suicide prevention

A Returning Wave

Trigger warning: Suicide Awareness

I have focused these few posts on suicide awareness, knowing that many of you may have no idea what it is like to have such depths or intensity of pain. Others may relate to seasons (whether it comes in hours, days, months, or moments) of feeling beyond what you are able to endure, and overwhelmed….again.

These are the frameworks I’m attempting to put words to. If we can articulate it, we can begin to make sense of it, particularly with the presence of an empathic witness. In that, we are no longer alone — we are felt, known, understood and brought near.

There is a sense in which you can feel untethered, or beyond reach or too far gone. And sometimes it is really hard to hold on. It can come up like a returning wave, or like a familiar feeling entering the room for a visit. Understandably so, we don’t like these visitors. It can feel heavy beyond our ability to lift. But what if it was just a part of us that we could begin to see, to recognize, or to give voice to?

We need each other.

Trigger warning: Suicide Awareness

The essence of trauma is being afraid and being alone. Attachment trauma — being wounded in relationships that were supposed to keep us safe — leaves us feeling unseen, unheard, unwanted, misunderstood, rejected, abandoned. Trauma disconnects us.

It makes sense, then, that when someone feels disconnected, cut off, ostracized, or “othered,” the pain is beyond excruciating and the risk for suicide increases. We aren’t created to go through life (and our pain) alone.

Who are the marginalized, the anguished, the ones in our society who feel beyond reach? And what is the pathway back (or perhaps for the very first time) to connection?

When the hurt runs deep

Trigger warning: Suicide Awareness

It comes in like a wave sometimes. I tell this story, not sure of how old I was but I will guess about ten. I was walking back from the ocean to my towel, and all of a sudden a wave came up over me. All I could hear is swooshing of water surrounding me, unsure if my feet were on the sand or in the air, my hair and sand in my eyes, choking and literally taken for a ride. It wasn’t until I had settled and found my footing that I realized which end was up.

Have you ever been hit by a wave?

Sometimes we get hit with really strong emotion, and nothing feels clear. It seems to threaten to derail us or take us off our feet. And for some, the pain is so deep and there is a heavy weight that pulls them under.