Chelsz

Today is National Suicide Awareness Day, a topic that I often find difficult to talk about, but it’s one that matters deeply to me. Before reading, please be aware that this piece discusses self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and mental health struggles. Suicide is a leading cause of death, with over 800,000 people worldwide losing their lives each year—one person every 40 seconds. These numbers are more than statistics; they are real people with stories like mine and yours. If you or someone you know is struggling, please don’t hesitate to reach out for help. Resources are available, and I’m here, too, if you need someone to listen. Your story matters, and you are not alone.

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I am alive. 

That was my first thought when I woke up with a police officer next to me on suicide watch on November 7th, 2011. 

I didn’t want to be. I couldn’t remember the last time I wanted to be. Perhaps when I was 6. Watching Thursday night adult cartoons with my mom and dad. 

Every Thursday. The Simpsons. Futurama. King of the Hill. 

I don’t remember wishing I wasn’t alive then.

My mom and dad cuddled on the couch. They were in love. They loved me. Laughing, joking, hugs and kisses from both mom and dad. I wish I had held on tighter to those hugs, I wish I had realized they would end. 

I had yet to witness the horrors of smashed furniture. Screaming. Hiding my siblings from what was happening. Cleaning up the mess left after my father would threaten to leave and walk outdoors resulting in my mother chasing after him. 

“Stay up stairs, it’s okay, don’t worry” I would tell my two younger siblings.

I would slowly creep down the stairs, peaking out the bars that I once would sit at to watch tv after my parents told me to go to bed. It was often American Idol. They did, however let me stay up and watch the finale with them, when Kelly Clarkson won.

When I was certain they had moved their battle outdoors, I would rush to remove the evidence. My small 8 year old hands picking up each piece of shattered glass. 

If I get this all cleaned up, mom will have one less thing to be upset about. Ah, if only I knew how many years I’d spend thinking that exact thought. 

He eventually did leave though, taking only with him his PlayStation 2… well I suppose he also took pieces me.

So many pieces, taken by so many, so young. No wonder I spent two decades convinced I was empty. 

Life was up and down after that, but even when smiling, even during moments of joy, I myself, internally, was never anything but down. 

I remember the first time I realized I had the power though, the power to decide – do I have to be alive?

I was 12 years old. My stepfather was missing. My mom had taken off to the site of where his boat had washed ashore. I was alone waiting for my granny to bring my siblings home from school. My grandpa called. 

“When your grandmother gets there, I need to talk to her”

I had never in my years on earth seen them look at each other, let alone talk. They had been divorced many years. At family events they both attended, my grandpa would joke that she probably did the math to poison the exact piece of cake he would receive. She was the cake baker and I’d dare even say, cake artist, for basically everyone in town. 

I knew something was wrong. 

Granny went from being angry when she arrived from having to bring my siblings home, to talking to my grandfather and turning a sad and dark shade of grey, a color I only ever saw on her olive skin one other time, the night my papa, the love of her life, passed on. 

“Pack your bags, you’re coming to stay the night with me”

I was confused, but I obliged. I can’t remember the time waiting for my mother to come home to granny’s that night. I don’t remember what I was feeling or even doing. I do though remember, falling asleep on the couch, then waking up late at night to the sound of my mother sobbing in the kitchen. 

This isn’t good. I went back to bed. 

In the morning granny let the bus driver on the route with her home know to pick me up for school. I walked to the end of her drive like I had many times, but this time, my mother followed me. She had never done that before. She often was still in bed when I would be waiting for the bus. 

“Rods boat washed ashore, they can’t find his body, we don’t know if he’s alive”

On the bus I went. 

I broke down when I arrived at school. I opened my locker and it was as if I was opening the flood gates of my soul. 

I fell. 

On the ground. 

Sobbing. 

Jon wrapped his arms around me. He told me it would be okay. I didn’t believe him, I never believed him, I wish I had. He helped me make my way to the guidance office like he had so many times before and would so many times more. 

I don’t remember the rest of the school day. My memory picks up again after getting off the bus at granny’s that afternoon. No one was home. Granny still on her own bus route, papa soon to be home from work, my mom somewhere lost in my memory, my siblings still at school themselves. 

I grabbed a knife from granny’s kitchen. 

I locked myself in the bathroom. 

I am alive. 

But I don’t want to be, I thought. 

I will spare you the details, but that was the day hoodies became a permanent part of my wardrobe, even on warm days. 

It became a normal occurrence. Sometimes daily, sometimes months in between, but always there as a silent comfort. I could not control my emotional pain, but my physical pain, that was mine, at least for the time being, but that’s another story. I shamed myself for never being strong enough or having the courage to take it all the way. 

I am so grateful for what I had perceived as weakness at the time. 

I remember when it got really bad when I was 15 – 9th grade. Does Mrs. Pahl know she saved my life with a hug?

I was tired. I won’t bother to explain, if you know me, you understand why, but I am not looking for this writing piece to trigger further gaslighting from those in my life.  

I had a routine by then. Siblings in bed. Mom home from second shift knowing she wont get up to check on me. Razors hid under my mattress. 

This time though, I couldn’t stop. I’m not sure if I slept. It had never been this bad, but morning came and it was time for school.

I am alive, I thought once more, and I dont want to be.

I had an exam in algebra first period, so on my hoodie went. 

I hadn’t yet learned that when it got that bad, I needed bandages, that my hoodie would not suffice. 

I passed out taking my exam. I bled through my hoodie. 

But then I was awake. Still alive as always. Mrs. Pahls voice in a panic. Everyone staring. I didn’t know what she was saying, but she grabbed me, she hugged me, she really hugged me. I still carry that hug with me. 

The school sent me off to a mental health facility in Oswego to be evaluated. 

I was asked why I did it by a man I had never met before with my mother sitting right next to me. I had no answer. How could I answer honestly? 

I don’t want to be alive, I thought once again, 

But fear held it in along with all my reasons why. 

It never got better after that, at least for many years. I just learned more and more how to hide it. 

I started finding other ways to cope on top of it. 

Drugs. 

Alcohol. 

Sex. 

Grown men. 

Driving recklessly. 

Pain onto others. 

The list goes on. I couldn’t cope. 

I shoved it all down. I accepted my pain with pride. This is who I am. This is who I will always be. I am sad. I am depressed. I am angry. I am careless. I am mean. I am selfish. I am stupid. I am just a body. 

I held it in. Until I didn’t. Until where this story began. Until the time I finally had the courage to take it all the way. Until, I thought, 

I don’t want to be alive, 

And this time, 

I was determined to make it happen. 

But just like all the times before, I was saved by someone I did not ask to save me. A co-worker, worried I had been gone for lunch too long. I was found. In my car. I never did get the stains out of it.

Being wheeled into the back of the ambulance I remember telling the paramedics,

“I’m okay, you don’t need to bring me to the hospital”

And then I woke up. 

November 7th, 2011.

The police officer standing guard over my life.

And then I woke up again. 

And I woke up again. 

And I woke up again. 

Never wanting to, but I had lost all ambition, even the ambition to end my life. 

I dropped out of college. I was a failure. 

The same college I now teach at. 

I lost my promising full time job. I wasn’t going to be successful. 

A career that wasn’t meant for me anyways. 

I kept drinking. I kept doing drugs. Anything to numb the pain. 

But then,

My child was born. 

I remember literally bending over as per the doctors instructions and pulling them out of me myself – right onto my chest. 

I didn’t know what to say.

“Hi” I said, as I thought “how could he have left me? How could they have hurt me?”

Yes, my first thought after seeing my newborn baby was “how could my dad have left me”. 

I still didn’t want to be alive, but something had shifted. 

I had to be alive. 

Every moment after that moment, I wanted to be better. 

I wanted to be better because my child deserved it. 

Then I realized I wanted to be better because my friends deserved it. 

Then better because my family deserved it. 

My community deserved it. 

Every person I met deserved it. 

Every person I would never meet deserved it. 

The world deserved it. 

I found anthropology. 

I saw the beauty in the world. I saw the pain. 

I saw people living.. and I saw people dying. 

I realized,

I want them to be alive, to not hurt, to thrive. 

I still made mistakes. I still hurt others. I still made the wrong decisions. And I sure still didn’t love myself, but anthropology put me on a path. 

The physical harm to myself though continued. It was far and few between, but it crept in and I no longer could confide in any one. 

I’m a mother, I would think, no one can know this, it’s evidence that I am not a good mom. I suffered alone. 

I wonder though, that when I started to realize life mattered for all who lived, that those who suffered didn’t deserve to suffer and those who died from greed, war, selfishness and corruption didn’t deserve to have their lives ended in such a cruel way, why did I not realize I was also a human on this earth? A human that deserved to not only be alive, but to want to be alive. 

And I didn’t realize that for a long time, not until I was 31 years old. 31 years old exactly if I’m trying to be accurate. 

Despite my efforts towards helping others, my mental health was negatively impacting those I loved. 

I hadn’t even begun to heal all that had harmed me. I spent so much time healing others, but never myself.

I didn’t know what to do. 

At the beginning of this year, I refused to harm myself in the ways I had my whole life, but the restless energy caused my life chaos. 

Panic attacks. 

Screaming in my car. 

Crying. 

So much crying. 

Lashing out. 

Ripping out the entirety of my eyebrows. 

Physically paralyzed from emotional pain. 

Sleeping most the day or not at all. 

So. 

Much. 

Weed. 

Never eating. 

Never drinking water. 

But then something clicked, something finally changed, something awoke within side of me. 

People joke about my ability to change things about myself over night and from the outsiders perspective it probably would appear that I did it once again, but we can’t get into each others minds, so perhaps they will never realize the lifetime of hopes and dreams that went into that overnight change. 

I deserve all the things I hope for others to have I finally realized.. finally accepted. 

I deserve to be loved. 

I deserved to be treated with kindness.

I deserve to love myself. 

I deserve to treat myself with kindness.

I started eating. I had energy? It’s so obvious that you need to eat in order to have energy but it’s almost like I had forgot. 

I was waking up in the mornings? Early? AND I would get right out of bed?

I was being active. You’re actually tired at night when you use your body? It feels good to be strong?

I did my hobbies more regularly. Wow, these relax me? I’m more grounded when I make time for things I personally enjoy?

I started saying no. I started saying yes. I feel more at peace when I set boundaries and expectations? 

I started living. 

I did yoga, I hung out with friends, I dived deep into my studies and with joy. I drove, scream singing Qveen Herby in the car with my kid, windows down, sunroof open. I started writing again, I started reading again. I went outside. I became mindful. I noticed things I had never in my entire life. I found local businesses I had drove by for years. I reconnected with friends I hadn’t talked to since I was a child. I watched birds fly and checked on plants in my neighborhood as they changed through the season.

“Am I changing too?” I thought 

I did things alone without loneliness. I went on road trips. I brought myself out to eat. I sat by a creek in silence for hours. I could never count the hours I spent staring at the stars. I went to France. I went to Toronto. I spent a month off grid in the mountains of North Carolina. 

And that’s where I remember thinking for the first time in my life..

As I stood on top of Mt. Mitchell, the highest mountain east of the Mississippi, marveling over the 360 view of all that surrounded it. The sun setting, a mist rolling in, my child texting me about how much they love me and are proud of me, a toddler giggling as they ran from their father..

For the first time in my memory, I thought,

I am alive. 

No police officer standing by me to make sure it stayed that way. 

I am alive. 

And I can’t wait to,

keep living.