Suicide: Aiding Prevention and Support

The Reality of Mental battles and Stigma.  

Suicide is happening now.  
It’s real and it’s killing. When we experience pain on the inside, it’s not always evident to others and can be hard to accept we’re really not alone. The festering or pain that the silence of one’s suffering can cause, is something we don’t have to ignore, reject or judge. We should never have to suffer in silence when no matter how challenging it may feel to reach out, with this many other humans in the world, we always can. We can and be listened to and heard without judgement. When enclosed in the cape of darkness, you believe that the only solution to the seemingly unsolvable suffering is to end it all by ending oneself. A quick ‘fix’ which in fact is a sudden ‘break’, the only thing that is unfixable. When feeling trapped it can be viewed as the only escape. But it doesn’t have to be that way when we work to remove stigma attached to reaching out when suffering, when we choose kindness. 

When it’s too late it’s too permanent to be malleable, it’s the only place where change can no longer exist. Ending is not the same as solving, ending is cutting off and stopping existence, therefore solutions cannot occur when ending. Solutions can only occur through living. Holding on. Through being alive. The intensity of the belief that suicide can solve can be lessened through means of safety, a consideration of environment, therapy, behaviours, thought processes or medication, it’s a process and a climb but there is light, hope, liberation and freedom waiting at the top. I promise you, if you are in darkness at the moment it is not permanent. When ending your life you confuse what’s temporary with what’s permanent, though you feel stuck you are not, and though it feels like it right now, this does not have to stay. 

You are loved though you may not believe it, by ending oneself you will be taking away a piece of others with you. Although it may seem an attractive idea, you will not prove anything as you are not to live for anyone else, you are to live for yourself. The darkness may be consuming you and all around you, you may be in desperation for a light, know that you have an inner light within you that is itching to be free, shared and felt from the inside out. You are worthy and you have your place on this earth to feel and experience, to be nothing but you. Storms will come but just like the weather they can pass, it’s not forever, you are capable of living through both trauma and inability to process. 

It’s from overcoming that you come to acknowledge your greatness. Although it’s frightening and confusing, we can go through times where we are taken away from ourselves, we can disconnect from our body and minds and become numb and controlled by what we perceive to be a greater source. It’s okay. Pain is building a bridge of where you are to where you can be. By allowing a shift to rise, so can you. This is the intelligence of your body fighting to hold on, cope and survive. 

There is no shame in time. In a world of rush, need, want and doing, we feel guilty when we stop to comprehend what’s happened or actually consider out thoughts and feelings, our present. But we are allowed to. Time is in our abundance, there is no limit to coming back to yourself however long it takes, to know that you are the source of greatness and whatever tries to hold you is always smaller than you. To make ‘the most’ of your time doesn’t mean to do everything, it simply means to listen to yourself and what you need, what’s best for you. Your mind and body are yours, no one else’s. Therefore healing has no regulations or accustomed pace, it has no boundaries, shape or specificity, it can happen when and how it wishes, the important thing to remember is that it can happen. 

You are not what has happened and you are not what may happen, they do not define you. Know that no matter how much you replay and revisit in your mind, you cannot undo what is done. There is a lesson in that and you can move on without rather than with. You can let go of what’s destructive. We often stop ourselves from being affected by things as we feel we don’t have permission, or we become fearful of the feeling. You are the only one that can give yourself permission, emotions change as moment’s do. Resisting will only cause feelings to fight back harder. You have the ability to consider what’s actually helping you and letting go of what’s not despite what you feel it should be doing or how you should be feeling, being honest with yourself is the most liberating thing you can do. When your mind is busy and overthinking, know that you can step back, you are able to consider it without judgement or jumping to sudden conclusions and believing them to be truth or fact. We cannot predict or plan the future, therefore hope can always exist. Change is possible and hope is in abundance.

Although it’s important to remember you are in control of your thoughts, do not blame yourself for where your mind may take you. There is more than just you in this equation. Your brain and thought process shifts and chemicals and neurotransmitters are affected, serotonin and dopamine are reduced causing a reduction in endorphins and those ‘happy hormones’. Be gentle with yourself and intimate with your suffering, keep it close, although it’s not a pain that brings pleasure, it’s a part of you that only you can connect with. A dialogue with yourself that only you share, with you. In times of pain we can often try to push it away as we don’t want to feel it, it’s going to hurt so we reject, suppress and distract in away way we can to pretend it’s not there. Don’t be afraid of your emotions, though they may confuse you, cause discomfort or worry, they are an expression and a blessing. They are valid.

We’re conditioned to believe that negative emotions are not to be shown, that they are not valid. But just because they may bring up feelings that we are less comfortable feeling, that doesn’t take away from their validity. Know that you don’t have to leap, small steps still keep you moving, you don’t have to think about what you wish or the future, bring your attention to where you are now and work on simply placing one foot in front of the other, one step at a time. The rain may be falling, storm howling and thunder roaring, but know as in the sky, the storm will pass. The clouds will part and the sun will shine again. Please make sure you are around to see it. To experience it. Stay. 

‘What’s the point?’ can become a regular question to stand bold in the mind. What’s the point in living when you feel that the world would be better off without you? That it’s too exhausting to carry on, that you have no one, or you have no life? You do have a life. By simply being alive with a beating heart, you have been gifted with a life. Although you may not feel you’re living right now, you are alive. You’ve been blessed with existence in what may be a challenging, but wonderful world and you are meant to be here. Every single unique, beautiful, detailed part of you is worthy of not just your life, but the chance to live it. Choose to live because your life isn’t over yet. This too shall pass. Hold on for you. The variations of you yet to come, as you naturally change. Surprises, and what’s not known yet along your delightful path. There are many chapters in your story yet to be told, people you are yet to meet, places you are yet to see, memories you are yet to create, love you are yet to share, smiles you are yet to beam, and an array of emotions you are yet to feel, happiness included. Stay to ensure you don’t miss it. Stay for you. Your purpose is not happiness, but experience and existence, happiness will find its way to you, just as other emotions will.

If I had a magic powers I would use them right now to lift it all away, all I have is the power of words. Please trust in me that this isn’t how it will always be, life is never static. Much like waves of the ocean, you will have your ups and downs, but life is a continuous flow. The challenges we face are not sent to break us but to try us, to push us to understand ourselves as much as we try to understand others. You may be in hell now, know that there can only possibly be up from here. No tree can grow up to heaven unless its roots have been down to hell. Though the battle will be a hard fight, it’s a battle you are more than capable of winning. Though we are conditioned to value pleasure and disvalue pain, you do not need to disvalue your life as a consequence. Though pain is now, it’s not forever, and though pain is now, it’s not your life. So when you ask yourself ‘what’s the point’, remind yourself that there’s a life ahead of you, to be lived and breathed. You may be trapped in a tunnel, but no matter how dark, long and claustrophobic, a tunnel always has its exit at either end. The way out of the darkness and into the light. 

The point cannot be defined, it can only be learned, experienced, found and felt, it’ll change, grow, be questioned and challenged, but in those times the point remains and so should you. Your heart is beating for you, please keep it that way. Though you want to give up, your heart doesn’t. Keep going. The sun continues to rise and fall each day despite where you are at, that’s not because the world is ignoring you, it’s because the world can help hold us when we can’t. The light will be there when the darkness dissipates, the sun will be there for you to rise as you do.

Helplines:
Samaritans- 116 123
CALM- 0800 58 58 58
Papyrus- 0800 068 41 41
Childline - 0800 1111