How Suicidal Thoughts can take over your Life.
I lived most of my life thinking about suicide. I have clear memories when I was 8 years old thinking about what it would be like to die. I went to sleep every night of my young childhood saying the prayer:
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Needless to say I wasn't involved with the Jehovah's Witnesses back then. I prayed those words and wished that I would not wake up in the morning. Then I would climb into bed and go through my nightly ritual. Most kids rearrange their stuffed animal collection. I would lie in my bed, very still. I was on my death bed. My parents were standing outside my hospital room waiting for the doctor to tell them I had only minutes to live. They could visit but it had to be very short. (Times were very different then). They would file into the room and stand by my bed and cry and beg forgiveness. But it was too late. My "death" would happen as I fell asleep.
My death scene visualizations continued for many years. I had no fear of death. Thoughts of death was a friend; an Ace up my sleeve for whenever I thought I had enough pain in this life and could not go on. I felt trapped in a family or in a foster care home and I saw no way out.
I grew up and became a Jehovah's Witness. My mother arranged a marriage for me just after I turned 18 to someone I barely knew and had no feelings for. (He knew that but married me anyway hoping that would change). I had my first child just before I turned 20 and a second child just before I turned 24. The girls were my one reprieve from my nightly ritual death scene.
But I felt more trapped in a marriage I didn't want and had no way out of. Death was the only honourable way out for a Witness and it wasn't long before my death scenes took a slight twist. Instead if me dying I wished for a couple of police officers to show up at my door to tell me my husband had been killed in an accident. But since no police ever came I eventually resorted to my old suicidal thoughts and dreams.
By my early 30s that ace up my sleeve was slipping down into my hand. Thoughts of suicide were like a buffer between me and the world I lived in. I could escape into those thoughts instead of dealing with my real problems - an abusive marriage after a horribly abusive childhood. But the ace up my sleeve wasn't as comforting as it used to be in my childhood days.
No one knew how I felt inside. On the outside I was the perfect young elder's wife and Witness. Inside I was dying bit by bit. I filled my days with busy work, sewing or knitting or crocheting clothes for the girls, canning fruits and vegetables, making jams and pickles and freezing food for the family; anything to keep my mind off the thoughts of suicide.
I would often resort to drastic attempts to "fix" my life by chopping off my hair or rearranging the furniture. Sometimes the kids would come home from school to discover their room was now across the hall from where it was when they left that morning.
By my mid 30s I broke down completely. It was all I could do to get up in the morning and get the girls off to school. My depression worsened to the point where I spent most of my days planning how I would do it, when and where. I spoke to Witnesses I trusted and asked them to be there for my kids if anything should happen to me.
And then I realized I didn't really want to die. I wanted the pain to stop. But that meant I had to take some action to deal with the pain and the continuing abuse. I had to leave the marriage and my home, possibly lose my kids and try to find a way to live on my own.
And I did it. I got therapy. My busy work became getting an education. The further behind I left the marriage the less I thought about suicide. I was finding out new and wonderful things about the power within me and I was using it and it felt so good.
For 27 years I had not even the glimmer of a thought about suicide. I felt really great about that. But sometimes life has a way of bringing pain back into your life and old coping behaviors surge up from the depths.
Last Mother's Day I got a call from my youngest daughter. She said: "Happy Mother's Day. Thank you for giving me life. I don't want a relationship with you". I felt like somebody took my heart and pulled it out of my chest and stomped all over it and took my mind and wrapped it in cotton balls and drowned it. I spent the rest of the day going through the motions until I got home.
My mind raced. I was worried sick that her sister will do the same thing. I was so scared. Nothing felt right anymore. The other day I was sitting there thinking how much this hurt and the thoughts just flooded my head. "I just want to die. I could do it."
If I wasn't scared enough before now I was really scared. I don't want to go to that place in my head where suicide seems like an option. It is too dark a place to live in and I won't go back there. I refuse to think about it. I am not trapped like i was as a child and even though I feel totally helpless over the decisions my children make, that doesn't mean I am totally helpless.
So I talked to my doctor who knows my family history and she said she would refer me for counselling but until that happened I could use their walk-in clinic any afternoon. I left her and went back to the front desk and got in to see a worker within minutes.
It helped so much just to sit and talk to someone. I have been emailing with a friend, Big Tex (aka Chris) and he has been a great support. But face to face counselling - it is just different. So in the last 2 weeks I have talked to my doctor, two workers at the walk-in clinic and I started with a regular worker.
We are going to work on how I can manage my fears and work on building a plan where I can feel some degree of control in the situation with my daughters. Sounds like exactly what I need.
So why am I telling you this?
A couple of weeks ago a board member of jehovahs-witness.net, Oompa, committed suicide. He wasn't the first. And it breaks my heart to think that therapy could have helped him deal with his pain. It hurts so much to lose your kids. I thought I had felt everything but this one hurts way more than anything else I have been through.
I don't want to be the next person everybody is talking about.
In some ways my life has been a challenge. I'm certainly older. I might be losing the sight in one eye. I have new hearing aids. I use a wheelchair anytime I go out my front door. I suffer from chronic pain. Life was not supposed to turn out like this. Wasn't that paradise supposed tp be here already?
But until this past May I could easily handle all those challenges. This one has taken me by surprise - well shock me is more like it.
But I don't want to be dead. I have more to do in this world. So I am back in therapy, doing what I have to do, to feel like I have some control over how I react to what other people choose to do.
I can't change my daughter's mind for her. There isn't anything she wants from me. But I do not have to let my fears overwhelm me. I can choose to do something different other than allowing those old suicidal thoughts take up residence in my head again.
I can call my worker any time during the day. She will get back to me.
I can go to the walk-in clinic any afternoon if I feel like I really need it.
I can pick up my telephone book and call the crisis line or the distress center. I can call Big Tex or email him.
I can ask for help.
I am not powerless.
I am no longer that young child that needed to "die" to get to sleep at night. I can think different thoughts. I can do different things. I can talk about how I fee,l because pretending it will go away just doesn't work. Not for me. And most likely not for anyone else either.
Don't be the next person people have to say goodbye to.