[Content Warning: this post shares an intimate view of the author’s experience of suicide. It could be interpreted as glamorization. The post is intended to highlight the complex nature of suicidality and encourage open conversation to increase help-seeking. The author illustrates how self-exploration and acceptance were key to finding a will to live.

Please read with caution. If you or someone you know is struggling, you can get 24/7 help from a trained crisis counselor by calling 988.]

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I’ve had a relationship with death for as long as I can remember. 

Many won’t understand this. Some will want to simply medicate my truth away. Medication never changed my relationship; it simply erected a wall between my feelings and my reality. Few will know exactly what I mean deep to their core, and I envy them—those who have never known death intimately, those who have forgotten all our fates. And even less will care. They need no explanation.

I’ve had a relationship with death for as long as I can remember.

I think it started at either 7 or 8 with Scary Stories You Tell in the Dark. I was entranced by the intricate nature of a cruel and delightful death winning before we had realized. The stories wound me through them, about them, and under them. I was lost to them and how my mind was so easily tricked. I felt something visceral. I felt something intriguing. I was far too young to understand the permanence of death, but something there seemed safe when I was anything but. 

I was probably 8 when I wrote my first version. It involved a man sitting in a lighthouse, thinking of jumping to his doom. He did jump, but he immediately regretted it. Tell me why. I crafted such a simple example and hoped others could understand.

Looking back as an adult, it saddens me. I still wonder how I was so morbidly entranced by death, and no one knew. I wrote it for my fourth-grade class and turned it in. Someone had to have known. I smiled in school. Mainly to cover the abuse, but I smiled quietly. Always quietly. I deeply feared what would happen if anyone found out or saw me. Staying hidden was my only sanctuary.

When I say I’ve been writing my entire life, I truly have at the earliest age. Terrible dark things since before I could grasp the meanings of the words I used. Sometimes, there would be hope, but I didn’t understand hope back then. It was foreign. It was a language I had never been exposed to.

Then, loss kissed my life. It was unconsenting, unrelenting, unbelievable. For a long while, I thought I invited death. I thought my curious desire to taste a dark freedom had beckoned it. It was my fault.

At only 10, I blamed myself for the pain I saw everyone else try to stifle. It had been the books I read. The poems I wrote. The pleas I wept into my pillow while I hid under the bed in fear at night. Please, death, save me. I’ll be good if you do. I invited death into our lives because I had so longed to know it. I didn’t mean it to take anyone else, especially not this person I had loved immensely.

I’ve known death for longer than I’ve felt alive. 

It was a cold comfort when the heat of hate ate away at my safety. Death was there for me. Death never left me. Death never lied to me. Death was my friend. My only real friend. 

(I may have lost some of you with my truth. Maybe you’re still reading. If you are, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you understand my words. I’m sorry, but they are keeping your attention. I’m sorry, but you may understand.)

Death, my friend. Always with me. This low hum in my heart. Hummmmm, “it’s okay the ones who should love you don’t. I’m here.” 

Hummmmmm. “When others see you for only your face, I know exactly who you are. I’ll always welcome you.” 

Hummmmmmm. “With me, you can be in control. You can silence the world.”

I never feared death until I met my children. Before them, I had a confidant. I had a constant knowing. I had this place where pain simply was. Death didn’t judge me. Death didn’t abuse me. Death always waited for me. Death let me lead. 

Then, my children entered my world, and everything began to change. I was forced to care about life. Their lives, my life. I was forced to take care of myself. I knew what losing me would mean for them, and I knew I could never be the one to cause that pain for them. I found a new side of me. I found a gentle side that ensured I ate, slept, and paused to appreciate. I found this new way of walking through the world. One where there were opportunities and chances. One where my luck wasn’t only bad.

Then, I fumbled my way into the work of suicide prevention. My unfailing response to speak out about suicide, to help others understand, or to even tell them there was more than what they assumed about suicide became an entirely new path for me. I met people like me. I met people unlike me. I learned stories, and eventually, I began to lead meaningful and effective work. Every decision to be open and public in my work led me to a new connection, a new perspective on how I was received, and a new way of living. My opportunities flourished.

The work I do is more complex than most will try to understand. It is for me, it is for those I’ve lost, it is for my children. This work is meaningful and completely made of purpose. This work is also beyond me. It is not limited to my perspective or understanding. I do this work so that no other will experience the same fear, loss, or confusion that I felt. I do this work because there is a community of people who may have a relationship with suicide that leads them to believe they do not deserve life.

Still, even tonight, as I sit here in bed, I do not fear death. I understand it in ways others will never comprehend. My house is one where death is discussed. We talk about it all the time. I tell my children that one day, I will be gone. It isn’t a question. I try to build them to understand that nothing is promised except for that. We are only this moment. It is all we can be guaranteed when life is concerned.

I think about it daily. I think about when I’m gone. I wonder about the world sans Susie. I imagine my funeral, and I wonder which option the world will choose for me (I have two).

Will my life have been anything? 

Will the work I did matter? 

I’ll never know. 

I’ll never know. 

Death is no longer a salve. It isn’t security or comfort these days. Our relationship is more distant now than ever before. As I have accepted myself, found opportunities, and stepped into who I could be, I have stepped away from death. Over time and through my work, I’ve found new relationships and companions. I’ve built boundaries that take care of me. I have compassionate and caring practices. But most of all, I show up fully as who I am because I refuse to let others or the world limit my life ever again.

I’ve found a peace in life that I never imagined. Truly, I never would have believed. I did not think anything of myself and never believed I would have a future of meaning. I truly believed that my life would be cut short by my own hand and that the world would think nothing of me. That those left behind would have been better off without me. I thought that I would be doing everyone a favor because I had been shown that I did not deserve love. I expected I wouldn’t live this long. I definitely never would have thought I could know contentment. I felt my life was doomed to death. The two of us were enmeshed because I had brought it on myself at such an early age.

These days, I find myself thankful. I find myself passionate, outspoken, fiery, and furious. When death and I were at our closest, I was quiet and timid. I was a background person. I feared being foolish. I feared being shamed. I feared the gossip that I will never be able to escape. I let everyone around me speak over me. I let myself be minimized. I let the world tell me that I was nothing to no one. I let the ones who should have done better do worse, and I never dared to say a word.

Many people today think I have always been outspoken, direct, or even intimidating. They don’t know how small I was. They don’t understand how much growth and unlearning I have had to do to get to a place to say that people should be kind. People should want others, no matter their background, to experience life. People assume I have always been strong or assertive. Maybe I was born that way, but I wasn’t raised to be this way. Life didn’t want that from me. I have fought everything I was ever taught to advocate for what could be. When I speak to help others, it is because no one ever spoke to help me. No one stood up for me when I was at my weakest, even when they saw, even when they told me quietly on the side that it wasn’t right.

They were frightened to go against the grain, and because of that fear, I nearly died. I will not be that person for anyone else. I will not tell someone how awful it is they are being treated and then let it happen. Not if I can help it.

My relationship with death was strong because, in life, I had been weak. I did not understand what stepping into life meant. I did not know that I could be more in spite of the fear others had about me. I clung to death because I had not been able to live.

Suicide is more than a simple solution to any amount of problems. It is permanent but more than the memes we see or the quotes people repurpose. Suicide is individual. It is ever-changing, and it remains an enigma even to the experts. Medication is one answer for some sometimes. But until we explore the relationship we have with suicide, can we be successful? I believe our relationships are driving us to death and that we have not explored this aspect in significant ways. I believe all the research, interventions, and efforts have a small view of suicide and that we need to expand how we look at and approach it.

We have such complicated ways of relating to suicide. Many are fearful of the pain they feel, and maybe that fear builds into something unmanageable. My relationship with death is a constant. I will always have passive thoughts of suicide, I will always know I can die, and I will think about death every day of my life. This does not mean I am suicidal. This does not mean I cannot enjoy life. This does not mean I am broken. 

This is me. Light and dark. pain and PURPOSE. 

What’s different today is that I have accepted all of me, even the part that doesn’t want to exist. I know how complex I am, and I no longer fear any of me or my pain. I don’t feed my thoughts of death or let them grow like I once did. I don’t dwell on them. I don’t give them power. I quickly wave goodbye as they pass through my mind’s eye. 

I simply say, “See you later,” because I know they will be back.

Maybe the truth about suicide is that too many of us fear death to truly understand its hold. Maybe those of us who have lived side by side with it should step into the light of this work and lead more than we have been allowed. Maybe those who don’t understand should sit down and listen when we speak. Maybe the ones who won’t listen should be gently asked to leave. Maybe those who are harmful should find work in other spaces.

No single answer will do anymore. No one approach to suicide can help us be effective. No one relationship to suicide is comprehensive. And no one story will ever speak to the hundreds of thousands who are suffering silently within themselves. We need everyone. We need every experience. We need every perspective and every bit of honesty about who the experts are and why.

My experience may be unique, but the more we are open, the better our chances are. The more we show up, the more we can shed light. The more we share, the more of us feel less alone. The more we lead, the better this work can be. 

I don’t want to lose anyone to suicide, especially myself. 

You are not alone. I am here, death by my side, filled with hope.