Suicide is a selfish act and new year's resolutions work.
Or the lies we've been taught.
New year’s resolutions do not work because change is not about willpower and because there’s a huge difference between wishful thinking and soulful intentions. So I never make New Year’s resolutions, but I do make end of the year’s conclusions and I dig in every corner of my soul and psyche to make the right New year’s promises to my heart.
And this year my main conclusion is that it’s time to stop hiding… and it’s time to write again. It's time to write about it all. The heartache, the abuse, the neglect, the farewells, the betrayals. It's time to take it off my shoulders by putting it on paper. It’s time to tell my story. At the very least to myself.
I know it is, yet I don’t feel ready. You can’t avoid yourself when you write, it suddenly all becomes all so real on the page. I’m so proud of my dreams, the courage it took to get me where I am, and for the joy and magic that I see all around me and feel flowing into my body and music! I’m so proud of the parts of my story that I have rewritten in New York! And yet I know that my healing journey is only beginning… That it was an important step to find joy and to prove to myself that I have what it takes to run this far, to start over and stand for what I believe in wholeheartedly, but that healing and integrity happen when you understand that you’re allowed to be proud of the heartbreak, of the so-called failures and of the part of you that you never let anybody see (not even your own conscious mind).
I was telling my trauma coach that people stop loving me when I’m sad… I believe that. She looked at me very kindly… She paused. And then she asked if I stopped loving me when I’m sad.
Which I do.
Without a doubt.
When I need love the most, I turn to self-hatred with all the energy I have left.
And tonight I am sad. I am sad because it’s almost Christmas and I remember how many times little leo got her heart broken on Christmas. I’m sad because I realized that I’ve taken the role of every adult she ever knew and do not give a damn if she’s sad. I find her sadness inconvenient and impractical. I want her to pretend. To rejoice, to fake it if she must. I don’t care! I don’t care. I want her to focus on the pretty ornaments and to watch enough Christmas movies to annihilate any remaining brain activity and forget that she’s alone. Why she’s alone. What happened. What happened a thousand times over.
And I’m sad because we lost an earth angel last week, and that there is nothing we can do about it now. I’m sad because even his radiant light, his ability to dance like no human before him, because even loving his beautiful family with a heart this big couldn’t save him from the lies that can take over our entire existence and dim the lights so low, there is no finding our way back to where we belong.
So I will write about suicide now, and I will share what I write later on on my substack, no matter how tender and vulnerable and scary it feels to share those words.
Because suicide is something we don't talk about enough... and because we don't talk about it, we don't understand it; and because we don't understand it, we can't help. And so we lose the ones we love. Over and over again. Because they couldn't feel how loved they were anymore. Because of the Voice. Because of Bully brain’s unexamined beliefs and its impact on us. Because we don’t know that we’re NOT the only ones hearing the voice. And we don’t know that the thoughts are lying! That we have other options, that it’s not the only solution.
"You see the smile across my mouth... hiding the words that don't come out. And all of my friends who think I'm blessed, they don't know that my head is a mess. No they don't know who I really am, and they don't know what I've been through".
The story, Brandi Carlile
Eckhart Tolle explains that dogs are pure consciousness. Below-thoughts consciousness but pure consciousness. This is why they feel so healing to us. They bring us back. They exemplify unconditional acceptance and compassion. They love us unconditionally. And they feel what we feel with all their beings. When I sang these words near one of my dearest friends and voice teacher's dog, dear Bobby, Bobby got very agitated. He started barking, which he never does when we sing, made a few turns on himself and then suddenly laid down at my feet. Defeated. My friend was perplexed; I was not. I knew something no one else could know... How I was feeling and the images I was seeing while singing the words which sum up how it’s been like for the vast majority of the 37 years I’ve spent on Earth. And I don't let anyone know about that. My smile is there for a reason. Those words are locked for a reason. And I survived back then for a reason. Because I would almost constantly remind myself that I wouldn’t have to for much longer; that I had a way out if it didn't get better very soon. Thankfully, things mostly get better down here - even though it's never soon enough! This world is a beautiful place with wonderful people. I believe that. I know that. When I wake up to reality, as Byron Katie puts it...
Unfortunately one word, one stare, one smell, one... thought can bring me back into my trauma body where everything is cold, dark, lonely, dangerous and hopeless. Hope LESS. Ponder the weight of this word for a second. The weight of emptiness. Without any hope. Even the word is disheartening... Just like shame. Just like sorrow. Those words are just as painful to say as the feelings they represent feel.
A lot of us think that suicide is selfish. But it's anything but. You don't kill yourself because you don't care about others! You kill yourself because you either feel like a BURDEN to others, or because you've lost all the others. You got locked into a kind of loneliness that cannot be described. It has to be experienced to be fully understood, but that's also the mission and privilege of a writer. To try and paint an experience through words in a way that can allow us to share what has not been ours to carry.
Hopelessness is not a fleeting disappointment encountered because things turned out in a way we wished they had not. Hopelessness is the certainty (CER-TAIN-TY.) that nothing can ever get better. NO. THING. Ever. It is not just a thought, it is an overwhelming feeling and a disempowering, heartbreaking and gut wrenching state of mind. It means living without any connection to our own soul. Cut from what makes us who we truly are, from our essence, from our source. It is a place where no one can come and free us from. "You live inside a quiet hell no one can pray away" as Brandi Carlile so magically put it. You’re alone in a desert of grief and you’re suffocating. You want to scream but you’re gasping for air and there’s no one listening. You want to run but your feets are sinking into some quicksand you have no hope to escape from. You’re hope-LESS. You want to ask for help, but you’ve convinced yourself that no one can get you out and that if you say anything, others will get sucked in. Into this thick nothingness you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.
If you don't understand how someone could ever "do such a thing", I'm truly happy for you. I’m relieved even... And I hope you never really do. It warms my heart to know that some of us never experienced this level of darkness and despair. It warms my heart to know that it's possible to not know -or at least not remember- how it feels. It gives me hope for the children of the world... because it means they can be spared from this hollowness that makes you feel both empty and like way way WAY too much at the same time.
Robin Williams. tWitch. They made us feel love, joy, comfort, magic on Earth. They were angels we looked up to for inspiration, entertainment and for reassurance that we can be happy in this world. They gave everything they had and kept nothing for themselves.
And now they're gone.
They're gone because we couldn't see through their smiles the sorrow they were trying to spare us from. Yes, spare us. Because they knew what hopelessness feels like and made damn sure we would never experience any of it on their watch. It doesn’t mean it’s our fault! Of course not. We couldn’t see because true heartbreak doesn’t show. True heartbreak is an experience, not a diagnosable condition.
When you find the courage to meet the darkest corner of your mind with an open heart and the ability to give yourself compassion, to receive love from others or a greater power, you can overcome all the darkness of the world. That’s how powerful we are. The light can come in and not only run out. But when you find the courage to meet the darkest corner of your mind DESPITE a broken heart and while carrying trauma which prevents you from reaching for your loved ones loving hand, the darkness of the entire world can find a way in… and drown our dreams while suffocating our confidence, taking away our ability to get back any perspective and blinding us to the light which cannot reach us anymore anyway, in the abyss we are trapped in.
Gabor Mate wrote about addicts that "there is no island of relief, only oceanic despair".
That’s what feeling suicidal feels like.
Those two magical men -and so many others before them and among us- were/are our islands of relief and no one ever wonders how the island feels about the surrounding waters! Before it sinks. We are grateful to the island for supporting us. We want to make sure that the island stays comfortable for us and yields flowers, fruits and safe shores from which we can dip our toes in the water and dry up when we get wet. We love the island with all our heart but we don't check on the island's heart. We can’t. We think that we would know if there was a problem... that the island would let us know. That's the unspoken assumption. And we don't ask ourselves if the island is feeling safe from the harm it is protecting us from. Because we don’t understand heartbreak. Because we are not taught how to understand it in ourselves, and this is why it is so very hard to recognize it in others.
Killing yourself has nothing to do with selfishness. Selfishness is about not caring about others, about caring only about oneself. Suicide is most of the time about caring too much about others... and by definition not caring enough about oneself to even let ourselves breathe. Suicide is not done in the name of self, it's a negation of ourselves. Suicide is not a call for judgement. Suicide is the only way those who don't know that they deserve help can show how much they needed it.
To think that some religion wants you to believe that God would punish you for it is beyond words for me… Suicide is not a crime. Suicide is a call for love that no one will be able to answer but God.
May it be our promise for the new year. To see each other. To love each other, even more. To check on each other and make sure that the treasured in our lives know that they are the treasures of our lives.
May we see each other in a way that makes us feel truly seen for the first time. May we hold each other's hands and may we never let go, except when it is time for the other to fly.
May we stop making assumptions about how easy it must be to be “you”, and remember that if it is hard to be us at times, it means that it is hard to be anyone sometimes.
May we celebrate each other's achievements, yes, and may we remember to lick each other’s wounds. May we validate each other’s feelings, ALL of our feelings. The so-called bad and ugly. The shame, the sorrow, the anger, the jealousy. They tell us who we are because they tell us what we care about.
As stated in A Course In Miracles, it is time “to see every human behavior as one of two things: either love or a call for love”. Let’s answer each other’s call.
We’re never alone because we have each other and we have our own beautiful hearts! But if I lose my connection to you, I tend to lose my connection to me and if I lose my connection to me, I lose my connection to you instantly. However we can walk each other home, we have this extraordinary power by essence, we are miracles who can make miracles because miracle is another word for Love.
May our Earth angels stay with us for as long as they can hold their heart steady enough for this world. May our departed angels rest in peace and rest assured that we will never forget them; they live in us forever whether we knew them or not… That’s the power of the human heart.
Take great care of you in this in-between where one can feel lost and alone, but where every ending can be rewritten as a new beginning… even more literally that at any other time of the year.