Suicide Prevention Awareness Month

 September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

I really struggled with if and when id post this. To let my walls down and let others in. The only people who have ever read or heard this are my therapist and me. 

Why post it if you aren't suicidal anymore? Are you looking for attention? 

No, I'm not looking for any type of personal gain or attention. However, my heart truly does long to bring attention to the stigma around mental health and suicidal ideation. 

Something I learned during those 15 days I was struggling is that the bystander effect is so real, and it's literally killing people. No one did anything because “surely someone else will.” I by no means was quiet about my struggles. I called, Texed, Posted, went to a mental health hospital, called a hotline, showed up in an ER, and kept getting dismissed because I kept saying, "I don't want to die." I didn't, but I was standing nose to nose with death for so long that I knew if something didn't change, I would lose my battle with it. 

Finally, I was done fighting. The world around me was so dark that I couldn't see anything. I couldn't hold hope for my friends, family, or job. The world didn't hold any more hope for me anymore. I didn't reach out one last time. I wrote my notes, Printed them, put them in envelopes, addressed them to their respected individuals or groups, and placed them where they'd be found so they could be handed out. 

A letter for my family, my kids, and my husband. 

A letter to my best friends.

A letter to my Primary care doctor's office.

A letter to my OBGYNs office.

A letter to my Therapist.

A letter to the psychologist I saw before he left paternity leave.

A letter to the pastors on my church's staff. 

A letter to be posted on my Facebook. 

And this letter to whoever found me, after I was gone. 

This is your trigger warning. Please do not read if you are not in a mental head space to do so. The letter is not graphic, but if you know me personally, it may be hard to read, knowing just how dangerously close it was to being posted in a completely different manner. Yet, somehow by the Grace of God, I'm alive, I'm okay, and I'm posting it to bring awareness instead of announcing my death.

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

> 

To whom it may concern.

Dear person reading this,

   I wanted to write you and tell you that I'm not a weak person. I didn't just one day decide to give up. I have fought many battles, and I have shed blood in many wars. I’m not weak or a failure. I'm tired. I have spent years fighting against hate, fear, anger, and jealousy. I have seen people die, I lost a child, and I buried some of my best friends, both human and nonhuman. I have walked a path so narrow that one step in the wrong way could have ended my life, and for a really long time, I tormented myself with just how easy taking that step would have been. However, this time I couldn’t find my way back from the darkness. So, I took one final look around me, hoping to lock eyes with someone, anyone, who was willing to come down into the darkness and save me. But it's so still, so loud, that it's completely deafening and silent. There is no life to be found here. No love. No reason.  I. Am. Truly. Alone.  Maybe on the way down, ill feel something other than this pain, maybe ill fell free, maybe ill feel peace. So I close my eyes, take one last deep breath and jump into the deep darkness.

   You see, person, I’m not a quitter, but there comes a point in time where you just have to stop. You can’t breathe anymore; the air is thin, and the room is dark. It's so cold. You have to take a second to pause, and you have to understand that some battles are just too big to fight. That they required more training and skills than you have to offer.

I reached out, I sought help, and I begged for people to see me. I held onto hope, and I tried to look to the future. My Girls, my husband, and my 2 friends. I thought of everyone, from my pets to my co-workers and family. I thought of all of them, I thought of how they would feel and their reactions, and I thought of their lives after my loss. Sure this will cause an impact, but they will hopefully adjust.  Will my Facebook friends care? Will they wish they had taken me up on my pleas for help? Will they wish they would have done more? Or would they sit there and cry and say they wish they would have seen the signs? You know the ones that I very clearly shoved in their faces for weeks?

I think about my church, the staff, and the members. Would they show up in my death for my family? They didn’t show up in the death of my baby for us, for me. would my life hold any more value for them? Who would sit in my seat? It’s the same one I’ve sat in for 5 years. Third
 row back middle aisle end seat. Would they memorialize me? Would they say my name in service? Would they use me as a way to hopefully save someone else? Would people even know I was gone if I just stopped showing up?

I thought about my medical team and my ob-gyn office. How will they respond? Knowing they lost not only a baby that was wanted so badly but also me. Would they launch a response time to make sure other mothers don’t die alongside their babies?

 I thought of my PCP. Would he even know? Would he regret not taking the time to work me into his schedule to try and get my medications under control? Would my cracking voice haunt them? Will they remember my name and my life? Will he change his standards to make sure he doesn’t lose someone else like me? After all, isn’t it first do no harm? What about me? Isn’t this causing me harm?

 I thought about my therapist, Allison, Probably the only person during all of this who has fought the hardest for me. But session after session, I sat across from her. And she watched me die from the inside out. She did what she could, but even that wasn’t enough. Would she morn for me? Would she be as mad as I am right now, knowing that my mental and emotional health was dismissed by so many people?

 How will those people respond? Will my death make an impact on anyone? My life clearly didn’t. Surely though, My name would come off the schedules at offices and work to make room for someone else. God, I feel so fucking invisible.

 The only place that space will be held for me any longer will be that 1-5 hour period reserved for my visitation and funeral. Honestly, I don’t even want that. I don’t want people to show up for me in my death. I wanted them to show up for me in my life. To hold me together, to fight for me, to carry me, and to save me from this. Cremate me and take me to the redwood forest. Return me to the earth among the roots of the Redwood trees. The trees are so big that they entangle their roots with one another to make sure they have the strength to stay upright. Without one another, they will fall. How I wish I was a redwood.

  Person, this isn't an attack on you or anyone else who you are or what you did or didn't do. It’s just me, sitting here bawling my eyes out, trying to understand how I got here. How did the entire world collapse on my shoulders?  Now I know HOW I got here, I know the road I took, I know the choices I made. It’s just how here isn't where I thought I’d be. I never truly thought I’d get here.

The truth is, no matter how many times I looked at those around me, no matter how many times I asked for help, I was told I had so many things to live for, and for a while, I could see them, I could hold on to them, but just like everything else it’s been swallowed up by darkness, I can’t see anything. I can’t find any reason; I can’t find any light. I can’t do this. I can’t fight anymore. I don’t want to. I'm too tired. I guess I spent a lot of time building a foundation. I didn't realize the roof was caving in, and now the damage is catastrophic.  Person reading this, I didn't fail, I didn't quit, I fought, with a passion and a desire I fought in the dark for so long. I want you to know that I really did try to make it through this.

Now, this isn’t going to turn into a sap story, so you'll feel bad for me. I'm not going to sit here and tell you what I’ve been through. I’m not going to make it a big deal. I think we all can agree that we know my whole life has been a big deal. My dad died, I was molested, called a lair, devalued and unbelieved, and my childhood was hard. I got married, had a baby, divorced, and meet a man who I thought was my forever, only to be beaten, abused, raped, sodomized, and tortured.

 I was free; I meant my husband. We built a life together. We were happy I was happy. Then our baby died. And so much of my already broken heart died too. The tiny fragment that was left was too small to keep me alive. My husband, my love, I’m sorry I couldn’t save our baby, I’m sorry I couldn’t save me. Find love, find joy, find hope, live your life, and know that I’m at peace now. I’m holding our sweet baby, and it's all perfect.

You see, person, I just want you to know I didn't just give up. I didn't just quit. I just got tired. 

Dear person reading this, whoever, where ever you are, please know that sometimes the hardest thing we have to do in life is come to a point where we just need to stop doing what we are doing, and we need to understand and hope those in our lives understand that the end of the road, however you got to that point, is just that, The end of the road.

Carry on person.

Carry on.......I’m at peace now.

I love you so much; I just don’t love myself enough to stay. And I wish I knew if you did. I’m at peace now. Good Bye

-Laura D. Gancarz