When pain threatens to overcome

One of the questions in my poll a few posts back was “Have you ever thought of suicide?”

The answer is yes. There have been two moments in my life that I have been within moments of making the choice. The first one seems so lame now that I look back on it as I had not known pain, yet I thought I was in pain so unbareable that I suicide was the only way to release it. It wasn’t until the second time around did I realize just what pain felt like.

Both of these incidents happened in moments of my life when I felt very lost, alone & unsure of how to survive on my own. But, both of these events, I believe were changing moments in my life that has led me down a path of greater understanding & happiness. Had things gotten worse in those moments, I may not be discussing it now as thought it was in the past.

It became known to me during both of these that suicide is only one answer to the question, but only one. While it is still the choice of the individual & is not to be denied to them, it must be known to them that their choice is the ultimate one without being able to go back. It may seem like the answer, but it does not have to be.

My first experience happened when I was 15. I had grown up in a fairly good home with both parents being educated, employed and happily married. But, things fell appart a little in the family life at that time. My mother would reveal that she was pregnant & have her third child (she was 38 years old at the time). My younger brother would have his first major panic attack during school & the next year I witnessed things that I wished I would never see. I was even put into a situation where I was asked to hold my brother so my father could talk him down from his rage. Anxiety & panic attacks can be very hard to deal with, especially for an 11 year old like he was. So, while my family started to split apart, I found myself feeling more alone. I was having trouble making friends at school & would often find that my “friends” were more interested in getting answers for homework than being my friend. And, of course, I was also in the middle of my teenage years where emotions play with your head & hormones mess with your ability to focus sometimes. While locked up in my room, I had very little to do but think about the pain. It was at that moment that I returned to the God I had been raised on & saw the power of faith and what role it can play in bringing you out of the destructiveness that I had found myself in. Between age 15 & 18, my spiritual self played a big role in who I was. While I would eventually leave the faith I was raised in for my current ideals of god, it was a path that has forever changed me.

The second happened after 6 months of torment in a failed marriage that was not even a year old. My emotions had been played so long as I competed with the “other”. The stress & emotional low that came with the idea that my 7 year relationship, the person I cared the most about & loved so much that I would die for them, only to find out they are willing to say they love someone else, but they love me as well. To see the notes exchanged between them, to know they work together & spend time together every day, to feel betrayed & unsure who to trust. This pain is almost unbearable. Seeing the hate from their eyes as they blame you for their unhappiness without any compassion for your own pain. Seeing the person who took your first kiss, your virginity & pledged your life to them for life stare at you as though you are some sort of disease. Hearing them degrade you one minute, then shower you with affection the next only to turn their back on you the moment the “other” comes back into the picture with an email or myspace message. And, the whole time wanting to be supportive to them because you believe they are going through an identity crisis & because you love them you want to be there as they go through their own painful experience.

This pain is greater than I thought I would ever experience. It tears you apart from the inside, slowly, painfully & you can feel every pin as it pushes against the walls of your organs, your heart & tries to break through the skin.

Add on top of the pain, the stress of being in your final semester of graduate work, putting a theatre production together in two weeks, working 20 hour days for that span. Putting together your thesis debate to defend it. And, having your wisdom teeth removed.

Yes, all of this happened between Jan & April of 2007.

A number of things happened that helped me through this. I had some wonderful friends who supported me. I had family who loved me. I had my own intellectual mind that was able to see the signs of pain & I had the strength to call a counselor while in tears & her kindness of talking with me on the phone for 30 mins for free, scheduling me the next day AM to come into the office. During that 30 min call, she suggested I seek additional help from a Psychiatrist as they may want to put me on a med to help me through it. I was able to get myself an appointment that following Monday into a new doctor that had just opened up her private practice after leaving the University’s hospital. (If any of you know Psychiatrists, you know their schedule is never that open..I was lucky).

I also went for a few appointments to the family counseling center at the University. I think I shocked the Graduate student who was my counselor, as I had quite a story. (What I have revealed is not the full story.)

All of that support around me helped me get over the pain enough that I no longer thought suicide was the answer. But, it wasn’t for another year and a half that I would be fully out of that emotion. It would take me moving in with my parents for 2 months, filing for divorce, moving 900 miles away to Alabama for my new job to get me moving. But, it wasn’t until a few months after my divorce was final did I ever feel free enough to break away from that pain. That was a year ago last March. I went off medication in July of last year. I still struggled with highs and lows, but it was no longer completely based on my past, but now about my future & present, so I had moved forward.

What suicide, depression & pain has taught me is that I’m extremely strong, I have the desire, the will and the want to not allow the pain to overtake me. But, most of all, despite having only a few close friends, they are ones that I love with my life. While my relationship life may have forever been hurt as I struggle to trust people, my love of life was not destroyed. I would not let that die within my heart. My heart still longs to be compassionate & I long to love someone greater than myself. For now, that part of my life remains empty, but I know when it’s time, I’ll be ready (I hope). I just hope they are ready to handle what might be within me not only in love, but also in pain. For I know, once I have someone who loves me enough to be willing to comfort my heart, the darkness that hides within me will need some light but the switch is nowhere to be found.

Letting the mind wonder..

“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” – James Arthur Baldwin

Occasionally, I see the news of a celebrity couple who is getting a divorce or splitting up and sometimes these are caused because one of them has gone outside of the relationship to have an affair. And, every time I see something like this it reminds me about my own experiences and makes me ponder the idea of why someone feels they need to cheat.

There are some who theorize that we are not meant to live in pairs. But, really is this the problem? Is the problem that we cannot biologically abstain from cheating on our loved one? Because, I have not, so what makes me different? Am I not normal?

Whether we are biologically programmed or not really does not answer the underlining question of why we would make a promise to someone and then go out of our way to break it. Or, perhaps not even out of our way, but it still happens. And then the lies and cover ups that follow just show that you know it is wrong.

Then, I wonder, what is more hurtful, the fact that your loved one broke your trust and bond or that they lied about it or tried to cover it up. Makes you wonder what is going on in the head of the deceiver.

In my own case, the relationship was 7 years old and the more legal bond between the two of us was less than 6 months. My partner’s notes that followed told me that our relationship had become dull and routine. Yet, all I could ask is, so why don’t we work together to address this and go through the process of bringing the relationship where it needed to go. This would be the sign of a mature relationship and couple willing to work together to gather the pieces together so that something that has been going on for many years does not just end because of a mistake. A stupid one, yes, but one that doesn’t have to end something. I mean, take a look at John Edward’s family. They are not fully past the mistake that John made, but they are doing it together and moving forward. Yes, Elizabeth has cancer that may cause her not to live a long time, but I doubt that is why they are still together or she would be miserable and living with cancer (not my choice of a good time)

I don’t know where I am going with this question or story, I guess I just wanted to write and see what happened. So, what causes a person to cheat, lie and betray and then what happens with the relationship after wards? Is the old statement -”once a cheater always a cheater” going to hold true? And if so, then my ex will have some interesting life experiences ahead, that’s for sure.

Love is a very interesting emotion and the fact that we combine ourselves together with the emotion in such a fragile situation that can easily be destroyed by one person, rather interesting.

As much as those moments within my life hurt and drove me down to depths I never ever wish to be again, it’s a wonderful feeling to come out of it, to feel alive and to look back at what I went through knowing that I am stronger for it. The idea that despite the pain, I really did not know how toxic the relationship was until I was over the pain. Anyone else have this experience other than me, I guess I feel like I am alone in this feeling. Or maybe it has been my attempt to reason within myself the fact that I am happier now than I ever was when I was in the relationship and all I can do is laugh because to think, I could still be miserable. And the lessons that I learned are valuable. And all I do is laugh when I hear about my ex’s life experiences because of how naive they are.

Any thoughts from the peanut gallery? Especially if you have experiences in marriage or whether you have been cheated on and how you went about moving forward. I know you have some thoughts for me