As the news of two celebrities committing suicide this week spills out into the news, I needed to share my story, of which few are aware. This is not a plea for sympathy, just my attempt to let those of you who cannot understand this act catch a glimpse of what it has been like in my life. Know that although I still struggle, I am fine and you don’t need worry about me. I know others live in places like this every day, so let us be kind to each other. We never know the battles others endure each day.
SUICIDE
For some of us, there comes a moment when we stare into the abyss, feeling drawn into the free-fall call to escape the pain, the guilt, the shame, the pressure, the fear and to embrace nothingness or whatever is to come.
I have stood on the edge and the lure is like the feeling I’ve had standing close to a waterfall and feeling the pull of a strong magnet tempting me to let go and plunge in. To stop fighting and struggling and just relax, to quit holding on and give in to the desire to be free from a now which promises no relief. To admit defeat—defeat in life, defeat by life.
I have stood at the abyss and felt the fingers of failure, real and imagined, pushing me closer. I found myself at the precipice trying to escape the silence of loneliness, the shrill shrieks of accusation and the sobs of unrelenting guilt and shame which filled my head. The sounds draw me closer, whispering my name and offering what I hear to be peace.
In those moments, I have felt I could not back away, that all on which I have stood has been erased, rolled up, confiscated. I have fumbled once too often and have been cut from the team. There is nowhere to go, but in and down and it is past time to get on with it. Where do you go when you believe, true or not, that you no longer belong, if you ever did?
At the abyss, love is silent. At the abyss, I was alone. Did I only imagine my friends had given up or abandoned me? Was it true that everyone held me in contempt or didn’t hold me at all? Truth and fantasy swirled together always revealing the worst, the most desolate visions. The pressure to stretch out my arms and embrace an even darker darkness became more unbearable. Let go and all would be over, all would be past, all would be forgotten. I would be forgotten.
Once, about 15 years ago, I succumbed to that pull. Exhausted by the efforts to prove my worth or defend my existence, worn out by forced smiles that strained every muscle in my body, I lowered the garage door with the remote, turned on a tape of my favorite folk music, reclined the driver’s seat and allowed myself to sleep as the engine hummed. I had no more fight left, no resilience with which to struggle. The next time I opened my eyes, I would see heaven or hell. I prayed that all I believed about grace was true. But I had no strength to worry about that either. Then, as I drifted off to sleep, it occurred to me that this dirty, cluttered garage might be the last thing I saw before eternal nothing.
I opened my eyes. No pearly gates and a smiling Jesus. No hell fire and a leering Satan. Just a dirty, cluttered garage. The music was still playing, the engine still running. Confused, I checked my watch. Over three hours had passed. I was so pathetic, I hadn’t even been able to kill myself. I sighed and yelled at God for saving me against my will. That and an evidently less than an airtight garage. I had failed at suicide. Turning off the engine, I got out of the car and entered the house. For months, I told no one.
The abyss receded for the moment.
As a Christian, I felt guilty. I didn’t trust God. I couldn’t believe my friends really loved and cared for me, although I had no reason to doubt them. How could God love me now that I had tried to end my life? In my still jumbled mind, I believed that this was God’s punishment–having to continue to breathe and function (for I was not alive) until he paroled me to death at the end of my sentence. I returned to every day tasks, moving through a perpetual gray haze—no joy, no anger, numb.
Gradually the gray receded. Along with the usual bitter flavor, life sometimes tasted sweet. I retreated further away from the abyss where I could begin hearing love from time to time. Still, despite my faith, guilt, anger, and worthlessness walked beside me crept within me. Although I knew it was wrong, I heard the alluring call from the abyss and stopped to listen.
Thankfully, I have friends who have accompanied me to the edges of my darkness. Eventually, I told them of my close encounter with suicide. They did not condemn or abandon me but held me closer in their hearts. To this day, when they sense a change in my spirit, they’ll ask not just if I’m okay, but if I’m safe. I have promised to tell them if I am not and over the years have been able to answer honestly.
Since the garage, I have returned to the abyss several times. Sometimes, I walk by quickly, but other times I linger longingly. In the vacuum of those days, I cannot hear the voices or see the smiles of friends. I cannot reach out and ask for help. In my brokenness I feel unworthy of anyone’s love. I cannot see anything beyond my own pain. I am lost in my own sadness. It is then that my friends hold onto me through prayer and presence. They hold on to faith until I can grab it once again. Without my being aware of their efforts, they have pulled me back before I could take that last step or inadvertently slip.
Many years later, through their faith and friendship, through counseling, and through the love and grace of a God I often do not recognize, I live in a world that is more often filled with color than gray. Sometimes the colors are faded, washed out and hard to distinguish. Most days I see more blessings than sorrows. Some days I sense I have gifts to offer others. I even have days where laughter is genuine and light, not a shield of protection to keep others from seeing my scars.
Unresolved guilt, anger, and shame continue to walk nearby, but only now and then do they poke and bite. But walking among them today is hope, encouraging me to keep walking. Hope sings harmony with me and keeps singing when I cannot. Hope reminds me that I am not alone.
I know what it is to stand at the abyss of hopelessness and despair. I have stepped into that abyss and should not have survived. I have felt the pain of loneliness, been tormented by fear, and kept sleepless by guilt and shame. I have peered into the insidious temptation of death itself. I know the desperate desire to stop it all by free-falling into oblivion, perhaps to embrace peace at last.
I know. And because I know, I weep for those who take that step lunging, leaping or stumbling into the abyss out of desperation. I weep for those, who like me, hesitate for eternities, afraid to go forward, yet unable to retreat. I weep for those left behind, who had no idea the darkness had enveloped so completely their loved one.
I weep for myself. For how close I came, for the times even now when I come close again to escape the demons who continue to haunt me. But I also weep tears of gratitude for friends who hold on when I cannot, who refuse to give up on me when I give them every reason to do so; for my words which sometimes break through and are heard; for hope, which sings even in the dark, and for the God I know more through questions than answers, but who, I trust, holds us all until the last darkness lifts.
