Category: Suicide

I Don’t Have Time for This

 

Yesterday someone posed a question to me.
“How has your relationship to the concept of TIME changed (if it has) since not being suicidal?”

After hearing this I laughed and thought, completely, utterly and yet not at all.

First off what is time?
According to Merriam-Webster

Time – noun
1 The measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues.
2 A nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future.

There are 12 other definitions for time according to Merriam-Webster.
And that just when it’s a noun.
It can also be used as a verb and an adjective.

Any idea what the most used noun is in the English language?

TIME

We are addicted to it, clocks, schedules, dates, when, past, future, and present.

It’s how we define accomplishment, it’s how we measure our progress, it’s how we determine when to do this or that.

Let’s go back in time to the original question.
“How has your relationship to the concept of TIME changed (if it has) since not being suicidal?”

When I was suicidal, time for me was an avalanche, a crushing, swirling mass of confusion and suffering.
The past had collected high on the mountain top of my psyche and had suddenly come crashing down upon me.
My failures, regrets, and longings. Which then turned the perceived present into a disaster.

The idea of past, present and future are key.

Past being the things we perceive as happening before now.
Present is the NOW, which I could argue doesn’t exist, I’ll get to this in a moment.
Future is the space where the present hasn’t formed yet.

On the idea that the present doesn’t exist. I remember reading a while back that it takes us around 1/10th of a second to process what is happening now.

If our mind takes 1/10th of a second to process the environment around us we are responding to things that happened in the past. What we perceive as now is actually the past.

As I went through reassembling the pieces of myself buried under the avalanche of my mind, I became lightly obsessed with time.
It wasn’t so much that I started searching for it, but it came to me, and I dove in headfirst.

The first thing I read was
The Order of Time – Carlo Rovelli
Then came
Each Moment is the Universe – Dainin Katagiri
Then
Being-Time – Shinshu Roberts
Oh and I can’t forget
Einstein’s Dreams – Alan Lightman

Each of these dealt with time and out perception of it, what it is and what is actually happening from a different perspective.
Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist.
Dainin Katagiri was a Sōtō Zen priest and teacher.
Shinshu Roberts is co-founder and teacher of Ocean Gate Zen Center in Capitola, CA.
Alan Paige Lightman is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur.

Let’s go back in time to the original question.
“How has your relationship to the concept of TIME changed (if it has) since not being suicidal?”

After the avalanche, my relationship and understanding of time became something other.

If we assume past, present and future are separate things. If we lug around the past like a big old steamer trunk full of psychological detritus, we end up polluting the present with this overflowing garbage and thus changing the future to look a hell of a lot like the past.
This assumes time is a continuum, past precedes present and future succeeds the present and the past.

What if they don’t behave like that. What if they all happen at the same TIME: Past, Present and Future all coalesced into something other.

Is the idea of the past just a memory?

If we can remember the past, why can’t we remember the future?

Maybe that’s what we need to do, remember the future and not remember the past. Or maybe even remember the NOW
Maybe the past isn’t what we think it is, after-all we all have heard that eye-witness testimony is not that great. And who is that witness anyway?
“The act of remembering, says eminent memory researcher and psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus of the University of California, Irvine, is “more akin to putting puzzle pieces together than retrieving a video recording.””

What do your puzzle pieces look like? Are they even all pieces of the same puzzle?
Are you assuming your disparate puzzle pieces actually are a video recording?

So, what is my relationship to TIME now?

The metaphor of the avalanche is no more.
I now stand at the edge of a calm mountain lake. I can see the reflections of all that surrounds me on the glimmering surface of the water. It’s a place of calm and quiet.

So far

Where to start?
I guess I could start at the beginning and tell you all about the traumas and PTSD, my failings and grievances.
I think ill start by telling you where I am now.

I live in the forest on Orcas Island, in the middle of a nature preserve. I am surrounded by the eagle, the deer, the owl.
I’ve been here for 9 months now and each day I awake to a new wonder, the unfolding and ever changing splendor of nature.
Recently I adopted a 12 year old shepherd/husky mix, she spends the days napping and chasing birds or the occasional raccoon.
Over these 9 months I have witnessed the land go from Fall to Winter to Spring. Seeing the forest slowly go from a vibrant green to a sullen grey as winter arrived only to emerge now in a vibrant explosion of verdant green. This makes me think of how life is somewhat the same. We go from times of joy and happiness, to times of pain and suffering and if we can just sit be with ourselves in the times of pain and suffering and listen to life, we can yet again come back to times of joy and happiness. Its in the darkness that we begin to understand the dichotomy of existence, that we find the light.

Over the course of my 53 years I have been an addict, an alcoholic, and suicidal, among other things. I came out of the grips of addiction in my late 20’s, many years later I went to rehab for alcohol addiction, 6 years ago I had decided that taking my own life was a good solution to life.

I had arrived in a place where life didn’t make sense anymore, where the pain and suffering was too overwhelming to even bear any longer. I wrote “suicide letters” to the people who I felt needed an explanation, I had put my financial affairs in order, so that my 2 young sons would be taken care of. In a few days I would end it all.

Then a curious thing happened.

I could not get the thought out of my mind, that if what I was experiencing was real, then wouldn’t everyone eventually commit suicide?
I accidentally found a “suicidologist”, yes there are therapists who only deal with suicidal ideation, this was a surprise to me.
I filled out the online form on the website I had found and 20 minutes later I received a text on my phone from a “suicidologist”, I’ll call this person “F” . This was a Wednesday, I had an appointment Saturday with death. He said he could meet me Friday. What did I have to lose?

In short, I didn’t make it to my Saturday appointment with death. I’m still here. I see and experience myself and the world in a very different way. I am alive. Finally.

Over the course of 4 months I saw “F” twice a week, each session was 2 hours long. During that time we delved into the depths of my soul, we peered into the darkness, we examined the light. For so much of my life I had always been rewarded for being logical and analytical. These were the swords I had fallen upon. Using play, curiosity and imagination was the prescription I was now given.
It was up to me to fill the prescription.

During many of my trials and tribulations I felt utterly alone, shut off, isolated, mired in my own despair.
Each time I hit “rock bottom” I somehow knew I needed help. There was a small voice in me that said “reach out, ask for help”
I am so glad I listened.

I have been at MCG for 14 years now. Looking at that number I am surprised, its half of my professional career. During my tenure at MCG I have had to use FMLA twice, once for alcohol addiction, once for when I became suicidal. Of course I could feel shame and guilt over that. But I don’t, I feel nothing but gratitude. The management team at MCG has always “had my back”, they have supported me in whatever I was going through. MCG has created a family, a support system, a place where we all support each other without judgement. MCG is a model for how to create a caring workplace.

I feel that I have been given a gift. My own life.
In my spare time I work with people who are struggling, who can find no way out. If I can help just one person alter the course of their life, that’s all I ask for.

I’ll end this with a quote.

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away” – Pablo Picasso

 

 

 

A Puzzling Predicament

Today is my anniversary, my second birthday.

By the end of March 2018, I had decided that suicide was the best solution to my dilemma.

In the weeks leading up to the end of March, I had found myself in an unimaginable hell. I could see no way out of the deep dark hole I had fallen into. I had decided that taking my own life was the best solution.

How wrong I was.

I had decided that March 31st was it. I had all my plans in place and was ready. But something didn’t seem right. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that just maybe there was another way. If life was truly so horrible wouldn’t everyone end up killing themselves? I had no answers to that question.

A few days before on a whim, I just happened to type”suicide therapist seattle” into Google. I had been wondering if there were maybe therapists that specialized in Suicidality. I found this https://www.suicidetherapy.com/ . Apparently there was someone who did just this. So I made an appointment.

March 30th was the day I met “F” the suicidologist. What transpired over the next 3 months was nothing short of magical. I became something I had long forgotten about. I remembered who I was.

Sometimes we lose direction, sometimes we fall apart, sometimes we forget.

Here we are 2 years later, the world seems like its spiraling out of control, not unlike I was just 2 years ago.  When things fall apart, only then can we pick up the pieces and put them back together.

It’s like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle, that has no edge pieces and we don’t have the box with the picture on it anymore. We don’t know how many pieces there are supposed to be,  and we don’t know what it will look like in the end. We need to ask questions, imagine what shape it could be, become curious as to what the assembled picture might look like. Maybe we discover some of the pieces don’t even belong to this puzzle. Maybe we realize all the pieces are the same. We need to be imaginative and curious in regards to what the final picture will look like.

Just as I was not able to reassemble myself alone, it took a wyrd therapist, friends, family, ancestors, YOU and ME, it will take us all collectively to imagine how the pieces go together.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Alone, Isolated, Depressed

As we fall further into despair we isolate ourselves, we stop socializing, we withdraw from the community. When we do this the meaningful feedback and conversation we partake in diminish as well.

The only voice we hear is our own. What are the conversations we have?

Life is miserable

I am a bad person

No one would notice if I were not here anymore

I am stuck and nothing will ever change

Nothing I do is successful

Our internal conversations become louder and more frequent. They feed on themselves and we start to spiral down further and further into darkness. We have no other point of reference except the stories we keep telling ourselves. Ask yourself, where you first heard those conversations, whose voice they were in? I would guess the answer is the voice was your own.

We need a new story, we need to change our point of reference. What if you started changing the story?

Life is fucking wonderful

I am a good person

Things can change

I am successful

Now I am guessing that as you read this you may be thinking that I am full of shit. That it’s all a bunch of BS. I would have said the same thing a few years ago. I would have shaken my head and said, “you don’t understand, my life sucks”. Oh, it did suck.  It was a miserable mess and I had no way out. I also realized that whatever I was doing wasn’t working. Why should I keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result? I realized that where I currently stood was leading to only one thing.  I looked at it this way, if what I am doing now isn’t working, why not just try something else, something new. Maybe I could change my point of reference, my story. And you know what? It worked.

You become the character in the story YOU tell YOUrself.

What story are you telling yourself?

Stop calling it Suicide

Suicide, Suicide, Suicide!

What does that even mean?

From Etymology Online

Suicide (n): The deliberate killing of oneself. 1650s, from Modern Latin suicidium “suicide,” from Latin sui “of oneself” (genitive of se “self”), from PIE *s(u)w-o- “one’s own,” from root *s(w)e- (see idiom) + -cidium “a killing,” from caedere “to slay” (from PIE root *kae-id- “to strike”).

Why isn’t it murder? What is it, if not premeditated murder upon oneself.

My opinion is that using the word Suicide removes some of the stigmas of murder and makes what is happening or has happened clinical. To me, Suicide sounds so…”Clinical”. It separates us from the ugliness and horror of what we are planning. It prevents us from seeing what is really happening. It’s a cold and unemotional view of what is happening.

As I myself struggled through this journey, I stopped using the word suicide and instead started using the word murder.

Murder (n): the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another, the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice From latin murdrum “a killing in secret”, “the killing of an unknown man”

When I was in suicidal despair, I was certainly premeditating the act, there was a lot of malice, and in some countries it is illegal. Then I got to a place where I could ask myself, would I ever commit murder? No, I never would, how could I? I am not a violent person.

Murdrum – from Medieval Latin murdrum -A secret killing, distinguished from simple homicide in that the victim and the killer are unknown.

The problem was that I didn’t even know who I was planning on killing.

 

The Shambling Suicide Beast

The shambling suicide beast is what I call it. In the darkest times of my despair, it would arrive, from somewhere on the dark horizon of my mind it would appear, on the edges of my perception, it would come crashing through my inner landscape to bear down on me, crushing the will to live from my soul.

I wasn’t constantly suicidal. Some days were OK, most days weren’t. On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is “I’m going to kill myself”, and 10 is “I can’t believe how great life is” , I look back and think maybe I was at a muted 3 with frequent forays into the depths of -5. Nowadays I would say I flow right around a 7.

In the times when things were just drab, gray and lifeless, it was a constant struggle to function. I knew taking my own life was wrong but I couldn’t stop thinking about it, how great it would be to just check out, to not be here.

The shambling suicide beast that was out there was something I had created. It was ominous, dark, heavy and loathsome. It was huge and nondescript, massive, colossal, dark and shadowy. It contained all my darkest fears, my anger at myself, my failures. I had pushed all my dislikes, frustrations and otherness into it. It grew each time I put something else into it.

In retrospect, anthropomorphizing my suicidal intent was in a way a gift. The beast wasn’t me, it was something else, part of my inner landscape that I had created. Maybe I could tell it to go away, to back off, that it had no power over me, that I was stronger than it was.

Even now, it’s still there, it lurks on the periphery of my consciousness, I can feel it. It’s smaller now, it is smaller than I am. It doesn’t dare approach me, I have knowledge of its flawed machinations.

 

 

The Energy of Suicide

We spend an immense amount of time planning, scheming, and plotting. All in order to do one thing: to not live. We research which is the best way to murder ourselves, which technique will yield the desired result with the least amount of suffering or pain. We research the best way to die, hoping we don’t Fuck It Up.

Why do I use the word murder? Because that’s just what it is, it’s the premeditated killing of one human by another. you are killing YOU. When we are in this state we may not be able to clearly see who we are. We have forgotten.

We have written letters to those we love and care for, explaining why we are going to murder ourselves. Apologizing for the thing we have yet to do. We have put all our financial affairs in order. We think about which “technique” will leave the least amount of mess. We stop going to work. We sleep for inordinate amounts of time. We stop eating. We dream of the peace we so hope to find.

We become fixated on not being “here”. Where is “here”? If we could only be over “there”. If only we could stand someplace else that wasn’t this blasted plain of ash and darkness. What if we can’t see “there” because it is really “here”?

The amount of energy and commitment this all takes is unimaginable. It exhausts us and bears down on us. This Sisyphean task crushes us with its weight. We can only see one solution in our myopic view of life. That one solution is murder.

What if we can take all that energy, moxie, and grim determination and turn it around? What if we can somehow take this immense amount of focus and retrain our gaze on healing? What if we could harness all that unstoppable drive for murder and unleash it on healing ourselves? What if we took all the energy we have been pouring into not living, and instead poured it into Living?

We can. But it’s hard to see from “here.” I couldn’t see anything else from “here.” It was all dark and grey. Is it that I was blind? In a way, yes I was.

“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”
― Wayne W. Dyer

I know the above quote may seem thin and trite, but it’s true. What if we can change the way we look at things and then they do indeed change?

We have spent a lifetime building the reality we now live in, decades of concerted effort, and here we stand in the dark, we hear ourselves screaming in the distance, we hear the wailing of our own soul. We are full of pain, fear, grief, we feel lost, stuck.

We all have trauma and hurt, deep in our bones. We have stood here so long staring at it that we can’t see anything else. From where we stand the world is indeed a hard and dark place. We have brainwashed ourselves into believing that these traumas and painful experiences are all we have, and it colors everything we see and do.

What if we could take all that energy, all the hurt, all the pain and transform it into healing ourselves? What if we could take it all and redirect it, turn it upside down? We can. First, we need to look at where we are. Where we stand, does it serve us well, is it comfortable? Are we willing to let go of all of our beliefs, all of our misgivings, all of our pain? Those are the first steps we have to take in order to heal.

I know this sounds like a huge leap, to give up everything we know or believe. Things we know and believe are not fixed, they need not be concretized. Your perceptions are not fixed. Start asking, “What if?” Start using your imagination and curiosity. Step away from the logic you believe is serving you well.