…let me have it!!

I’ve been blogging for about nine months now, and I’m asking for some feedback. Many of you have cemented or sent messages, which I’m so grateful to receive. But now I’m ASKING you for some feedback. I know I’ve read some blogs that have been incredibly helpful for me in “figuring myself out”. I hope that I can help others in the same way. So please, let me know what you think!! Send me a message letting me know IF you find things helpful, or beneficial. Let me know where I can make improvements…I’m not a great writer, so feedback on that side would be awesome. I’m really hoping to expand and reach a broader group of readers, but don’t want to do so until I’m confident what I’m doing is worth while. Thanks in advance… And thanks for reading and all the support!!Grateful,

Dave

…my suicide.

I have made a point of trying to keep my blog “my story” rather than a general opinion. Some of my thoughts definitely are not ‘across the board’ feelings, but they are all where I’m at. I want to keep this my focus. Keeping my blog about me. Where I’m at. My progress. My decline. Its personal. It’s authentic. It’s not comfortable. And it’s not easy for me to do…but I feel it’s important. I feel it’s helpful and beneficial to me, and I hope it can influence and help others as well.

There’s a few things I’ve discovered since starting this whole blogging thing. First…it’s much harder than I expected. I mean, when I started it was easy to pump out entries day after day. Now I’m lucky to post once a week (which I am hoping to change, by the way). Second…if you want to weed out your friends and followers on social media, talk about suicide. People don’t like that. It’s not comfortable…it’s not “appropriate”…people simply would rather just not know. My thought is those people I simply don’t need in my life anyway. Thirdly…if you want to gain a lot of followers, simply hashtag #churchstigma #churchcoverup or #churchhypocrisy. People lap that up like gravy. But I’m going to weed out a few more of you today, because my topic of choice is, you ready? …my suicide. And to some of you, this is farewell.

The comment I hear all the time, and I’ve said this before, is “I just don’t understand…” Which my answer to that is, “of course you don’t understand… I don’t understand.” You hear “suicide is selfish”, “suicide is cowardly”, “suicide is attention seeking”. All of those have some truth behind them…the attention seeking I would argue against more strongly. Suicidal threats, yes, are often times empty and attention seeking. However, every suicidal threat or consideration EVER uttered is a cry for help. And as a little FYI strictly from my own experience…nothing tips you more when you’re in a suicidal state than hearing someone make light of your situation. You might not agree with where someone’s at. You might not even believe they are where they’re at. Maybe they are ‘attention seeking’. But if that’s what you think, especially if you’re not close to me, shut up and keep your expert opinions to yourself. 

I’ve been suicidal my entire adult life. That doesn’t mean I’m a ticking timebomb ready to blow. I’ve had times, for sure. Many of them. But far more often than not I’m completely stable. But, I have always believed that’s how I’m going to die. I don’t know when. I don’t know how. And maybe it won’t even happen…but it’s what I believe. And I very strongly believe it. I have a daughter. She’s nine years old. One day she’s going to grow up, get married, and have her own family. It’s what I believe. It might not happen. Maybe she’ll stay single…never marry, never have kids. But I believe she will. To me, in all likelihood she will. I can do things to try and prevent it. I can do things to try to delay it. But it’s likely going to happen no matter what. Sometime. Somehow.

This is exactly how I look at suicide. I just believe it’s going to happen. Sometime. Somehow. I can do things to prevent it, which I am. I can do things to delay it, which I am. But I believe it’s going to happen. And it’s a horrible feeling.

Nobody looks forward to dying…at least not at thirty-four. It’s not something I want to happen. It’s not something I’m excited about. Death is pretty permanent. But when you believe you’re going to die. When you believe you deserve to die. And you believe the world will be happier and better off without you here, then the idea of death becomes far more attractive. And how do you prevent it? I’ve done my firearm safety course, but refuse to send it in because the idea of firearms in my house scares the shit out of me. My wife has stashed away roped from my garage, but new ones are only $20 away. I’ve got enough meds ground into powder and ready to be cubed to easily kill me…I think. There will always be knives. There will always be bridges. There will always be cars. There will always be multiple options. Suicide is unavoidable. It is physically unpreventable. Mentally it feels damn near impossible. 

There’s so much more to share than this. This barely scratches the surface. But my lunch break is over, so for now this will have to do. If I still have followers, friends, and readers I’ll continue with my thoughts in another post. As always, feel free to comment or share. I love hearing feedback.

Dave

…happines

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again… I’m not a great writer. My grammar sucks. Composition a mere shot in the dark. My spelling is atrocious, thank you spellcheck!! Actually, my spelling is so bad that I’ve omitted so many cool, words because spellcheck can’t even figure out what I’m trying to say. So no, I’m not a great writer. But I love writing!! Sometimes I write to vent. Sometimes I write to encourage. Sometimes I write to shine light on living with mental health. But I write. And you read. So many of you read. Now over 7,500 of you have read, which to me is insane…go get girlfriends, or hobbies, or ice cream. (kidding…I’m so glad you read) I’ve been published more than a half dozen times in online mental health magazines. I really am blessed!!

Now here I’m going to attempt something a little bit different. I’m going to try my hand at some poetry. I love reading poetry…I’ve tried writing it before, never with much success. The last month has been extremely tough for me. In so many ways I’m completely lost to what’s going on. Happiness has been drained for years, but lately it feels so much like just a fleeting memory. So here goes…happiness.

…happiness

people talk about you …happiness

like you’re free for all to receive;

But with a life so overgrown with anguish,

I find that incredibly hard to believe.

.

people talk about you …happiness

this warm-fuzzy, contagious thing;

while i spend most my life in sadness,

anger, torment, lonely suffering.

.

when I see you …happiness, you ignore me

if i look at you you drift away;

then there’s times you feel so close to touch,

but then my fears comes to sweep you away.

.

I see you touching others lives …happiness

with love, with warmth, with grace;

Like an artist you once knew me too,

and brushed a smile on my face.

.

i’ve mad it a life goal of mine …happiness 

to be brim-filled with you one day;

whether it be weeks, four months, three winters,

maybe after the kids graduate.

.

the point is i won’t give up fighting for you …happiness,

however long this great journey may be;

through rivers, and mud, and scary dark roads

i’d risk crossing the vast, angry sea.

.

people talk about you …happiness

and there’s definite glimpses i see;

moments of you holding and warming my heart,

leaving memories that will always remind me

.

but i don’t want to have just memories anymore,

i want to have you all day and all night;

i want to hold you, to protect you, to keep you for good

but for now i’ll cherish these moments and fight.

Be happy! Be blessed!! Hug a Borderline…

Dave

…battle wounds

“I think scars are like battle wounds – beautiful in a way. They show what you’ve been through & how strong you are for coming out of it.”

– Demi Lovato

I Instagram’d this quote earlier today. It’s a quote that i read quite regularly…I’ve got it saved on my phone, it’s shared often on Mental Health sites, and you google “mental health quotes” and it’s sure to pop up. But as much as I love the quote…I love the triumphant overtone amidst the soft and subtle almost romantic undertone. It’s a beautiful quote by an equally beautiful advocate for mental health. But where I get hung up…I’m not there. I’ve got scars… I’ve got hundreds of them. And they are most definitely battle wounds. But there’s nothing beautiful about them. I haven’t been ‘through’ anything. I am stuck in the midst of a battle that has no beginning and no foreseeable end. There’s no ‘through’ on the horizon, no matter how distant I strain to see. The idea of strength and perseverance is what I have, and the hope of coming out is what I cling to. Persistence. Perseverance. Hope.

I have a love/hate relationship with my scars. I don’t hide them. I want to hide them. I want more than anything to just cover them up and pretend they’re not there. But I’ve made a point to not hide them. You see, I did an amazing job of keeping things together. I’ve really struggled with depression/anxiety for as long as I can remember. It got really bad when I went away to boarding school for grade twelve. But I was always able to keep things under wraps. I made it through all my years of high school, two years of college, and ten plus years beyond that keeping everything bottled in. I found my ways to cope. To blow off energy. But mostly I hid. Sleeping in as long as possible became routine. I stayed up late at night because thats when I could most easily be alone. I had friends, but no close friends. I never allowed anyone to get close…that might result in me having to open up. I learned early how to appear social. Extremely social even. If you look at your story as a book, I had a theory. Say your book is twelve chapters long. I very easily opened myself up to say chapter five without any prompting. This usually was more than enough to satisfy any questions people had. I opened up quicker and easier than most, to that point, then the book closed. I let very few people read beyond chapter five. Like count on your fingers few. You got it…it’s depressing, but I’ve had single digit close friends. Everyone else I kept at a safe distance. I do it to this day. It’s something I’m working on, but I have ridiculous trust issues that I’m just unwilling to get past. Hopefully in time…you know, when I “see how strong I am for coming out”.

But I consciously decided that I wasn’t going to hide my scars. As much as I was able to bottle things up and cope, the thought of suicide has always been there. It actually goes beyond that…I’ve dreamed of suicide many times. It scares the shit out of my wife every time I say this, but I am 99% confident that that is how I’m going to die. I don’t know why…it’s not that I’m wanting to go off myself tomorrow or anything. This isn’t my “note” or farewell or anything like that. It’s just that’s where my belief has always been. It’s a seed planted deep, I guess. Last spring was when the thoughts started becoming more and more prominent. My dreams were getting darker, and it was getting harder and harder to manage and block out the chaos in my mind. I made many late night drives out to the bridge. Some with intention, others just to scream. (screaming does help, by the way). I ended up spending some time in the mental health centre after I had gone a little excessive with the self harm. It was coming out of the hospital that I decided that I wasn’t going to hide my scars. My kids were aware of them, and I didn’t want them to feel they needed to hide or lie to people about their dad because I was trying to keep private. The scars aren’t going anywhere. It’s live with them, or spend my life continuing to hide.

So I bare my arms. I don’t do it proudly…quite the opposite. I am very much embarrassed and ashamed of my arms. I hate the fact that my daughter is already having to explain to her friends that her dad cuts himself when he’s “sad”. I’m terrified that she’s going to see this as an acceptable way to deal with pain. But at the same time, what do I do. I feel like people are staring at me all the time. I go crazy trying to figure out what they are thinking. Just today I got asked to look at my tattoos. I turned around to show, and her eyes locked on what are five not yet healed cuts. She didn’t know what to say…I didn’t know what to say. SCARS SUCK!! I hate them so bad.

BUT…ready for this? I love my scars!! Confusion…but you just went on for 915 words (according to my word counter in the corner of my screen) about how much you hated your scars… Yes. Yes I did. But many of those cuts came when I wanted nothing more than to end my life. I fought and wrestled with my demons to not take that drive. To put away that rope. To lower the blade from my throat, and to turn over that wrist. Cutting has literally saved my life on multiple occasions. That’s not to say I don’t need to find better ways to cope… I most definitely do. But when I look at my arms I can remember the moments that drove me to cut. I remember the battles being waged in my mind. And I remember how that cut made all those thoughts go away.

I hope that one day I can look at my scars romantically beautifully. A testimony of what I’ve been through and come out of. But for now they are just battle wounds. Affirmation of the mental hell I’m trapped in. A reminder of my minds desires which my heart and my will have to this point prevailed. Yes, my scars are battle wounds…but they are a far cry from beautiful.