Out of the Darkness

I wrote this Sun­day as a Face­book note. Most of the folks who read this blog know me in real life, too, but the Spousal Unit requested I post it here any­way. Here it is, only slightly edited, mostly to delete names, even though I know it would be rel­a­tively sim­ple to fig­ure out iden­ti­ties if peo­ple really tried.

We’re going to spend today in Tuscaloosa for the Out of the Dark­ness Walk. My brother’s birth­day is today, so I decided to do this one instead of Birm­ing­ham. The Out of the Dark­ness Walk is for those of us whose lives have been affected by sui­cide — those who have died, the sur­vivors, and even those who are plagued by thoughts of sui­cide. Peo­ple walk for many dif­fer­ent reasons.

We’re walk­ing for more than just my brother, of course. C’s aunt inten­tion­ally over­dosed last year. We’ve lost far too many fam­ily mem­bers to sui­cide. It’s hor­ri­ble and uncom­fort­able, but I have to talk about it every once in a while. It’s impor­tant. Close friends have had their fam­i­lies ripped apart by this ill­ness. In part, it’s because sui­cide looks inten­tional. We’re pro­grammed for sur­vival, so the mind that can not only con­ceive of self-destruction, but actu­ally act upon it, is a dis­eased mind.

My per­spec­tive on life has vio­lently shifted since 2009. I am much more seri­ous. I no longer can laugh when peo­ple say they’re so frus­trated they want to kill them­selves. I notice with true hor­ror Hal­loween dec­o­ra­tions of peo­ple hang­ing from nooses. For about a year, I had actual PTSD symp­toms. There were times I couldn’t drive because of men­tal images. I still don’t like to dream. In the months fol­low­ing my brother’s death, C prob­a­bly lost his job due to the after­math of deal­ing with the loss and a wife who was absolutely shat­tered by grief.

My brother would have been 31 today. We should have talked on the phone about 4 times in the last month. He should be laugh­ing at all of the Auburn fans and cheer­ing for Bama. But he’s not, and I get sick watch­ing football.

I’ve lost more than a brother. My rela­tion­ship with my fam­ily has been wrecked. With my brother’s ghost haunt­ing every func­tion, I feel a weight on my chest every time I face any­one who knew him. He haunts us. I try to think of the right thing to say and sim­ply find myself count­ing the sec­onds til it is over. Church is also very hard, and as a result we’re cur­rently unchurched. We’re much more aware of the impor­tance of love and grace, and hyper­aware of how absent it is.

But all is not lost. I have learned so much. I have learned who my true friends are, and how to be a true friend. I have learned com­pas­sion and begun on a jour­ney that might actu­ally save my chil­dren from this anom­aly. It’s strong on both sides of our fam­ily, and that’s scary. It is espe­cially scary, since no one will talk about it. That silence per­pet­u­ates the cycle, because peo­ple do not know how to reach out when they feel this way. Even if they do, we don’t know how to pre­vent, cope, or deal with sui­ci­dal ideation.

Com­ing out of my own per­sonal dark­ness has been a hard strug­gle. Because of him, and los­ing him, I love harder than I ever did before.I am more mind­ful. I notice the beauty and pre­cious­ness of all life. I have real­ized that life is too short to waste on things I despise, and when it became clear that my “career” at a dead end job was a waste of time, I was able to walk away eas­ily with­out look­ing backward.

A few thoughts to leave you with:

• Think before you joke about killing yourself.
• Remem­ber me, and other sur­vivors. Treat us kindly. We don’t get to grieve the way other peo­ple do, because sui­cide is stig­ma­tized in our cul­ture. If we are excited to actu­ally talk about things, under­stand it is because we often feel we can’t.
• If you’re about to start anti­de­pres­sants, please get some­one to watch over you and check in often. Don’t go it alone. Read those warn­ings and be truly advised. Sui­cide being a side effect is not theoretical.
• Don’t be afraid to talk about sui­cide. It’s no more shame­ful than los­ing some­one to heart dis­ease. Lives can be saved when we don’t stig­ma­tize men­tal illness.
• Most per­son­ally, remem­ber my brother today, if you knew him. If you want to write a note here in remem­brance, that would rock my world.

The out­pour­ing of love and sup­port I’ve got­ten this week has been incred­i­ble, and buoyed me up when I felt I was founder­ing. I’m very grateful.