My name is Kelley. I remember having my first suicidal thought at the age of 13. At that time, I had discovered that my brother was gay and my sister and father completely abandoned him just because he was gay. I had been molested by a female when I was young and this information about my brother made me wonder if I was going to be gay, too. At the time, I had no clue how a person became gay.
I went on to have tragedy after tragedy strike in my life. To name just a few, I have lost two children, both of my parents, breastcancer at the age of 40, double mastectomy, chemo, two reconstruction surgeries, discovering at the end of my treatment that my husband had been living a double life for many, many years which led to my divorce, and an almost-successful suicide attempt.
I was on life support for many days and not expected to live. When I did survive, I was so angry that someone had found me in time. I had planned everything to perfection and was literally devastated that I was still on this earth. After many months of seeing a psychiatrist, I still had suicidal thoughts. Only now, suicide was no longer an option.
There was absolutely no way I could put my kids through something so horrific again. What was even worse is that I felt like I truly was alone in my thoughts because I knew people wouldn’t understand how in the world I could still think those thoughts.
There were so many days I did not want to get out of bed. One day, I was having an extreme suicidal episode. I was a nervous wreck; all I wanted to do was figure out a way to die without hurting anyone. I thought to myself that I might be okay if only I could just run far, far away but leave my mind behind. At this time, I was in a fetal position on my bedroom floor, rocking back and forth, trying everything within me to stay alive.
I suddenly had a thought that I just wanted to take a shower. Although I really didn’t want to, I did it. I went on to go ahead and get dressed and put on my makeup and then actually get in my car and drive down the street to get a Coke. From the moment I got out of the shower, I knew right away that I felt a tad bit better. But by the time I got back home, I felt really good. I immediately made the connection of what I had done to get myself out of that episode of being in the throes of the suicidal thoughts.
[For more of this story, written by Kelley McElreath, go to http://psychcentral.com/blog/a...ping-yourself-alive/]
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