How To Keep Living When You Feel Like Dying. Period.

IT CAN BE DONE.

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NOTE: The following includes transparent sharing about mental illness, addiction, suicide attempts – and recovery from all. It is based on my personal experience, and not drawn from academic/medical expertise.
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Suicide is a tricky subject. First and foremost, it helps to understand that the desire to off one’s self is a unique impulse for each individual. There are infinitely more reasons, triggers, and journeys than there are methods. Second, one must accept that only an internal shift will dull the impulse. No external motivator was ever enough to stop my attempts. And I say “dull” the impulse rather than “heal” or “erase” or “kill,” because the thought still visits me. But it used to be much, much louder. And third, sometimes, that internal shift takes a very, very long time. And so a great deal of patience, compassion, desire to understand, and commitment to love (for self and from others) is imperative along the way. Friendships will start and grow and end and start and end again. Family will be divorced. Healers and teachers will prove genuine or not. Doctors will blow minds and then disappoint and then other doctors will provide what works. But fourth, one thing is certain about the journey away from the desire to die and toward a resolve to live: it requires a f***-ton of work, and the results are well worth it.
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Over 43 years, my methods varied and never worked. Obviously. Despite my best efforts on five occasions, I am here.

1)
Age 12. Summer. At childhood home near Washington, DC. Family in the kitchen. Me on the living room couch, pressing a pillow over my head, trying to stop breathing. Sobbing for the loss of my dad’s sister, Jeannie. The only person in my entire family who always made me feel like a-million dollars. Like I was a shining star. Like I deserved to be alive. Beloved Aunt Jeannie, who smothered me with affection, love, gifts. Who died that day from cirrhosis of the liver.
At the time I had no idea that I was already suffering from unseen, unaddressed, untreated trauma due to the violence, chaos, and addiction in our household. I had no idea that my pattern of using alcohol and drugs to dull emotional pain had already crossed the line of dependency. That day though, I did learn that one cannot smother one’s self. So I moved forward, dulling my insides as well and often as possible.

2)
Age 25. Just before Easter. At rented apartment in New Orleans. Living solo, but for the strangers I brought home after spending my free days and nights sitting on a French Quarter curb, drinking tequila out of a paper bag. This night, I’d come home alone after hanging out with a work friend and music biz pal, who quickly fell in love at first sight and abandoned me. An internal voice summed up my life to failure. Mine was already a long story of starting and stopping and starting and quitting and starting and ending and not moving forward, from age 12 to 25.
I drank an entire bottle of cheap champagne and swallowed handfuls of Over The Counter pain killers and sleep aids – all of it bought with my dad’s gas card at the corner Exxon store. I woke up throwing up, called in sick to my retail job, and walked around all day in a haze – pissed off to be alive.

3)
One week later.
Stole prescription drugs from friends’ closet, combined with OTC, swallowed with water. Same outcome. Woke up barfing, drugged, dazed. And so I resigned to stay alive.
For the next 12+ years, I tried to stop drinking, and then tried again and again. I tried yoga, juicing, religions, new age spirituality, therapy, dating, not dating, changing the music I listened to, whatever. I tried to stop leaving, tried to start staying. But I saw myself moving away and quitting jobs and killing relationships and turning to booze and still not growing at all.

4)
Age 53. May 8th. Group house in Washington, DC. Living with four other women whose emotional dynamics triggered every feeling of fear, threat, and alienation from my childhood with my four sisters and mom and dad. Nearing 16 years sober. Working in the yoga industry and feeling sure that my friends were true, my job was pride-worthy, my life was healthy. Despite what seemed like progress, a lot of unhealed trauma had been sloshing around between age 25 and 53, and a chunk of even more intense healing work was about to begin.
A few years before this I’d been misdiagnosed with panic attacks, and was trying to treat them with medication, meditation, yoga, therapy, more yoga, more therapies, retreats, whatever. Yet my “panic” episodes were increasing. Scaring me and pissing off most around me.
There was a breaking point at the house, a string of twisted situations that worked against my deeply trauma-patterned brain. I lapsed into what I would learn was a PTSD flashback, had a hostile outburst, was told to move out – and without another thought, as if with blinders on and emptied of all reason, I beelined through the kitchen for blades, stomped up to the bathroom, drew a warm bath, and went to work on my left wrist. Hours later (I’ll spare you the details), I gave up and went to the ER.
Those 2.5 weeks in the psych ward were a turning point. A team of experts, the time to be helped by others, and the words of my case worker: “You must live, Holly. You must live.” I emerged with a correct diagnosis (Complex Developmental Trauma with Memorized Trauma Experience aka PTSD Flashbacks), new meds, and a fresh direction for therapy. There were upsets to navigate ahead, though: a betrayal in a major relationship, the loss of my job, the death of my father, an attempt on my life (not by me!), ongoing financial instability, continued challenges with living dynamics, a pandemic, a world of hatred, injustice, and pain…

5)
Age 55. July 5th. A different group house in the DC suburbs. Recovering from an assault. Fired from a job. Pandemic shutdown. Socio-political unrest. A world on fire. Isolation. Interpersonal conflict. Fear of being the bad guy. All the trigger buttons being pushed. You know how 2020 was.
Attending Dialectical Behavior Therapy group, individual therapy, and recovery meetings online. Lots of progress with trauma recovery. Periodic outdoor walks with friends. Teaching yoga online. Stabilizing income.
Fighting, wrestling, drowning in those triggers, though. One gets the best of me. I head to the forest with blades and stolen painkillers to hopefully help me finish the job. This time both wrists. But no. Again, no. I should be dead. The emergency responders were shocked. The ER folks confused. The psych ward team baffled. And one nurse said, nearly crying as she cleaned and re-wrapped my wounds, “Why would you do this? Why would you do this to your beautiful self?” I answered, “I’ll never do it again.”

I believe that to be true.
Note that my last two blogs, recounting my last two attempts, were titled “The Suicide Blog” and sub-titled “How to keep living when you feel like dying.” Parts 1 and 2. Well. This blog is NOT a recap of yet another attempt. No. This is NOT part 3.
This year I WILL turn 58 and next year I WILL turn 59 and the next I WILL turn 60…
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So just how have I kept living despite wanting to die? Through all these years and all the attempts and all these failures and all these ups and downs? After all, I did start by saying that the thought still arises, even after so much work, healing, growth, and change.
For me, the key is asking for and being willing to accept help. All those times I tried to change my life, my mind, my brain, my direction, my habits? Those were times of relying on myself rather than seeking the support, ideas, and expertise of others. And no wonder. The environment of my developmental years demanded that I take care of myself, find my own way, not depend on others.
I first learned how to look for solutions beyond my well-intentioned yet limited self by becoming an active participant in an addiction recovery program. Saying yes to support, trying new ways, learning to be of service to others were not my M.O. before getting sober. Little by little, I softened and learned to trust. I embraced that a team of practices, resources, and beings could have my best interest in mind and are worth turning to.
“Keep coming back” – a slogan from the recovery program – has become a go-to approach to finding the patience for and dedication to gradual change. That “shift” I mentioned above is the result of continual return to the tried-and-true team that is effective for me. It includes: DBT, individual therapy, yoga, meditation, medication, nutritional supplements, Ayurvedic lifestyle, recovery program, true friends, professionals, doctors, teachers, mentors, and sometimes even strangers who carry a message. These go-to’s are unique for my condition, my disposition. And they evolve. That’s why it takes a lot of “coming back” to continually discern what works best for me.
And that “f***-ton of work” I mentioned above has become a daily discipline. These days, it feels less like work, and more like routine and ritual. In fact, I now refer to it as “sacred inner work.”
Most recently, this sacred inner work yielded another beautiful turning point. With the help of my therapist, my recovery mentor, a growth coach, and my psychiatrist (and probably a few social media memes, LOL), I came to understand that I don’t need to wrestle with my patterns, my fatigue, my low points, my totally normal fallibility in order to reach some “other side” of liberation and levity. Instead, I can offer myself love and compassion for being human. I can choose to take small actions rather than “wrestle.” When I do this, instead of living in self-disgust and -disappointment (which can lead toward self-harm of varying degrees), I inevitably internalize the positive outcomes of those tangible actions. I feel better. And I continue onward. Quite simply and relievingly, onward.
For the gal whose catch phrase has been “onward and upward” for years, this shift is a welcome result of that patient, gradual, supported, “keep coming back” approach to healing, growth and change. And each learning experience shapes my mind, resolve, and purpose.
Each experience shows me how to keep living. Period.

May all beings have access to, seek, and find a team of resources, practices, and beings that support healing, growth, and change. Love to all. OM Shanti. Holly
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This post was written May 31st, to wrap up Mental Health Awareness Month 2023, and in recognition of the Out Of The Darkness Overnight Walk in DC, benefitting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. I’ve reached my fundraising goal of $3000 and will be walking on June 3rd! See? Attempt survivors can turn around to become supporters! And attempt ponderers can turn around to live onward.