WARNING: This letter contains details about suicide that may be distressing or triggering to some readers.
This past July, I felt alone. I had a big break-up with my partner. My kids wouldn’t talk to me. I needed a new place to live where the rental rate is very low, and the costs were more than I could afford. I was in a dead-end job that paid little, but demanded a lot. I struggled to make the job fun as there was no inkling that there should be fun at a workplace.
I had no one to talk to. My go-to person was telling me how bad my life was and how I was in a downward spiral.
I decided to ‘exit’ this life. I had an exit pack of pharmaceuticals awaiting me. After a few glasses of wine, I wrote my goodbyes, organized my things, made a bed on the floor and took my meds.
When I woke up in the morning, I was most disheartened. I was alive. My ‘exit kit’ was over eight years old, and had been frozen and thawed over the years, so it was virtually useless.
I felt unlucky…couldn’t even get away right.
I took my empty wine bottle and wine glass to the kitchen to clean. I didn’t know what to do…I was still here.
While washing the wine glass, I focused too hard and it broke. A piece went into my skin.
I felt nothing. My body was numb. I then took the glass shard and started to cut to see if I could cut an artery or vein…I know where they are…they were pulsating. There was no pain, more so curiosity. Could I cut myself and start to bleed and then sit on the deck and bleed out?
I used the glass shard, but it stopped cutting.
I took a kitchen knife and tried to help the cut further…but the knife was dull and the pulsing point was deeper down than I expected with a lot of tendons in the wrist in the way.
Disheartened, I gave up…couldn’t do that right either.
I’m a failure at living, and a failure at not living…was what I thought.
I cleaned up and went to hospital for stitches in the wrist. It was a busy ER that day and no one really noticed the point of insertion of the glass, and they accepted my story. I was stitched up, given a Band-Aid and sent on my way. No one really asked me how I was.
I am over 60 years old. I am having a hard time finding a job to pay my rent, bills, food and save a little. There is ageism in this town and I am told that I am over-qualified, or too old to work with young people.
I have struggled with my life since. I have skipped pharmaceutical medication for the fact that I can’t afford it, and don’t want the listed side effects that the Internet tells me.
I don’t want people to know that I have a ‘Mental Health Problem.’ I will be less employable, talked about… behind my back, and labelled as ‘someone who just needs to man up and get over it.’
There are natural medications to help, and therapy with it that makes my days continue into weeks. I am trying to be better, but still there are some days when I start to formulate a plan.
At work, I get quiet…no one has asked me if I’m okay. They seem to be more focused on bodies to do the work, than making sure the workers can do the work.
I’ve tried talking about my mental health with family and friends without coming out directly and saying that I have a problem.
I have said I might have a chemical imbalance and I need a little microdosing to help me. I have been told that people just need to ‘get happy and get over it’.
My story isn’t uncommon. I am well educated, had some early childhood trauma that I can’t totally let go of.
We, the hidden people of depression, are struggling.
Don’t leave mental health to be a one day a year topic. It should be a daily check in to see how everyone is doing, and without leaving the conversation with a stigma, or label of being ‘a person who just needs to get over it.’
I have good days, and I have not good days.
I’d love a hug, and for someone to ask me how I’m doing…on my bad days.
We need to start taking this more seriously.
One day a year to recognize struggles of mental health is a start. It needs to be more.
There are a lot of people who are struggling in life. There are many homeless and low-income people that are making a go of it very well.
I am educated, trained in my professions, yet have something missing …that makes me not want to be here.
It begins with talk. Reducing the stigmatism of a ‘Mental Health’ problem… and just checking in…before we ‘check out.’
Let’s start the talk.
I am talking to a therapist now…I have help…but still wish someone else would ask me, ‘How are you?’
If you or someone you know is struggling with the thought of suicide, call the Interior Crisis Line Network at 1-888-353-CARE (2273) or use the chat service from 5 p.m. – 9 p.m., Thursday through Sunday, accessible through interiorcrisisline.com
Editor’s note: The identity of this letter’s author is withheld as the letter contains highly personal subject matter.