How I Survive Suicidal Thoughts

My story out of the darkness.

"My name is Amy.  I am twelve years old and I can't stop him from hurting me.  I have nowhere to go.  Nowhere is safe.  I live in a family but I am alone."

That was my first suicide attempt almost forty years ago.  It failed.  I woke up and cleaned our house as if nothing had happened.  I went back to living with an overly abusive dad, feeling scared and alone, hoping someone would hear my silent cries for help.

Two years later, my mom did.

Even though I've had years of extensive recovery, including a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the one thing that remains a constant battle is suicidal thoughts.  They are intrusive and at times very intense.  No amount of prayer has lessened the frequency of intrusion.

But that's not the end.

I have learned one life saving truth:  My suicidal thoughts are triggered by several factors and experiences.  I have to be and I do mean HAVE TO BE gut level raw honest with myself AS SOON AS THOSE THOUGHTS START.  Honest about what and what do I do?

Below are the five basic things I do to keep myself alive:

1.  What am I feeling?  For me, feeling suicidal is not a feeling.  It's a response to how I'm REALLY feeling.  The suicidal thoughts are the ugly monster that is holding me hostage.  I'm usually feeling depressed, hopeless, scared (most of the time), overwhelmed, alone, not understood, misunderstood, a freak, unlovable, angry, like my mental illness is winning and my chronic pain hurts hurts hurts.

2.  I stop dwelling on the suicidal thoughts.  If you feed the monster the monster will grow.  Now that I've identified the real feeling, even if I'm still feeling a bit shaky, I can move forward just a little bit.  I don't try to work on the feeling too much.  Maybe some drawing but definitely time with my therapist and a friend.

3.  I change my posture.  I don't have suicidal thoughts when I'm standing and moving around.  I have them when I'm laying down or sitting in deep thought.  If I'm having a bad chronic pain day, I try to shift my posture even if it's for only a few minutes.  The goal is to break the thought pattern with body movement.

4.  I redirect myself.  Just this past week I was triggered and couldn't identify what I was feeling.  It wasn't until a few days later when I realized how sad I felt at the momentum suicide is gaining and the lives the monster is enveloping.  When I met with my therapist and told her about my struggle, I cried.  Then I  told her about a goal I made which redirected those thoughts into something positive.  I felt proud of myself.

5.  I remind myself that help is available and these thoughts are just thoughts.  They cannot harm me.  It feels like they can at the time they're happening but that's the LIE the monster tells.  It's not true!

I hope this gives you some usable ideas and helps you on your journey toward healing and wholeness!

If you can't shake those suicidal thoughts on your own and want to talk to someone 24/7 please dial 800-273-8255.

God loves you.  He hasn't abandoned you or forgotten about you.  In fact, he created you for a very special purpose!  Please stay and find out what that is.

I Dream

Oh how I dream that there would be an organization where people with mental illness and disabilities and fixed low incomes, who fall through the help of government help, could go to for financial assistance when charities and churches can no longer help.

Am I meant to start such a place?

A place of pooled resources from those who have much who have a heart for the plight of the moderate poor in our country?  A heart for those who are judged and even frowned upon for living in America where so much abundance overflows yet they are forced to scavenge for their most basic needs.  Needs like good nutrition, reliable transportation and excellent health care.

Why are we who are living on so little forced to deal with so much?  Why do some of us, myself included, feel so dependent on those close to us but so embarrassed and ashamed to mutter the words we too often have to say:  Help me, again.

I cringe every time and I cry at the thought.

I look into the future of the next couple of months and know summer is only going to get hotter in the northern suburbs of Chicago.  Yes, I have two window air conditioners already mounted from previous years but something is different this year.  This year I didn't qualify for LIHEAP - a program for low income energy assistance.  I missed it by $64.  I missed out on about $700 worth of help by $64.  It's the reality we live with everyday.  We who are marginalized in this country. 

I'm not looking for pity.  I'm not looking for...I don't know.  I'm just saying, people like me who live on fixed incomes and aren't faking it really do struggle to survive.  But we are also some of the strongest people you'll ever meet.

We say no to a lot.  Sometimes we say yes when we should say no but who doesn't?  Then there are days like today when you give yourself permission to feel overwhelmed and sad for a bit but you know you have God on your side and you're truly not alone in the mess of this life.

So maybe I have to let my fingers do some research for financial assistance elsewhere.  Maybe I have to not run the air conditioning but that also makes me physically ill so that's not really an option.  I know God has a plan so all I have to do is the footwork.

For the future, way in the future, maybe if my book is successful, I can help people - after I help myself a little bit.  Maybe I can start a ministry that can give one time gifts to those in need as the IRS allows.  And maybe, with God's blessing, He and I can start something that will be healthy, joyous and free.

Because, people like me?  Our needs never go away.

And I think we are unfairly discriminated.

Soul Cleansing

One of my all time favorite books is written by Ken Gire, "Windows of the Soul."  Just the mention of the name brings back feelings of warmth.  It was a gift from a woman on my serving team, a gift that was wrapped unsuspiciously and delivered with the words, "Here, Amy.  I think you'll really like this."

I was captivated by the message of that little book.  It packed a powerful punch to a young thirty something who had questions about the longings in her own soul, the souls of others and what souls were really all about.

I understood our Eternal soul - the one Jesus came to this earth for, to pay the ultimate price for our sin, to die and rise on the third day, ascending into heaven to take His seat at the right hand of God and send us the Holy Spirit.  The promise of my soul eternally in heaven.

But...the treachery and debauchery of the human soul.  The agony of failure, the diseased mind of the tortured soul.  The emptiness of the lost and lonely soul.  The soul that longs for comfort in the middle of the darkest nights when tears won't come anymore and the crying sounds are now silent because there is no more voice inside...no more breath to push out the pain.  There's no word to describe that condition of a soul.

But we've seen it or heard about it.
Or we've experienced it ourselves.
Or we've held someone through it.

Most of us pray it never happens to us.
Some of us aren't so lucky.

Or are we?

I'm the survivor of a lot of abuse.  I don't wave a flag with all my hurts on it and I don't consider my pain and suffering any worse or better than anyone else.  Sin is sin and it hurts everybody.  That's why we all need Jesus.  I know that's why I do.

In my healing journey, since the age of fourteen, I've had dozens of breakthroughs.  I'm rarely grateful for the pain and discomfort I go through beforehand and even less rarely grateful for the crying and memories I go through during the breakthrough but this I can tell you every time:

God is with me through all stages of what I like to call SOUL CLEANSING.

That's the deep down stuff that needs to be rooted out.  For me, this morning, it was feeling the sadness about what happened to me as a little girl and no longer putting on my "brave" behavior.  No more being strong when I talk about it, no more lessening the hurt because I forgave the alcoholic, no more stuffing down the tears because I should be done with this by now - nope.  I'm going to cry and it might take awhile.

And you know what?  God answered some prayers I've been praying.  He always knows what I need to get rid of before He can add to my pile.  He is my anchor and I do hope He is yours!

Get yourself some SOUL CLEANSING!

“Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise.”
‭‭Jeremiah‬ 17:14 ESV

Chronic Back Pain

In August of 1992, I was driving to work when the truck in front of me came to a sudden stop. The guy behind me had no idea we were slowing down and hit me at about 45 to 55 miles per hour as I was swerving to avoid him.  My car sped onto the wet grass.  I heard my hatchback glass shatter, tiny pieces flew everywhere.  Still unable to stop, two objects came into view very quickly. One was a swimming pool.  The other was a tree. At that time of year the swimming pool would be full of water.  I had a fear of drowning so I prayed that I would hit the tree and I did.  BOOM!

Then it was silent.  I sat still.  Too stunned to move.  Little chards of glass were everywhere.  I checked my body.  No blood.  My right knee, neck, shoulder and low back hurt.  The windshield wasn't cracked so my head was okay.  I wore my seatbelt and saw a long mark on my neck where it rested.  Then I looked out my window.

Three people got out of their cars to check on me.  One of them was a 911 dispatcher.  I was less than a mile from where I worked.  I wondered if anyone in the traffic knew it was me.

I was taken to the hospital and x-rayed.  I could tell right away that something was wrong with my low back.  Eighteen months later I had my first back surgery.  Six months later I returned to work full time.  Sixteen years later I had my second back surgery.

Chronic back pain has been part of my everyday life since the day of the accident.  I have some level of pain everyday but I'm not on painkillers unless I can barely move.  Even then, I'm under the care of a physian who is very careful with what she prescribes.

In the last five months, I've had two major flare ups.  I'm in one today.  These are times when I'm limited to laying down and not much else.  Sometimes I talk to God, sometimes I reflect, sometimes I read and sometimes I sleep. 

These are the days I pay particularly close attention to what's going on in my inner world.  Nowadays I feel a type of cleansing and renewing of my emotional world.  Writing the book is purging and bringing into perspective chronic pain of another kind that God wants to continue healing.

For that, I am very glad!

Aaron Tribute Video

After Aaron's funeral, we were given a CD that had family photos of him on it. 

Over the years I had collected some of my own.

I decided to make a video in remembrance of him.  Something that would last a lifetime.

But what song would I use?

Many years ago my dad gave my sister's and I a copy of Rod Stewart's song, "Forever Young."  I listened to it.  It was perfect.

Aaron's video: