Eject Buttons

Most people are not going to call the 988 suicide hotline number. They just are not. Those around them can. Violate their trust in order to save their life. Do it. Find the tools.

We need to continue to build a society of compassion and empathy that embraces darkness and understand its roots so that it may be released.  We need to embrace those beholden to it so that they may find security and develop belief that they can be free. It is all of us that end up affected by suicide even when we don't personally know the person. I don't even need to challenge any one of us to understand the pain we can connect with when we hear of someone committing suicide, "that person's mother or brother or friend took their own life.' Somehow we all know this horror. Why do we connect to it? Is it a module built into each of us, like an eject button. We ignore it or are completely unaware of it because most never need a desperate escape even from their worst emotional pain level. Imagine some tragic life situation throws you into the realization it exists. We connect because we intrinsically know we all have the capacity to go there.

Do I not believe that those closest to those who commit suicide don’t know the depth of the darkness before someone succeeds. Perhaps some do , perhaps some understand the threat but feel it for a fleeting moment and everything is then ok . Because it does become ok but then the ebbs and flow starts again and next time you don’t get to feel it with them , to help them out of it .

Most will not  dial 988 hotline because then they will be seen and there is no going back from this spotlight and  ‘maybe this is just a moment and it will pass - go back to 'everything is ok.’ And it will be ok. Because it’s never not been ok eventually.  You've been here before. Rationalizing, thinking about those left behind, resisting fades away the longer you live fighting with no long term relief options.

Perhaps suicide happens when you do that dance with yourself so much that you get  sick of it and you don’t want one more time of revisiting the dance , it’s to painful and you just want the cycle to stop. You don’t think of the after; but every after compounds into the history of “I want to do it “.

That’s how I believe suicide happens for some. For those that shock you. For someone like a Steven “Twitch” Boss who we know from his soul’s calling to be a dancer, one of the ultimate beautiful ways souls express and give joy. Dance was his life, how we all knew him and experienced his divine beauty first and foremost layered with his smile and welcoming demeanor. I watched him and his wife dance all the time and bring joy to all of us who follow him/them. How does someone who has worked so hard to be so accomplished against odds and found deep love and has created a beautiful life with beautiful children pull themselves out  of that state of deep love and decide “I can not heal”?

When does giving up become the option and healing to much work?   Because it is: Healing is HARD and maybe just as painful as the darkness is haunting and draining, but the darkness is familiar, a habit . When you are in the moment of hopelessness it literally suffocates every orifice of light . You can’t see or breathe your way out. I’m not sure if it is purely the events of this life or those carried forward from other incarnations as well that pushes a bright shinning soul to rob himself and his loved ones the beauty of time and life spent together.

Suicide is the panic button to go back to where we came, where it feels safer and more supported.  Is this exit a bigger lesson for those left behind as we sit and dissect it in so many ways. As we feel the heartbreak and pain of a loss like this from so far away.

I had a friend who openly suffered from depression and bipolar disorder say to me once “it’s people like you commit suicide, not me”. People like me? People who refuse to seek help and just put up a facade to push through because being willful and pushing through always works, until it doesn't . Perhaps she was right because there are many moments in my darkness that I inherited , witnessed and experienced where I could have been a Steven Boss. I alleviated pressure by isolating , not having children or getting into even the slightest possibility of a toxic romantic relationship. I controlled my work environment and who I came into contact with. I hid in my darkness but did not add any possibility of more as much as I could control . I stagnated . I traveled and had friends but never committed to anything that could tether to me and hurt me.  I removed everything. I carry nothing.  Nothing is beholden of me. And still I continue to heal at deeper and deeper levels. It's taken a lot of time and I've had the luxury of time to do the work. I created it.

When you’re raised in toxicity and unsafe environment and you get away from the trauma causing factors - the relief is so great you don’t take a chance to be tied back to that in anyway.

When you inherit it generationally you are weighed down before you have even a chance because of those carrying it forward. I had to rob myself of any possibility of joy in order to unload the darkness and make room for belief. We all do it in so many different ways. It’s no one’s fault yet everyone’s responsibility to help us through it with support , love , encouragement or silence to not judge and allow safe haven to make that  call to stay in life and in this life with our loved ones ♥️

Rest in peace all those who have left us in such extreme pain that their void will always be a reminder of deep love and deep need for healing hearts and minds when we deal with each other.

Let's ask ourselves :  Do we need to know someone is suffering to be kind ?