-going and challenging at first, but persistence, loyal companions, and many, many teachers brought me finally to a place where the going is easier, the sun often shines through, and where some days, I am even able to touch joy.

Three decades later, now happy and healthy, with grown-up children and grandchildren to boot, I think about that suicide note. It was heartfelt and poetic, attempting to capture in three paragraphs all the lessons I wanted my children to learn, lessons that I wouldn’t be around to teach them.

The irony does not escape me that the only words I remember were: “Never give up.”

I give thanks every day that I decided to follow my own advice.