Episode 1: 13 Things I Have Learned After Suicide Attempts
My first episode is in honor of a family friend who died by suicide. I wish the attempt had been unsuccessful. I hope they could have gotten the help they needed. I wish they knew that there was support available to them. I wish they knew that brighter days were still ahead. In my own experience navigating suicide and the experiences after it, here are the 13 things I would have told them.
1) I am glad you are still here. You deserve to be here. You are worthy. You are loved. I am so happy that you are here. I'm glad that whatever you tried to do didn't work. I'm pleased about that. It might be just a tiny flame of a fire that says, I'm going to try, but I want to support you, cheer you on, and say, I am so glad you are here. I'm so happy that you can go outside and feel the weather, whether it's raining or rain on your skin.
2) There is no shame in your story. I can't say this enough, there is no shame. Part of my story is that I was hospitalized. In fact, I was hospitalized for mental health twice in my adult life. There is no shame. Do not feel embarrassed. Do not feel humiliated. Do not feel less than. Do not feel anything negative because, my friend, you got to the end and pulled yourself up, which takes incredible strength. There is only a celebration that you took the step to get the help you needed. Whether calling a hotline, texting a hotline, reaching out to a friend, or just deciding, I will give this life another chance. There is no shame. My big dream is that mental health is not stigmatized, that we can talk about it openly, and people can get the help that they need. If that happened in my lifetime and I had been a small part of making that happen, I would have succeeded.
3) You can't go back to what brought you so low. So I first heard this in my first hospitalization from a therapist that whatever brought you here, whether it's inpatient care, a partial hospitalization, an intensive outpatient program, or just maintenance by going to therapy and seeing a doctor. Whatever it is, you cannot return to the thing that brought you to that dark place. This is my first plug for why a therapist is so helpful. They can help you figure out how to get out of that situation. There are so many situations out there that I can't cover them all, I'm not gonna try, but I am gonna advocate for finding a therapist. Soon, I will give you my foolproof method for finding a great therapist, but whatever brought you to this low point, you just can't go back to it. If nothing has changed, the outcome will be exactly the same.
4) Remove anything that could potentially harm you. You need to remove anything that could possibly harm you. At least in my experience, I was in a very fragile state. And while I was feeling hopeful that I was getting the help that I needed and I was getting the medication that was helping me feel better. I was still on unstable ground. It's super important that you remove anything that could harm you. Whatever is self-harm for you, remove them. And I would say, as an added bonus, tell someone. I was prone to abusing one of my medications. And I told a friend, and I told that same friend that I was not feeling well, and the first thing they asked me for was for that medication, or at least enough of it that I could not take a harmful dose.
5) Take your medication as prescribed. If your path to recovery includes medication, my friend, you must take it. There is no way around it. You must take it. Take your medicines as prescribed by your doctor. Always ask your pharmacist if you're unclear, but take your medication. The internet is great. Chat GPT is awesome, but in this case, when it comes to your life, please talk to a medical professional. Consistency is the key. From my experience and what I've learned, a lot of these medications take time to build up in your system. And so you're only doing yourself a disservice if you don't take your medication consistently.
6) You can't do this alone. My guess is that when I have gotten to a really dark place, I have isolated myself, and I'm not leveraging the community that I have. If I've ever gotten into a dark place, I have isolated myself. And I'm not telling people what's really going on with me. So you can't do it alone. You need a support system. I like to think of it as a three-legged stool. For me, my psychiatrist and my therapist are one and two. Then, the third leg of that stool is my friends and family. Remember, you are not alone on this journey. You have a community that cares about you.
7) You've got to teach people how to support you. Coming out of my first hospitalization, back in 2013, I learned a lot about how some people are very good at supporting you and some people are not so good at supporting you. And what is tricky, and honestly, I feel a little unfair when you're coming out of a dark place, Is that you have to teach people how to support you well. And you have to set boundaries. You're asking a lot of yourself when coming from a raw place. So, one piece of advice that a therapist gave me when it's getting support from your family and friends is don't make them read your mind because they can't, and they will get it wrong. What I mean by that is to ask them for the support you need. It might be, hey, can you come over and just sit with me on the couch? It could be asking someone to bring over food. Or could you take my kids for the afternoon? But ask for what you need. When you ask for what you need and tell the people in your support group what you need, their response will tell you a lot. It says a lot about who they are and how you should place that person in your life. I am not saying that everyone who says no to you should be kicked out, but if you believe that someone is in your corner and has your back, you together will figure out how to get that help.
You're inviting someone in to support you. If someone shames you for asking for help, drop them immediately. If they're shaming you or making you feel bad for asking for help, they're not the friend for this journey. Put them aside. Honestly, because it's harmful, depending on how you move through the world, asking for help is super hard. And so if I ask for help and I'm then shamed for it somehow, it crushes me. And so I've had to learn quickly that that says way more about them than it says about me. And I just need to put them aside.
8) Learn to get good sleep. You must learn how to get a good night's sleep. I'm going to say that again. You must learn how to get good sleep. Sleep is so critical for how we function as human beings. There's been a lot of garbage in the past about how people only need four to five hours of sleep. I am not that person. I do not think that is healthy. If you are not getting enough sleep, you should get help with that because the average human being needs, the typical adult needs seven to nine hours of sleep. And anything less than that is not suitable for your mental health. In my experience, I would, yeah, I've in my experience. The majority of any suicidal ideations I had, My sleep had been disrupted in some major way that I was not sleeping well through the night. That was a big one. I also know as I'm recording this episode, I will be completely transparent and tell you that I am just mildly depressed right now. And I know that because of something that I enjoyed historical, not even historically, stuff that I enjoyed two weeks ago, I just am like, meh. And then I'm not sleeping super great. I'm a little bit apathetic about some stuff. I know one of the first things I need to make sure I'm doing is getting good sleep. So, I must clean up my sleep hygiene and not look at my phone before bed. Maybe taking some time to meditate before bed or a body scan. We should do an episode about a body scan because those are great. But getting good sleep because if I can get good sleep, I can at least keep the mild depression from becoming more severe, or I can just get myself back to a normal state.
9) Establish a baseline self-care routine. Self-care has gotten somewhat out of control, and what belongs in self-care can be as simple as taking a shower or vacationing in Tahiti. I am going to err on the lighter side of self-care. Your self-care baseline should be showering, brushing your teeth, and wearing clean clothes. That is a great baseline, especially if you are coming from a really severe episode. That is a really, really good baseline. Step outside, sit like walk for five minutes but establish a baseline for yourself. The reason why the baseline is so important is that it might be an indicator that you are not okay. If doing your baseline is a struggle, that's a good sign that I need to pay attention to that and invite someone in my support system to support and help me. So that could be your therapist or a trusted friend or family member.
10) Create one affirmation for yourself. I'm a big fan of cognitive behavioral therapy because we are bombarded with so many messages every day about so many different things, about how we should look, about where we should live, about who we should be with, about what our kids should do if we have kids, what we should cook. There's this standard of perfection and the ridiculous need for everything to have an aesthetic. And so...All of that is entering your mind throughout the day. And so we need to intentionally say to ourselves one affirmation that we just repeat over and over and over again until we need to move on to something else. So, an affirmation that I return to is that "I can do hard things." Hard things can vary. Some days, hard things are just getting out of bed. Some days, the tricky thing is recording this podcast. But I can do hard things is an affirmation that I rely on. And I use that when I'm just getting messages that there's something wrong with me; I combat that with an affirmation.
11) Find one or two trusted people. You've come out of this really raw, dark place. You should have one or two trusted people that you can tell that you're having suicidal ideation. This should be done in addition to your therapist and psychiatrist. I'll let you know one of those people and my life is my sister. So I would come to my sister and tell her I'm struggling right now. I'm struggling with suicidal ideation." For her, that means she will check on me regularly, but she'll do it in a way that gives me space. She will encourage me maybe to set up a therapy appointment. We talked about what she needed to do in advance.
You cannot put suicide in someone's mind. If you are actually the trusted person, asking someone if they're suicidal is not going to be like, "I wasn't suicidal, but now that you mention it, I am." Trust me on this. It doesn't happen. So if you, a trusted person, feel like your loved one is not doing well, just ask them. And what I will tell you is in my life when I have been feeling suicidal. It's in my head, and I'm going over and over and over, and I finally tell that trusted person. For me, it lifts a weight just because I've told them. And it does signal that I don't really want to die; I'm just at the end of my rope. Can you help me get on solid ground? So that's been my experience. So find a trusted person, and decide in advance what you want them to do.
I have a friend in my Bible study who has a unique ringtone set for me, and my number will always come through regardless of what state their phone is in. And so here's another tip. I do this for my friends. If I have a friend who is going through a hard time or just needs access, what I will do is there's a feature on the iPhone. If someone rings you two times consecutively, that second phone call within so many seconds will alert you, and it will get to you.
12) Create things to look forward to. I mentioned that at this moment at the time of this recording, I was mildly depressed, but I am working through it. But one beneficial thing is to create things to look forward to. And they don't have to be expensive, crazy things. It's just something to look forward to. So, for example, for me, in this mild depression, I have reached out to my old boss, who I adore, and went to dinner with her. Then I reached out to one of my other friends in my small group, and we went to dinner and had a great time. I did a little retail therapy, which is not required but sometimes helps. A fun fact about me is that I am taking classes in surface pattern design. I was like, you know what? I would really love to have one of my patterns produced and make a skirt out of it. And so I'm like looking now and researching into taking sewing classes. I am on the Facebook marketplace looking for a used sewing machine. I don't know where this interest will go, but create something to look forward to. And again, it does have to be as elaborate as sewing a skirt for yourself. It could be visiting your favorite place, coffee shop, or restaurant. Getting something you like, going get dessert that you want, maybe taking yourself to the movies, Going to the park, taking a nice long walk with a friend or your four-legged pup. But give yourself some things to look forward to because I think it does two things. One, I think it keeps you from looking back. Two, it keeps you looking, and it helps you look ahead.
There have been times in my life when I've been struggling with suicidal ideation. I looked at my calendar to see that I had made plans with a friend way back, and I was like, I'm gonna defer because I want to see this friend. And so maybe that helps you, but that has been something that helps me. The other benefit is that it prevents you from isolating. And you can talk to people about how you're really doing. So, definitely create things to look forward to. Some of them with friends, and some of them can go solo.
13) Remove harmful people from your life. Sometimes, there are people in our life who can trigger us. When I say trigger, I actually mean lowercase trigger. I want to be respectful that people struggling with PTSD are actually triggered in a very different way. I'm not talking about that kind of trigger. I'm talking about what I call lower t triggered. And it could be many things, but this is specifically the people. That takes you to a dark place. So it could be friendships, it could be an employer, it could be a romantic relationship. But there have been times in my journey when some people just had to go. And it's really, really hard. And in making that decision, there's a grieving process. I say understanding the seriousness of ending or removing yourself from a friendship.
It's 2024, and I know the job market is tough. Hopefully, the job market will improve. If you can remove yourself from a toxic employer, do that if it's leaving the company, which I have done, or getting on a different team. You may have a boss you trust asking that you and this other person you can create distance between them. In that case, someone in HR can help you navigate that conversation. And then romantic relationships. Truthfully, this is where I struggle. I have stayed in relationships for too long, and they have taken me to a bad place. And so I would say remove anything that triggers you.
This is by no means a comprehensive list. It is just what I have learned over the last 11 years. I hope this helps you.
