Warning: triggering content. This post discusses suicide and suicidal ideation.

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day, and I want to share my story with suicidal ideation, as well as experiencing and witnessing suicide firsthand. Before I do that, I want to say this clearly: I’m doing okay. I have support, and I’m in a good headspace.

In July of 2018, I left my ex after 5 years on and off and almost marrying him. I was a hot mess for months. By December of 2018, I was not well emotionally and mentally. It was a hard breakup because I wasn’t just processing him; I was processing some deeply rooted trauma that came out simultaneously.

As you know, I have a perfectionism complex, and honestly had been holding onto my “oh I’m fine” attitude for most of my life, and towards the end of December, I had the biggest wake-up call I’ve ever had. I was driving down a hill in my hometown; there was an intersection at the bottom of it, and I would have been less than a block away from work. I was driving to work when, out of nowhere, my brain said, “If you drive into traffic really fast, you would stop feeling this way.” Now, let me be clear: I’ve never had a suicidal thought in my life. EVER. Have I wished I didn’t have to feel? Sure. That’s why I learned coping mechanisms that allowed me to check out. But harming myself, NEVER. I sped up for less than 5 seconds, like I put my foot on the gas and everything. Then my logical brain kicked in. “Rachael, if you do this, and you survive, you could end up hurting other people and also being in the hospital alive, unable to walk again, still having to feel and think these thoughts.” I slowed down and got to work.

I had a good friend that I worked with that I told about this, and I let her know to keep an eye on me. Because, seriously, I was like, where the eff did this come from?

From that moment on, I took ownership of my mental health, got medicated and saw my therapist. What I did not know or did not think of was that I could have and should have taken PFMLA or FMLA at the time, and actually taken time off work. I maintained my “I’m fine” complex… Until, well, in full transparency, it’s something I struggle with today.

I wanted to share this because of how frightening and flighty that feeling of suicide was.

Last Summer I witnessed my upstairs neighbor commit suicide by gunshot wound to the head. At the time, I awknowledge it happened, and I continued my “I’m fine” attitude and went back to work immediatley (which at the time was already stressful, and in crisis itself), and now that I’m unemployed for the first time in my life (long story), I am just now processing this young man’s death.

He took his life two weeks after he lost his wife. I had my headphones on because they were pretty noisy. I don’t think it was intentional; it was always just because they were in their early 20’s. I heard a loud noise, some yelling, and then as I took my headphones off, I heard the body hit the ground. Literally, what took seconds, felt like forever. I heard the body hit the ground limb by limb, directly above my bed where I was laying down watching TV. Followed by screaming of a woman, calling this man a different name than what I knew him to be, calling 911 and irattically running up and down the stairs. At this point, I actually didn’t know what happened. I didn’t know he shot himself; I didn’t know if he was shot; I didn’t know if he had been pushed in an argument or hit with a frying pan. All I knew was that something bad happened, and I was listening to it.

The police came to my door a while later, and that is when I found out about the gun. He wanted to check for bullet holes, and he asked me what happened. I truly didn’t know. I invited him in, and by that time my boyfriend came by, so I wasn’t too concerned, but I was in shock.

I got the police report two days later, which brought some clarity and background information about what I heard. I didn’t even know his wife had passed, and I also didn’t know that the woman’s voice I was hearing upstairs was his grandma, who was in town for his wife’s funeral. I cannot be for certain or if it was a mistake, but the man who shot himself was trans, and they had put female on the police report as his identifying sex. As I am processing this, I am recognizing that I do not believe this man had a plan. He went to the gym, came home with McDonalds for him and his grandma and went into his bedroom, and shot himself.

It’s a reminder that sometimes suicide is planned, and sometimes, I don’t think it is. Sometimes we find ourselves in a dark situation, and for a split second, we believe things will be better if we were not alive. We don’t have to feel the hurt. We don’t have to experience the grief. We don’t have to experience whatever comes next.

And that is terrifying.

Because that feeling can come out of nowhere. I know that because it happened to me. I had never thought about suicide before that moment in my car. I wasn’t sitting there making a plan. I wasn’t thinking about dying. I was driving to work, trying to keep functioning while I was emotionally and mentally falling apart. And then, for less than five seconds, my brain offered me an answer.

That’s why I think it’s so important to talk about this. Not because I have all the answers. I absolutely don’t. But because I think sometimes we assume that if someone is still going to work, answering emails, taking care of their responsibilities, laughing with friends, or telling everyone they’re fine, then they must actually be fine. I know I did.

Being unemployed has helped me reflect on those times when I said I was fine, kept showing up anyway, and wasn’t okay.

If you are struggling right now, I want you to know that what you are experiencing is real. You don’t have to wait until you are in absolute crisis to ask for help. You don’t have to be completely falling apart. You don’t have to stop functioning before you are allowed to say, “I’m not okay.” There are options. There is help. And it is there if you choose to access it.

Tell someone. Call someone. Sit with someone. Ask for help. Take the day off. Let somebody know that you’re not fine. You do not have to figure out your entire life today. You just have to get through this moment. You are worthy of it.

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