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It is time for me to break my own self imposed vow of silence about the subject of suicide. I am certainly not responsible for anyone else’s thoughts about the subject, or for anyone else’s actions. I feel like I am breaking a social taboo by mentioning it at all. Can we learn to talk as openly and honestly about suicide as we can talk about any other realistic health concern or threat to our well-being?
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The following helped me when I read it today — written to a woman who had just lost her husband to suicide:
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“SEVERANCE FROM THIS WORLD”
“Thou hast written of the severe calamity that has befallen thee – the death of thy respected husband. That honorable personage has been so much subjected to the stress and pain of this world that his highest wish became deliverance from it. Such is this mortal abode – a storehouse of afflictions and suffering. It is negligence that binds man to it for no comfort can be secured by any soul in this world, from monarch down to the least subject. If once it should offer man a sweet cup, a hundred bitter ones will follow it and such is the condition of this world. The wise man therefore does not attach himself to this mortal life and does not depend upon it; even at some moments he eagerly wishes death that he may thereby be freed from these sorrows and afflictions. Thus it is seen that some, under extreme pressure of anguish, have committed suicide.
As to him rest assured; he will be immersed in the ocean of pardon and forgiveness and will become the recipient of bounty and favor.” ‘Abdu’l-Baha
From the book Baha’i World Faith: Selected Writings of Baha’u’llah and ‘Abdu’l-Baha, published by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States, 1943, 1956. This is from the 5th printing of the 1956 edition, 1971, pages 378-379
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There is barely a single moment of a single day of my life that my ‘not wanting to be here on this earth’ does not overshadow me. I consider myself fortunate that I have friends and a sister that I can talk about my feelings about suicide openly and completely honestly with. I hate the thought, and I hate the feelings within me that are connected to it. I have even asked my favorite astrologer, Zane, for a reading that might explain where in my natal-birth astrological chart there might be something I can learn about myself to club this thought to death! Permanently would be awfully nice.
I have reason to believe that not being loved or wanted and instead being loathed, hated and greatly abused from birth has something to do with my not wanting to be here even now. I know I have overwhelming pain and sorrow within me from my 18 year history of severe abuse. It has always been there. How my not wanting to be here in a body is tied to that pain, I will probably never know for certain. The important thing is that one day at a time, I am still here.
I do not believe that guilt-tripping, shaming, denying, avoiding, or judging myself for my difficulties being alive in this body on this earth are helpful. Having received a serious diagnosis of advanced breast cancer 2 ½ years ago put me in direct contact with my dilemma. I fought the cancer primarily because of my children, and I think they know that. (My boyfriend also told me at the time if I didn’t finish my chemotherapy treatments he would not see me any more. I have some resentments about this!)
My children also clearly know my child abuse history and my struggles to live with the consequences of that abuse. I might wish that not to be true all I want – but the facts about surviving a torturous childhood are best allowed to breath in the bright light of conscious day.
The ending last June of my relationship with the man I am in love with has not made being inside myself any easier. I continue to suffer greatly from this loss. Because I have a severe insecure attachment disorder stemming from my extremely abusive childhood (which also affects my attachment in my body to this world), I understand that there is not a single fiber of my being that has not been painfully touched by my continuing loss. I also understand that probably most of this blog’s readers know exactly what I am talking about.
The choice to take one breath after another, to continue living each day as it comes, is not a minor one. It is one we all make from our first breath until our last, whether we choose to think about it consciously or not. The excerpt I placed at the beginning of this post uses the word ‘anguish’. I use the word ‘agony’, because on some level I feel it every moment of my life (yup, that good old Substance P).
The advanced and I believe sophisticated dissociational survival-protection system within my body-brain-mind cannot erase all of the pain that I am split-off from consciously identifying. Fortunately, I believe that about 90% of it is remotely being stored away from my ongoing experience of being alive. But what my body does know and remember affects me continually.
I can ‘make it go away’ more sometimes than others, but it remains a part of me constantly because the pain is a part of my body. Living with that level of pain is not easy. Readers, I believe you know what I mean – and I take comfort in that knowledge – as much as it profoundly saddens me that any single one of us had to endure the kind of sufferings that we have.
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The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study: New York’s Response
Posted: 15 Nov 2009 10:09 PM PST
Recent medical research on “adverse childhood experiences” (ACEs) reveals a compelling relationship between the extent of childhood trauma and serious later in life health and social problems. The social science knowledge base and the practical experience of social service providers become important in terms of understanding and responding to adverse life experiences in childhood and adolescence. The ACE research can be linked with prevention and intervention knowledge that involves evidence-based mental health practice, prevention of health risk behaviors, substance abuse treatment, integrated treatment of co-occurring disorders, community development, and service delivery and policy evaluations. Social workers located in discrete professional settings can mobilize comprehensive responses to address the causal role of adverse childhood experiences by bringing together various professions to create more coherent systems for the development of children and the support of parents.
Capital Region ACE Think Tank and Action Teams have utilized ACE research to connect various areas of concern (workforce issues, trauma-informed practice, prevention and intervention, treatment of co-occurring disorders, cross-systems/service integration). This webinar outlines the ACE research, emphasizing this connection to social service knowledge for response strategy, and reports on new research on the Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences Among Homeless People. The mission and purpose of local ACE Think Tank and Action Team Meetings is discussed, outlining the policy journey in the NYS Capital Region along with next steps. NYS has the opportunity to demonstrate leadership in ACE response, promoting resilience, recovery, and transformation.
Proudly presented in partnership, the State University of New York at Albany’s School of Social Work, the New York State Parenting Education Partnership and Prevent Child Abuse New York are pleased to announce the next in a series of professional development webinars, presented by Professor Heather Larkin.
Stop the Storm 
I swear you’re in my head! I was just wondering this morning as I got ready for work if you ever suffered from thoughts of suicide. I didn’t want to ask because I didn’t want to trigger you.
I’ve spent most of my life fighting off suicidal thoughts. I’ve come *real* close more than once. The anti-depressant I’m on helps keep me from dwelling on suicide, for which I’m grateful. It doesn’t do much for the depression (either that or I can’t imagine how bad it would be without the pills) but it does keep the litany (I noticed you used that in another spot to describe your mother’s verbal abuse and I’ve always used it to describe the repetitive crap my mother spouted at me) of sucidal thoughts at bay. It also helps immensely with my anxiety.
You’ve actually given me a new lease on life. I feel like I’m going forward and have some hope (which I’ve been without for a very long time) for the future. I, too, often wish I didn’t have to keep slogging through each day. I’m barely making it financially – I don’t get paid enough to live decently and between my age and being in an area where they don’t pay very well (though the cost of living is high enough) I can’t see a way out. I’ve got chronic arthritis, among a host of other health problems, and no energy what-so-ever and no retirement so I’ll have to work ’til I die. I’ve always looked on the dark side (can’t imagine why…) so even when something good is going on I keep track of the bad stuff and get depressed. Anyway, realizing that there’s good reason for all the problems I have dealing with things – that my brain was grown in a highly toxic environment and that I don’t need to blame myself for not doing “better” with my life helps me to feel some peace and hope.
If you need someone else to talk to in regard to suicide (or anything else) please feel free! Been there, not *quite* done that, and got the T-shirt to prove it. I know it helps a lot to have someone understand where you’re coming from and someone who won’t judge you or be made uncomfortable by what you’re thinking.
Did you come across my posting of the Center for Disease Control’s research on long term health complications for child abuse survivors yet? The abuse changes the way every part of us develops, including our immune system (voila, arthritis, etc.) I am actually beginning to understand suicide concerns as being ‘just another’ health related problem that threatens our well-being in our body in this world.
My hope lies in being able to somehow translate into words exactly what you are ‘hearing’ — !! There is NOTHING at this point in my life that could make me happier than to know that through understanding this information about how our entire being had to change in order for us to survive hell. It is not only helpful to understand this, it is EMPOWERING! We then have freed-up power to use in trying to improve our well-being rather than becoming even more debilitated by believing there is something ‘wrong’ with us!
My body has developed an extreme sensitivity to drugs. This became obvious during chemo. I had what is called the ‘minority’ side effects — those ones that sit up there in the 2% range in drug company research. I have tried antidepressants and I quickly develop tolerance. I suspect that the changes my body went through in order to survive my mother have resulted in a too-complex combination of difficulties for regular ‘drug therapy’ to treat effectively. I am seeking a self-sustainable balance that allows me some degree of internal peace and calm.
I keep seeking (and finding) more and more of the bigger picture about how 18 years of abuse changed my BODY. This includes changes to my nervous system of which the brain is a part — which of course affects the kind of mind I have and how it operates. Yet what I can ‘handle’ remains very limited. That I now have disability income is saving my life. I do not believe that I have the ability to survive on my own.
I have hope I (and others like me) can improve my well-being in the world. That hope is the grease that keeps me writing! It feels sometimes like a treasure hunt — that the new developmental neuroscience information is now out there and if I can find the right pieces, and look at it in the right way, this knowledge will give me power to find a stronger, more integrated Linda that can then grow into a better life up ahead. I never found what I truly needed in the ‘old help’ information. What I needed I had to go dig out for myself — and most fortunately this information is OUT THERE!
Because this ‘techno’ info is fresh for you, if you keep an ongoing list of helpful info and related ‘in-sights’ it will help me to understand better a sort of linear value for my writing. It all feels very circular to me, and people do not write books in circles!