Today was strange. This morning I received notification that someone at my work place took her own life last Friday. I didn’t know her – she wasn’t on my team. But, I did walk past her desk every day. And, I probably walked past her as I was leaving on Friday, excited about my weekend, oblivious to her misery. But, aren’t we all?
I know how it is to feel that hopeless. Not so long ago, I was sitting on my bathroom floor with a bottle of vodka, cough syrup, and painkillers… while my cat cried outside the door and my dad and sister blew up my phone. I felt like a burden to everyone. Some like to say those who commit suicide are selfish, but I know better.
In my head, I truly believed the world would be better without me. My parents wouldn’t have to support the daughter that couldn’t get her life together, my sister wouldn’t have to listen to me cry on the phone every time my ex drug me into his cave of misery… my friends, my coworkers, my employer, my classmates, and professors? They no longer had to watch me slowly tear myself apart.
I was sick. I needed help, not judgement.
I answered the phone and listened to my dad cry and blame himself. Then I realized that I couldn’t leave – because as much as I thought their lives would be better, the hole I left would never heal. I won’t lie – I still feel it some days. There are afternoons when I sit at my desk in my tiny cubicle and imagine the blood spilling onto the keyboard… or morning’s when I wonder if swerving in front of a semi would be quick and painless.
Those thoughts are fleeting now and are easier to overcome (with the help of past therapy and current medications). But, I still struggle to open up to the people I love. I want desperately to spill my inner-most thoughts, but the devil on my shoulder tells me to stop being so needy, stop being an attention whore… to just.. stop.
What kills me the most is the idea of other people feeling the way I did. We suffer in silence because the stigma is still so prominent. There was nothing I could do, I know that. I know that.
Submissive Stella 