Sarah Smith’s Path to Healing

Hello,

Today I am starting with my first post in which I actually write about my experiences. I won’t be holding back, so take this as your trigger warning. I want people to see that they are not alone. Not just in the sense that they know other people have similar problems, but that they feel there are others out there dealing with the same shit.

I also want to give hope. I want people to know that it can get better, but it takes time and hard work.

So I hope you’re ready to step into this with me, because I love to see people succeed, and I want others to be able to live their lives without the burdens they are not meant to carry.

And with that, we’re already where we wanted to be: suicidal thoughts.

I had my first suicidal thought when I was six. I was lying in bed, thinking about how I didn’t like being under the covers because breathing became harder when I stayed under them too long.

Then it hit me. What if I slept under the covers? Would the air get so bad that I just wouldn’t wake up? So I put my head under and tried to fall asleep in the hopes of not waking up in the morning.

I was six. A child shouldn’t have to live with those kinds of thoughts.

But I did. And I kept having them.

I had them when I got married at 20. I had them when I left my then-husband at 22. I had them when I bought a café at 24. I had them when I left my ex-boyfriend at 25.

I had to live with these thoughts for as long as I can remember. I didn’t know a life without them. They were always my way out. If I ever got into a situation I didn’t know how to get out of, it was always my Plan B.

Nothing could hurt me when I was dead, right?

Today, I can stand here and tell people that I have not had a thought about killing myself for at least two years.

I’ve had some trouble in the last two years, it definitely hasn’t always been easy, but it hasn’t been a Plan B for a while now. It’s not even a plan anymore, because I know that no matter how hard it gets, I will always have my back.

I will always be able to get through it. And there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

And… I don’t have to suffer to get there.

For me, being suicidal didn’t mean running from my problems. It didn’t mean not caring about the people who loved me. It didn’t mean “taking the easy way out”.

There are only two decisions in life that cannot be undone:

1. Creating life.
2. Death.

So taking your own life is never the easy way out. It’s a decision that cannot be undone.

When you’ve made that decision and acted on it, it means you are so sure of not wanting to try anymore that you’re willing to give up everything you know for something you can never come back from.

For me, wanting to take my own life was the result of having to carry everybody else’s burden. I had to manage my mother’s feelings, honour my father’s wishes, protect my siblings, and choose the people in my life over myself every day.

I didn’t get to do things for myself. I wasn’t allowed to feel my own feelings, or even talk about them. I wasn’t allowed to have my own goals. I wasn’t allowed to protect myself. I wasn’t allowed to choose myself.

So I never learned to. I never learned what it felt like to be safe, or to trust my gut. I never learned what it felt like to have dreams and hopes.

I had to fight for those.

I didn’t stay alive because I loved the people around me. I did, and still do.

But I stayed alive because I wanted to give myself a fair chance.

If I had done it for the people around me. If I had stayed alive for them. Then I would not be here today, because living for them would have killed my core self.

I realise now that my suicidal thoughts were a symptom of abandonment.

It was basically my brain saying: “If you ever get to a point of no return, to a point where you cannot come back to your most inner self, then there will always be a way out.”

It was my mind telling me that my soul, or whatever you want to call it, was breaking under the pressure.

For me, taking on the burden and responsibility of the people around me felt like it was crushing me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I had to carry a massive boulder above my head, and was just waiting for my arms to give out for it to crush me.

Had my arms given out, then suicide would have been the crush.

I’ll probably not make many friends with what I’m about to say, but: suicide is not running away from the burden of one’s own life.

It’s running away from the burdens we carry that aren’t ours to carry.

It’s not about being strong enough to face life. It’s about having people in our lives who don’t respect boundaries or don’t even see how their behaviour harms others.

I always wondered why it triggered me when people said, “You can’t leave this life because it would hurt others.”

But I get it now.

Telling someone who is looking at you and saying, “I can’t carry your burden anymore,” to just hold on for you that’s the real selfish part of the whole thing.

Is it right to take your own life? No. There’s always another way.

But is it right to call someone selfish for doing it? Never.

Because the more likely reality is: they’ve lived their whole lives for others. And that might be the first decision they’ve ever truly made for themselves.

So how do you even begin to heal from this?

Put simply: I had to learn to set boundaries and be consistent.

I had to learn that boundaries aren’t for others. They’re for me. Boundaries are there to protect me, by me taking action when others don’t respect me.

I had to learn that other people’s burdens are not mine to carry. I have my burdens from which I can grow, and learn, and become someone amazing.

But if the burden only causes me pain or shame, then it’s probably not mine to carry.

I needed to learn to protect myself, because that was my responsibility. I couldn’t expect others to do that for me.

Asking others to protect me, to keep or even set my boundaries for me took away my power, my strength, and my ability to care for myself.

The beauty of all this?

The more boundaries I set, and actually stuck to, the smaller the boulder became.

I used to feel like it was this massive rock hanging above my head, like one of those crushing, rolling death traps from Indiana Jones.

Now, it feels like a little pebble I can carry in my pocket.

A reminder of where I came from, and where I am now.

So yeah, put simply: set boundaries.

But the honest truth is: it is probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do for myself. And even today, it’s still a fight I sometimes have to fight. But it gets easier with time. And the fights become fewer.

Today, I feel like I can breathe.

And when it gets harder to breathe, I take my head out from under the covers… and start again.