My First Anniversary #getloud #bellletstalk #endstigma #areyouokay

It's my first year anniversary.  AAD, After Almost Dying.  PSA, Post Suicide Attempt.  Shocked?  I know.  I just figured that one way to end the stigma of suicide and Mental Illness is to just throw this shit out there.  It is what it is.  I tried to kill myself a year ago today and apparently I wasn't very good at it.  I am still here.  I am beyond lucky.  I am surviving Mental Illness.

I am guessing you are still a little thrown off balance.  How can I seemingly make light of this?  I have to is how.  I am going to keep talking about my suicide attempt matter-of-factually until it stops being a shock.  I want you to feel uncomfortable until; you no longer feel uncomfortable.  I couldn't put it more simply than, suicides take lives.  Suicides are derived from Mental illness.  Mental Illness takes lives.  Every second of every minute of every day, like any other disease, people are dying from Mental Illness.  I tried to kill myself by an overdose a year ago today. 

Are you hiding from me now? 

Did you actually go hide? 

Did you consider unfriending me?

I bet you are unfollowing me?

Have you stopped reading this?

Is this too unhappy for you?

Maybe it's too negative, I mean you might already be struggling with a bad day?

Shall I post a video of baby animals?  Give me a minute. 

Until such time as we stop making Mental Illness taboo, the unspeakable, deaths are going to continue.  People need to be able to talk about how they feel without worrying that they are going to lose the people around them for any of the above reasons.  People with depression, who seem innately negative are suffering with Mental Illness.  They are not "negative nellies".  They are not in control of their thoughts.  They are very much lost and they need your love and support.  They need your understanding and compassion.  They need you to stop saying things like "negative thoughts equal a negative life".  Be that as it may be, they are sick.  They feel miserable.  Unhappy.  Alone.  They want to be anything but all that.  It might just take a little more time and effort than your saying, "just be happy", to get them out of it.  Love them.  Understand that.  You may not understand them but understand they are sick.

"Are you okay?"  Funny you should ask, because that is exactly what you should ask someone you think might be suicidal.  People suffering with Mental Illness are often so lost that this question, may be about the only safe question you can get away with.  The one question that might just push it's way through the darkness.  I remember prior to my suicide attempt being angry with someone as depressive people often are.  I was lashing out at them.  In the middle of that they said, out of nowhere, "Are you okay?" My thoughts raced, "How dare you ask that of me, that's not the point, you were mean to me".  Then I stopped and thought, "NO I am NOT okay.  I am really quite angry right now, unreasonably so, I think.  I am lost in this anger.  Why can't I get out of here?  I am dying inside right now.  I need help.  Someone fucking help me".  Even in that fit of rage, that question would hit home for me, "Are you okay?"  It's so simple really.  Was I okay?

Please don't ever stop asking, "Are you okay?" 

I am alive today because I talked about being suicidal.  I knew I was.  I knew I was feeling so dark that to end my life seemed like a better option than simply living it.  People around me, those that loved me, and had stuck with me, knew I was considering this.  They didn't leave me much room to hurt myself.  But room I found.  If someone is in so much pain they want to die, they are going to find a way to try.  The pain of Mental Illness can be unbearable.  Had I been left alone even an hour longer than I was, I wouldn't be here today.  I talked about being sick and it saved my life.  I got lucky because I talked.  Many are not this lucky.  

Please understand that I am not saying that knowing someone is suicidal will save their life.  But it might.  Certainly knowing someone is suicidal gives them a better chance at survival than silence does.  Often times, there is nothing we can do.  We cannot assume responsibility for another person's life or death.  Mental Illness is a disease.  Until they find a cure for all the various forms of this disease people are agonizingly going to suffer.  People are going to die.  If they do maybe, just maybe, some small part of your heart can find a shred of comfort in knowing that you gave that someone a shoulder, a sympathetic ear, love and compassion.  It's all anyone dying of disease could ask for. 

I know people who have died from suicide and those loved ones left behind will not admit that is how they died.  There is shame surrounding suicidal death.  The fact is, disease took a life.  I think people feel if they admit their loved one took their own life they are somehow admitting they failed them.  They feel responsible.  How did they not stop this?  Perhaps if we all talked more openly about Mental Illness and suicides (suicide attempts like mine) then people could live life with less suffering?  Both those stricken with the disease and those left behind.

Too many mentally ill people are suffering in silence, alone.  As are the families left behind in the wake of this disease. 

Admit to your suffering.  Awareness is key.

I got lucky because I talked.  Someone was listening.

I tried to kill myself and I am grateful I didn't succeed.