Before I begin….

I find it is important to talk about topics that affect so many of us in life. Please, if you or anyone else are having thoughts of suicide reach out anyway you can to help them or yourselves. An off the cuff comment can sometimes be the only indication one is able to give, don’t take it flippantly. We need to talk.

A few years ago, I received a call about the death of someone very close to me. Suicide. Since then, I’ve always intuitively tried to reach them, speak to them, look for signs but nothing.

I was visited by them last night in a dream and it was beautiful.

Many times, I’ve journaled and cried in my own time thinking how can one person nurture me so much, save my life in ways I can’t explain and then take their own life. I am being 100% serious when I say this person helped nurse me and keep me alive, till I was able to do for myself.

I moved on in my recovery journey, hungry for a new life and no longer needing 24/7 care.  I was safe, I wasn’t going to take my own life. Life started to grow and all my dreams were right there, ready to grab. And I did, I still am!

But they got worse, while I got better and a sense of purpose and vitality kept draining away, soon they were merely a shadow of themselves. I felt like I was jumping in between 2 worlds of past and possibility, but I also didn’t have the strength or the tools to help them the way they needed.  In some ways I thought maybe I had given them a purpose, to hold on to, did they feel abandoned? Yes, I know they did. But reality was I hadn’t. I was just getting well. When we get well, we change, or we become more of ourselves I should say. Stronger in our own choices and less reliant on others.

I remember sitting in a therapy room hearing a psychologist tell us statistically 1:3 will not survive . You look around at this stage and think, nah I don’t think that’s true. And there was tons of laughter in the room…. It can’t be me, it’s you. We continued laughing while also terrified at the thought.

Years later, I sit here and realise, there were 4 of us who were friends.  Now there are only 2 of us left. I am not laughing now when reality brings that truth.  

Sometimes we have to let go of things that stop us from moving forward. Letting go isn’t abandoning or not caring. It’s having boundaries. You can still be in someone’s life and just as I have my boundaries, I have had to adjust to others respectively too. As we continue our journey of recovery, no matter how tightly we grip on and want others to come with us, many times we can’t. It’s our own journey, that has its own time.

I know all that logically but it still takes time to actually process it and feel okay with that.

Last night I had a beautiful dream. I saw you and you were happy. We laughed a lot. I smile while I type that. Even in my darkest times, laughter at myself has always pulled me through. But they were proud of me and said I love you and that they are okay.

It’s been 7 years.

I got my sign Or maybe I gave myself the sign that its ok. 

*photo is of me during a photoshoot – during the time I was being looked after by you.