November 20th, National Survivors of Suicide Day

I'm doing this post for a few reasons.  First, with the recent slew of gay suicides across the country and, secondly, I almost became one of these statistics:

•Over 34,000 people in the United States die by suicide every year.
•In 2007 (latest available data), there were 34,598 reported suicide deaths.
•Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for adults between the ages of 18 and 65 years in the United States (28,628 suicides).
•Currently, suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the United States.
•A person dies by suicide about every 15 minutes in the United States.
•Every day, approximately 90 Americans take their own life.
•Ninety percent of all people who die by suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death.
•There are four male suicides for every female suicide, but three times as many females as males attempt suicide.
•There are an estimated 8-25 attempted suicides for every suicide death.

A few years back, after a stagnant point in my life, I decided to make some changes.  I had just had a major break up,  lost a job, and my dog, Shelby, had died, so I thought I'd move for a fresh start.  Prone to clinical and seasonal depression already, the situational depression just added to it, but I was optimistic with a new focus.  With Philadelphia, Ft. Lauderdale and Las Vegas in the running, I chose Las Vegas.  I was working at the Marriott at the time as a bartender and thought that I'd probably have a better go of it in Vegas since, at the time, it was thriving.  I put my house up for sale and had someone who was going to buy it, but backed out four days before I was ready to leave.  Having a low mortgage, I decided that it would be feasible to pay the mortgage while living out there, meanwhile trying to get it sold from out there. 

After racking up my credit cards to get out there and a swift decline in the economy, especially in that area, I quickly realized that unless I grew some hooties, employment in the hotel business/bartending was going to be abismal since they were basically only hiring beautiful girls... having their pick from the 3,000 people a month that were moving there thinking it was a goldmine.  I quickly ran out of money and, soon thereafter, hope.  I applied to so many jobs and would show up to open casting calls for bartender jobs where thousands of people would come out to apply for one job.  I started to withdraw from friends that I had made out there and would take long drives in the desert to clear my head, only to delve deeper into my head, as the mysterious desert has that effect.  Consumed by my own thoughts that never stopped swirling in my head, I spiraled into a deep depression, barely eating and leaving my room.  As it progressed over a month, I stopped all basic care, slept days away and was up throughout the nights and didn't leave the apartment, much less my room, for 5 day stretches.

By this time, I had given up hope of turning my life around.  I was in debt and saw no way out.  A friend, Kahnrad, that I had met out there was going through somewhat the same thing so, at least, we had each other to talk to, since misery loves company.  We both had discussed ending our lives and then we stopped communicating to each other.  I became consumed with getting rid of my stuff, I didn't answer my phone any more because I didn't feel I had anything to contribute to a conversation but gloom and despair, and I became disconnected from everyone.  My Myspace page became a shrine to my depression and I wrote some poetry that I had posted.  My friend, Elaine, who basically moved out there with me but hadn't moved in officially yet and barely was out there, didn't know what to do with me.  I opened up to her about my suicidal thoughts and with the geographical distance between us and the depression being a part of me then and in the past that I never shared with her and she was floored.  Not being able to help me, she pulled back.  I made my Last Will for what little I did have left and I became consumed with ways to commit suicide.  With the Grand Canyon being only a few hours away, I decided that I would drive there and simply walk off the side of the canyon.  As I'm writing this, I get chills thinking how I was only days away from carrying this out.  The level of despair and apathy was incredible.  Finally, I answered the phone one day and it was my friend Matthew from here in Pittsburgh.  He talked to my friend Anna who was my boss at the Marriott and they convinced me to move back home and come back to my old job.  I'm not sure what snapped in my, especially since it really wasn't a great situation to go back to, but I packed everything up and came back and moved back into my house, which was just sitting there empty for 4 months..

The worst thing for my mental health has always been unemployment.  Miserable-but-working is always a better strategy for sanity for me because with too much time on my hands, I turn inward and basically drive myself bat-shit crazy.  When I came back, I told myself that I would only concern myself with getting up, going to work and going to sleep, and I did that for a few months before I slowly edged my way back into caring about anything and out of my depression, which took a couple of years to fully get beyond.  Dealing with an increased amount of debt, a house that I didn't want to be in and no direction in my future, I was reduced to an infant mentality of coping, ignoring most things that faced me to get through the recovery.  A 'fuck everybody' attitude had to be adopted.  Depression is a dark place where some don't get out. While in it, I felt a comfort of feeling something... despair, hurt, etc. Coming back out of it, I felt nothing and actually longed to be back in it where although I felt dead inside, I was feeling that death on a daily basis and it was something to feel.  I traded hope for an end back into hope for a future, however dismal.

My birth father shot himself in the head in the bedroom with 4 kids (I wasn't there) downstairs in the living room about a year after I was given up for adoption.  Upon learning this years ago, I often think about the genetics of a chemical imbalance and how it's out of your control.  I am happy to say that I am a long way out of it now.  I still have my bad days, but I can honestly say that I have moved forward and have much hope for my future, unlike that point in my life.  I am posting this a few days before the official day because to be a survivor (not that I survived suicide, only depression), you have to stop it... and that's the hard part, obviously.  For me, it was a focus on something other than the end.  Be aware of friends and family that show the signs of depression and suicide and although you may not know what to do, just be there.

As a tribute, I would have liked to have shared a few of the poems that I wrote during that period, but with the virus that I had over the summer and losing my whole computer, I'm not sure that I have them any more, but I will look for them.  Instead I will post the video from 'The Secret', something that I watched every morning for months to get me through and rebuild my confidence and self-worth (with a special connection to the passage at around 1:10 (cliff divers).  Maybe not having the poems is a good thing (to not be reminded), and maybe not.  My recently-planned (but cancelled) trip to Vegas was going to serve as therapy to move through it and put closure on the worst time period of my life once and for all.