When the Pain Is Unbearable

Like a movie I watched years ago, the details are mostly murky except for one vivid scene. There had been crying and yelling. I retreated to the bathroom off our master bedroom – the most private spot I could find to howl with rage and pain – and curled into a ball on the floor. I couldn't take it. Not for another minute, let alone the days, and weeks, and years, and lifetime I imagined stretched out, one agonizing day following another. 

I calculated the the number of pills available to me in a nearby drawer. A doctor had recently prescribed me some anti-anxiety pills and I considered their potential to stop my heart. Maybe if I washed them down with vodka.

I thought of my children downstairs. And of my mother, who spent five years in and out of psychiatric hospitals after various suicide attempts. No. I would not do that do my kids.

The rest of the scene grows vague again. I remember considering driving myself to the emergency room. Eventually I made an appointment with my therapist, which felt like a strong enough rope to hold me until I could see her. At that point in time, she felt, literally, like a lifeline. Her office meant safety. 

She also convinced me to begin taking anti-depressants. I fought against it. Until she explained that chronic stress literally changes our brain chemistry. My brain, she told me, wasn't working like it would under less difficult circumstances. I needed to help it start working properly again. She drew me a picture with neurons and serotonin and dopamine receptors. And so I said yes.

Those pills might have saved my life. 

But I know how tenuous that grip can feel, how tempting to just let it all slip away. To just...sleep. And never wake up.

We don't want to die. Not really. It just feels like the only exit we can imagine for ourselves. We want the pain to stop and we don't believe it ever will. We're suffocated by it. Rendered invisible in the darkness. Who is this stranger who used to be me?

I know. 

I also know this.

It doesn't last forever. 

Slowly, with time, sometimes with medication, and a commitment to not give up (except for those days when we give ourselves permission to rest), the pain begins to recede.

Our culture has such distorted ideas around suicide. Around medication. Around mental health. But let me tell you this: The strongest people I've ever met in my entire life are those who battle invisible demons just to get through a "normal" day. 

My daughter who wished herself dead rather than face another day of paranoia and delusions and terror when she was first experiencing bipolar disorder. Lithium has given her back her life and she's happier than she's ever been.

My younger daughter who wished herself dead rather than face another day of relentless obsessive-compulsive thoughts that had her changing her clothes repeatedly, unable to eat "contaminated" food, terrified of touching "germs". She relies on mindfulness and OCD therapy.

My mother who wished herself dead rather than face another day of failing to resist the vodka and the pills. Twelve-step groups were her saviour.

All survived because all asked for help. 

I asked for help.

It isn't easy. Our health care systems around the world fail far too many. The waits are too long. The medications too unpredictable. The doctors overworked. 

My family is lucky. We live in Canada with a socialized  healthcare system. Our city is noted for its hospitals. We are white middle-class with resources at our disposal. We have friends who are doctors and who gave us a roadmap for navigating the system. 

I'm loud. When my kids are hurting and desperate, I can be very very loud.

Be loud. 

Make your voice heard. You matter. I've never known anything with greater clarity than that. You matter. So do I. We all do. Every single sobbing one of us.

It doesn't matter if he thinks you matter. As I've said before, just because someone else doesn't recognize a diamond doesn't make it any less valuable.

If you need help, ask for it. Demand it. 

If you need medication, get it. There is no shame is using every tool in the toolbox to put yourself back together. 

And if you think you can't hold on another minute, do this: Call a suicide helpline and let them guide you to the resources you need. 

Sharing our Secret Selves: How to Save Your Own Life

"I still think it's vital for a girl to share her truthful, secret self somewhere.... Every little girl is told at some point that the world does not want to see the ugly, afraid, secret version of her. Sometimes the people who tell her this are advertisers, sometimes they're people close to her, and sometimes they're just her own demons.
And so she must be told by someone she trusts that this hiding is both necessary and unnecessary.
She must be taught that, in fact, some people will want and need to hear about her secret self as badly as they need to inhale. Because reading her truth will make them less afraid of their own secret selves. And she must be taught that telling her truth will make her less afraid too. Because maybe her secret self is actually her own personal prophet.
She also must be warned that her truth will undoubtedly make some people uneasy and angry, so she'll need to share it strategically..."
~Glennon Doyle Melton, Carry On, Warrior

This site has been difficult reading lately. So much heartbreak. So much anguish. So much desperation. And such frantic calls for a lifeline.
I wish I had the expertise and resources to respond. I wish I had the magic words that could restore your will to live when you're drowning in sorrow.
I do know that some women will make that irretrievable choice to end their lives, though I pray that it's never anyone whom we had the chance of reaching on this site. I pray that the words here, by me and so many others, can act as a tether, keeping women rooted in this world until the pain inevitably subsides and they realize the strength they've always had to carry on, to wait until tomorrow reveals its beauty.
I considered ending my life. I simply didn't think I could live with the pain a second longer. I was exhausted. Out of hope. I couldn't imagine a future that didn't include this level of agony.
I didn't do it because I had children. And because I had been a child when my own mother attempted suicide. I know now that she attempted suicide for the same reason that I considered it. The pain felt greater than her ability to carry it. Her imagined tomorrow held only more pain.
But to the child me, my mother's attempted suicide wasn't about her rejecting her pain but about her rejecting me. I concluded that I wasn't worth living for. It has taken me many, many years to value myself. To value my own life.
No matter how deep my pain following D-Day, I wouldn't risk putting that on my children.
I might not have valued my own life but I valued theirs.
And then an interesting thing happened.
I asked myself what it was about them that made them valuable. Was it their beauty? Their intelligence? Their ability to make me smile? Their creativity? What did they do that made their lives worthy?
And I realized, it wasn't anything they did. It was their being.  My children's lives had value simply because they existed.
And I realized that my own life had value simply because I existed.
Yes, I was in a horribly dark place. Darker than I'd ever been. But some of that darkness came from my own secret self. Some of that darkness came not just from what my husband had done but from the story I was telling myself about what he had done. The story that included me not being pretty enough, not being sexy enough, not being worth loving.
And by admitting those secrets to myself I was able to examine them and see that they were untrue. Just as my children are worth loving because they just are...so am I worth loving because I am. And so, my beloved BWC members, are you.
I can imagine all the protestations. But you don't know me, you might be thinking. You don't know how bitchy I can be. You don't know how fat I've become. You don't know how many mistakes I've made in life. 
How often I've failed. 
No, I don't. But I know how often I have...and that's the very same thing.
So while I don't have a hotline or a lifeline or any other way to reach you when you are in that dark, scary place where your secret self is longing for an escape from the pain, I do have this site, which is here 24/7 full of the support and wisdom and compassion that we all deserve.
And I have this: I'm not in that place anymore where it hurts to breathe. My kids showed me that all life is sacred. That we are enough.
I hope you can remember that. I hope you can begin to let that secret self out to express her pain, to tell the story of her long journey to this place, and to know that the story isn't over. That it will include healing.
Your secret self will make some people uncomfortable and they will wish you would shut up about it. But your secret self is a prophet, leading you out of the darkness...and lighting the way for countless others.