Hope - Always

Monday, April 27, 2015

Today I am grateful for hope. Periodically within this piece, I will post a Suicide Hotline number. If you find yourself disagreeing that there is hope and feel your choices have run out, causing you to contemplate suicide, please call it immediately. (1-800-273-8255) There is always hope. I need you to really hear that today. There-is-always-hope! Even if you don’t think there is. Even if despair seems to consume you and you feel your life is over. (1-800-273-8255) Even if you are contemplating suicide and formulating a plan to carry it out, I need you to remember there is always hope. (1-800-273-8255)

Our tally of young people who have committed suicide has grown to three. THREE! Three too many! And that does not include the “attempts”, which were are way up into the teens. Three is only those who finalized their lives. The sadness I feel when a young person goes down this road is palpable. When one child dies, they become everyone’s child. I don’t know how parents recover from the loss of a child by any means, but by this? The pain is gargantuan. I don’t have the answers. But I do have hope. And so do you.

I vividly remember the emotions involved with being a teenager or young adult. Confusion, despair, heartache, betrayal, self-deprecation, that all-or-nothing feeling that the world will end if he/she doesn’t speak to you, or if you fail a test, or disappoint your parents, or don’t meet up to expectations set by a school, family, society. I remember. (1-800-273-8255)

Maybe everyone is anxious to date, but you don’t feel like dating. You know you’re supposed to, but you don’t. You think you’re a freak. You think you’re unlovable. Or maybe you want to date. . .but you want to date someone from your same sex. You don’t want to feel different, but you are. You know you are. You’ve known it since you were a very little kid. You might feel ashamed about who you know you are and think that your family won’t accept you. Maybe you have thoughts that tell you your life is not worth living, or that the world would be a better place if you were not in it. (1-800-273-8255)

Or you might be so good at covering-up, that we have absolutely no idea of the kind of internal pain you deal with day after day. You are a great actor, playing a role in your own life. We would help you if we knew, yet you are not able to tell us, or ask for help. You might feel that just by asking you will be letting us down. . .again. You don’t want to be exposed for the failure you see yourself as. (1-800-273-8255) Please ask. Nothing you confess will make us hate you. Your reality might jar us, throw us off for a little bit, but we will always love you, even if it takes us a little time to adjust our attitudes based on your truth. We will try. We will get there. We will have hope. We want you to have hope, too.

But how will we all go on without you if you choose suicide? How? The hole you will leave in our hearts will never be filled with anything but scar tissue. We love you, even if you aren’t able to let that love in. We care about you even if you don’t want us to, or don’t believe we do. We want to help you. And we want to be there for you. Sometimes we see your pain, but nothing we do seems enough to help you. We are not qualified. We want you to see a psychiatrist but you won’t go, because you don’t want everyone to think you’re crazy. You’re not crazy! You’re just in pain. (1-800-273-8255) Growing up is hard. Very hard.

I am always shocked that in the year 2015, there is still a stigma attached to seeking psychiatric help. If you broke an arm, you would not try to fix it yourself. If you had a festering wound, you would soon realize that the treatments you were trying, that no longer worked, would indicate you need to seek medical advice. What is so different about our mental state? If we are in rough shape mentally or emotionally, why do we hesitate or even balk at getting some psychiatric help? Even though I am one of the most positive people I know, I’ve had to seek this kind of help from time to time. I’m not qualified to understand the ins and outs of my emotions. I’m not ashamed of that. There have been times when I was my own worst enemy. . .and I needed professional help to cope. . .no, to thrive! (1-800-273-8255)

Maybe doctors have an explanation and have discovered a glitch and you need medication to help keep you balanced emotionally. Maybe those drugs seem to take away your zip, removing the gigantic highs and drastic lows that have become your “normal”. I am very sorry for that. I wish you didn’t need medication to feel even, too. I want you to experience joy. I want you to feel creative. But I have seen your “highs” and they are over-the-top extreme. And your “lows” go so low that they are scary. . .and I worry you will do harm to yourself. (1-800-273-8255) Please, please don’t stop your medication. Please. You need it to stay alive, just like a diabetic needs insulin.

Maybe you feel that suicide will be your answer to stop the confusion. . .the pain. Maybe you feel you have lost all hope. But wait! Please wait! Hit the pause button. Because just over there. . .is hope. Right around the next breath. . .there is hope. (1-800-273-8255) It is never too late to turn your life around and follow a different path, whether your family and friends approve or not. With life there is hope. Hope!

I have seen your father, face down on the grass, sobbing over the senseless loss of his son. You! I have seen your friends. . .the one’s you didn’t think you had. . .gently hold your mom, practically carrying her to her car after your funeral. I have held your teammate while he cried over the choice you made that affected everyone. I have heard him saying as he wept, “I would have done anything for him if he had just reached out. I didn’t know. What kind of friend was I? How could I not know?” There was hope. Right there. Waiting for you. (1-800-273-8255) I have heard your mother/father say, “His friends told me at the funeral that he was very confused and unhappy, but they didn’t want to interfere. . .didn’t want to get in his business. I wish someone had told me. I wish someone had interfered. I would still have him.”

You are not alone. Someone is there for you. What seems so impossible today is fleeting. It will be better tomorrow. Please don’t choose a permanent solution for a temporary problem. Where there is life. . .there is hope. Choose to live. (1-800-273-8255)

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