No. Just no, you shouldn’t. It might feel like the only option, now. It might feel as if you have to, as if there is no space for you, as if the world is better off without you. It might feel that there is a better place after this life, and while this might be true. You don’t have to, this place can wait, it will wait.
If there is even one small hope in you of a better life, if there is still one thing in others you admire, if there is still a video on youtube that you enjoy, then let this be your saviour. You might not be seeing it in yourself right now, or deem it as possible to be like this. But you are, and you are fully capable of doing it. You might just have to take a closer and a more gentle look on yourself and your past, present and future.
Before I start talking a lot I would like you to do an exercise. This works better in a video, and this video is yet to come. Read this paragraph and do it while reading.
Let’s take a moment, to take a deep breath here. Feel how your lungs get filled with air, maybe you can feel your heart pumping. Breath out again, feel yourself getting heavy. If it hurts or feels uneasy in any way, just be okay with that. Love the fact that you care about things. Take a breath and imagine how the air wants to be inside your body and give you all the love and care you need, now let it go and feel how you share this love with your whole environment. Now you can breathe at your own pace again, if your head is now trying to solve problems that aren’t there, let us take a look at our surroundings. What do you see? Is there a direct threat here? If yes then run away as quickly as possible! If not, then ask yourself whether there is something in this room or surroundings that you are absolutely grateful for. If not, then take a memory of a moment that you were feeling like this. Close your eyes, and fill yourself up with the feeling and when you’re ready open your eyes again.
So, and we’re back at the subject. Now did you notice a small change inside you in the previous exercise? Now can you imagine that you could develop this same grateful feeling, for your suicidal thoughts? This might seem crazy and weird, but I’ll tell you. This is the feeling that saved my life, this is the driver of my life, I could even make it more fantastic, by telling you it is the very driver of my greatest inspiration.
I am here to congratulate you with your absolute golden ticket to life. Which might seem wicked and absurd. But it can be. For let me ask you a question: what freedom in life do you gain, when you are not afraid of dying? Can you make this your ultimate freedom? Isn’t your willingness to die not secretly your love letter to death, telling you that you accept it. That you are willing to see the imperfections of yourself and of life. Now the only challenge for you is to get this desire to work in your favour.
You might be thinking, that easy talk for a person that is not feeling like me. Well yep, it is, but iIve felt the same way as you. Maybe I didn’t experience the same horrific event as you did, but I've been where you are. I’ve asked myself a thousand times: should I do it? I’ve told myself a thousand times that I wanted to die. And when I got to the point of truly conceptualising it, I realised I was free. I realised I could go anywhere I want, I could forget about everything, I could let go of the people I didn’t like. I could let go of the feeling that didn’t serve me any more. I realised that death wasn’t so far away from life anyhow. And that what I was seeking in death, could be found in life as well. I just hadn’t been in the right place, mindset, time or whatever yet.
And actually, at first I hated to know this. How easy would it be to just not be doing the things I was afraid of. How easy would it be to just be laying in my bed all day. How easy would it be to just wither away. I will tell you, a lot less easy than really facing the fears. A lot less easy than accepting and loving the pain inside me.
I had to accept the harsh truth that I was being completely irrational, that it was not my job to take my life. As much i’d liked to be in control of it, this was not my job! My life is not just influencing me, it’s influencing everything around me. I’m not the only one deciding for me to die. Everything around me is. As this is creating me, as i’m creating it. Even if you feel like right now you aren’t loved by anyone or anything! This is untrue. And actually you’re having a grand discovery about yourself. You are willing to let go of all that does not serve you anymore.
So let’s look at death in another context shall we? What is death to life? It is the end. But what if you take a look at the death of the grass getting eaten by a cow. Then it gives energy to the cow, the cow can make milk from the grass which makes it able to feed her babies. This image not only shows the meaningful aspect of death, but also the transformational aspect of it.
So what does this have to do with you? Now I’m not asking you to compare yourself to the grass becoming the milk. Well maybe I do, and if you want to, then just go ahead. Yet what I actually want you to do, is to visualise this process within yourself. What part of you is the grass wanting to become the milk? Can we let this symbolic transformational aspect of death take part of us? Use it to let go of certain patterns of ourselves that don’t serve us no longer? Can we be a place for ourselves that arranges both birth and funerals for the different characters in our lives we wish to become or have identified with?
This way, your suicidal thoughts can become meaningful to you. The thought might trigger a fear in you, they might trigger a feeling of unworthiness or sadness in you. You might feel completely strange or weird and lonely for having these thoughts. And that is okay. We’re here, you are loved, you are guided and protected. The very fact that you’ve found this article and made it to this phrase, tells me that there is hope. Even if you can’t see it yourself yet! And why would you? If your past makes you want to kill yourself, then it’s for the good that you can’t see your future yet. It means that it won’t be anything like it. It means that there is a space for a new possibility.
Make space for a fictional funeral for your old life, you’re allowed to make it as dramatic as possible. Invite all the people you wish to be there, let them tell you exactly what you want to hear. And you? You’ll both be present as your corps and as the new person you’re becoming. The person you already are!
When the old you has died, there will be space for the new one. It doesn’t have this space when the old character is still alive! Take space for all the grief you need. Cry everything out, cry for yourself, cry for your death, cry for your birth, cry for the people. And reach out for help. Whether it is professionally, a friend, a family member, a random person on the streets offering their service. Well maybe don’t do the last one, unless this person seems in no way capable of abusing or hurting you. It doesn’t matter whether this person understands your thoughts completely or not. You’ll find those people eventually. For now just find a person you feel like you can trust, a person who is kind and compassionate. Yes they exist.
In the beginning I didn’t tell anybody about these feelings I had, it has taken me years to tell them to my relatives even. Yet the first time I spoke to somebody about it, who’d had the same experiences, already changed a lot within me.
I encourage you to seek most help in your direct environment. And professionally. Next to this I would like to offer a space to share this with others, a virtual environment where it’s safe to share this with others. I haven’t found the right form yet, but i’m working on it!
Ideas, tips, sharing experiences are very welcome in the comments.
Thanks for reading.
Much love and appreciation,
Ilse Vos
Special thanks to perception trainers, Alan Watts and Kyle Cease. For their inspiration, words and advice. Without them, this article would not exist.
