Re-Introduction

I've thought several times about writing a book about what it's like to survive a suicide attempt. I find that people don't understand and usually ask the wrong questions about the attempt. Their questions are all tied up in my suicide being about them. Maybe that's understandable; you use the filter you have, after all. And that's when anyone wanted to talk about it at all. Some people -- me included -- seem to feel like there was a jinx attached to it. If we talked about my attempt, it'd make it more likely there'd be another attempt. And hey, I had practice now. Maybe I'd get it right next time.

So I thought about writing a book. Then I thought, "Books require coherency. Long, long stretches of it." Well screw that. What I wanted to write, really, was a series of essays. Or, in today's vernacular, a blog.

So who am I? Who was I? What makes me qualified to write about this (seriously, though, that one should be pretty evident)?

My name's Jessa. I'm 45 years old as I write this. I tried to kill myself when I was 42-ish. I say "ish" because my 43rd birthday happened a couple of weeks after my suicide attempt. I'm single. I have one cat and one elderly dog. I've been rich (I was a millionaire). I've been poor and living on welfare and foodstamps. I tried to kill myself.

I really want to be clear about that. There are a lot of ways to do it, and a lot of things people mean by that. I took a whole bunch of pills and washed them down with a whole bunch of wine. I put thought into it, estimated dosages, minimized the risk of vomiting. I wanted to say personal goodbyes to a couple of people, but didn't send them until I was barely conscious. I didn't think either of them would read the email until after I was already dead. I didn't want to be stopped. I didn't want to be saved. There were, I admit, a couple of hysterical phone calls when I realized how close to suicide I was but they didn't help.

In fact, I used to say that if I ever did write the story of my life, I'd call it, "I Was Put On Hold by the Suicide Prevention Hotline" because, yeah, that happened.

But again, I want to emphasize I wanted to die. I did not want to be saved. I was done. And god, it was such a relief! I was done. It was ok. I could let go now and stop fighting, stop struggling, stop caring, stop hurting. Making the decision, once I got past the "Holy crap, am I really about to do this?" part, felt so fucking good.

So what happened?

I have no idea. I woke up with cops pounding on my door and my dogs barking. I was so groggy from the pills, it didn't sink in for a bit that I hadn't died and what it meant from here.

And that's what I'm gonna talk about a lot, I think, in this blog. What it's meant that I woke up alive. What it's like. What's happening now, in my head, in my life, even in my therapy sessions to some extent. What it's like to truly hit rock bottom and, instead of going splat like you expected, find yourself standing at the bottom.

I've waffled over doing this for two years because I'm not sure if it'll help or hurt. I worry that someone who's on the edge will hear the things I say in favor of suicide (and yes, there will be things in favor of it) and take their own life. I worry that someone fresh from the attempt might read the negatives about going on (and yes, there are negatives to it) and give up all over again.

But I have hope, too. I hope that someone who's thinking of suicide will hear what I say about the (shocking, surprising, unbelievable) help that was there for me and peek around to see if the help might just be there for them too, even if they never thought it could be. I have hope that someone who's also survived their own attempt might read this and think "Yes! Exactly! I feel the same way," and know they're not alone.  I have hope that people living with a survivor will gain some insight and maybe it will help them, and help them help their loved one.

Most of all, selfishly, I hope it helps me. I want to get it down, because maybe then I'll get it out of me. Maybe organizing it into something coherent will help me stop wrestling with some of it. Maybe I'll find the words to explain what it's like to be at the bottom, but standing.