It's Suicide Prevention Week!
I am backkkk!
If you are new to this blog, welcome my Gullies! And if you are a fellow subscriber, I missed you and hope all is well and you’re kicking depression’s ass!
It has been a decade since I wrote a blog on this site, and it feels so refreshing to be back. Okay, maybe not a decade. But, boy oh boy, it’s been a minute.
Although I have been working on so many other projects and have been so excited to build GullyThoughts as a business, writing will forever be my first love.
Today we are talking about suicide. Don’t exit the browser just yet, just bear with me. This topic is not only not talked about enough, but it has so much negativity and fear attached to it as well. When people say the word ‘suicide’ it is like the room goes quiet and everybody clutches their pearls. Understandably so, but my mission is to make this a conversation that can exist in more spaces, and a conversation that can shift the stigma as well.
Not only is it Suicide Prevention Week but it is Suicide Prevention & Awareness month. So why does this month mean so much to me?
It means so much to me, because in my mind in the past, I shouldn’t be here. This blog shouldn’t exist. I shouldn’t even exist.
But I do.
And now I know I am supposed to be here, and I am supposed to be sharing my story with the world in hopes that a little girl all the way across the world won’t feel crazy for the thoughts she is having. Because I had those exact same thoughts. So whoever is reading this and can relate…
YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
I have had suicidal thoughts most of my life, always having this eerie feeling of wanting to disappear and just escape to another reality. I seemed like a very happy kid, always joking around and wanting to make people laugh and smile. But my laughs and my smiles slowly started to dwindle once the trauma came rushing into my life. Behind that joker mask was a very, very sad and lonely kid.
I truly believed that I was an accident. That God meant to make someone else but I popped up instead and now I was a disappointment. I lived with that belief almost up until three years ago.
I honestly thought that if I just vanished, the world would be okay, and God could replace me with what was supposed to be created in the first place.
It might seem crazy to some, but it was what filled my mind day in and day out. Should I stay or should I go? And September 18, 2017 I decided I couldn’t stay any longer.
I ended up in the hospital and later checked myself into an outpatient program. I was in that program for three weeks. I despised going every single day. I actually was angry that I was still alive. In my head the suicide attempt was “unsuccessful”. I hated talking about my pain to people I didn’t even know. I hated having to answer every single day if I was taking my anti-depressants or not. I hated that they gave me the label Major Depressive Disorder. I hated that people started to act like they really cared about me after they almost lost me. At that point hate filled my mind and my heart. I just hated life and I hated myself for “failing” on my escape mission.
Years later I see why I am still here., and that me surviving was the most successful thing that has ever happened to me. Even though it wasn’t of my doing, I can now be happy that I survived and I released all that anger and hatred.
I took you down memory lane all to say, your thoughts are just your thoughts. They are not always true. They do not always have to be acted on. They are sometimes more detrimental than what other people tell you.
If you are having these thoughts…
PLEASE REACH OUT!
I do not mean to yell at you, I just want you to know how important you are.
How worthy you are.
How amazing of a soul you are.
You do belong.
You do fit in this world.
You are not a mistake.
The world will miss you.
And you can get through this dark period in your life. I won’t tell you to just get over it or just toughen up because I know that does not help.
What I will tell you is that the longer I tried to do things on my own, and suffer alone, the longer I felt hopeless.
Sometimes we just need a little help or maybe a lot of assistance. And I know I was one of those. I needed A LOT of help. And me reaching out for help was the best thing that could’ve happened to me.
Look, I didn’t always want to go to my support groups every week, I didn’t always want to do my homework from therapy, I didn’t always want to text or call my friends and family when I had those suicidal thoughts, but I did. I was actually quite annoyed by the long to-do list of things I had to do to just survive on this planet. But I am grateful for that list at the same time. The passion and excitement for life will not just magically appear. It takes time. But I hope that you are willing to ask for help on the days you can’t push through on your own.
Asking for help does not make you weak, it does not make you incapable, it makes you HUMAN!
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If you do not have anyone you trust and do not want to call the suicide hotline, I provide an online course that helps teach you how to manage your emotions and how to heal from the pain or trauma from your past so you can want to be alive and actually want to push through. If that interests you, click below to learn more!
I am giving scholarships away this month for anyone that is in dire need of this course, and it will be provided for FREE. Message me on my Instagram page (@gullythoughts) and let me know your situation and we will go from there.
Look out for next week’s blog, I will be writing about how to support people that have suicidal thoughts and how to show up for them in a loving and supportive way! LET’S END THE STIGMA TOGETHER AND FIGHT SUICIDE TOGETHER!