Heaven on Earth
Updated: Feb 26
Suicidal thoughts, they can make you feel shameful and guilty for even having them. You may even wonder Why do I hate life so much? Why do I feel so much pain? You don't want to share these thoughts with anyone because you don’t want to hurt anyone. You look around and everyone seems so busy. Others seem to be overwhelmed with life. You don't want to bother anyone. So you suffer.
You go to a therapist never actually telling them how you feel and wonder why you're not healing. You lie to yourself and to others. “I am good,I’m doing ok.” You smile and laugh when other people are around, no one has a clue that you feel dead on the inside. They may feel a small hunch that you are going through a hard time or maybe that something feels off but they don’t know that you are in so much emotional pain.
You have no clue why you feel this way.Then you start to have thoughts of slitting your wrist and the blood pouring out on the floor, you then begin to imagine that as you lay bleeding out on the ground the emotional pain starts to be released from you body. They don't know that in your mind you can feel the cold barrel of a gun on your lips and the metal of the barrel clanking against your teeth.
I have been suicidal more than once in my life. I carried with me an enormous amount of pain. I felt frustrated because I could not understand why this kept happening to me. I could not understand why I kept feeling this way. I have had some tough experiences in life but nothing that I considered “trauma.”
Turns out after years of trying to figure out what was wrong with me it was unprocessed emotions, and it was trauma. You see, trauma is not just related to violence or disaster. It is anything that causes or creates significant distress.
It is being a small child and someone much bigger and larger that you yelling at you, because you said a “curse” word, it is being a young girl and a grown man staring at you lustfully, it asking for help and expressing your needs as child and getting laughed at or ignored, sudden death of a parent or loved one, being robbed at gunpoint, emotional neglect or abuse, rape, physical, sexual and emotional abuse or assault. Trauma is something that we have all experienced at some point in our life.
It is the painful experiences we avoid facing and healing because it's too painful to look at. So we carry it with us our whole lives until we just can't anymore. Until we get so low and the pain becomes too much to bear. The thoughts of suicide creep in, quiet at first then get louder and louder. You think that if you end your life you end the pain but really you just pass the pain to the ones that love you and in turn end up passing the pain to the ones you leave behind.
I am thankful to have experienced the pain of the sudden loss of my father at a young age. Being familiar with this pain is what has saved my life, it is what has kept me from being able to pass this pain on to others. It is what kept me from being able to commit suicide. I could not intentionally pass down and create that amount of pain to my son, to my family and friends.
I am thankful to somehow see that my family and friends love me, even though I did not love myself. I am thankful that I chose life. I am thankful I did the hard thing, face the pain.
I would often ask myself what cave am I afraid to enter? What am I afraid to look at? What am I afraid to heal?
The Body Keeps The Score, by Bessel Van Der Kolk is a great book about trauma, it was the book that helped me understand the complexity of emotions and what trauma really is. It has many resources on how to heal trauma.
I am also so thankful that I did not follow through with my thoughts, that I had the courage to reach out and ask for help. You see it's not life that I wanted to end, it was the pain. What I have discovered after years of working on myself through a variety of modalities is this. Life is fun, life is exciting and I am worthy of experiencing the best of what life has to offer and you are too.
For me heaven is a place on earth and so is hell. I have experienced both in my mind and in my heart.
If you are feeling thoughts of suicide ask for help. These types of thoughts are way more common than what you would think. I know that you feel alone but you are not. I know that you think no one loves you but they do. Every second you have a chance to start over, to forgive yourself and others. To choose love.
Remember that healing is not a one size fits all approach. You can't just take an antidepressant or take one psychedelic journey and think you are immediately healed. It's a process. For me it has been a combination of the above and mediation, journaling, figuring out who the hell I am and being that person. I have had to face my fears, question old beliefs, sit with the pain and feel it. Go to therapy, do energy work, read and write. Speak my truth and face the pain, learn to love myself.
I have had to learn about things that I didn't even know were a thing. Boundaries, expectations, Self compassion, trauma, voice of judgment. Learning about what these things are and applying them. I had to get to know what my inner dialogue is saying, why it is saying what it is and questioning if it is true. I had to get to know myself, reconnect with my true self, my authentic self.
If you are feeling suicidal please have the strength and courage to ask for help. You are not your thoughts, you are not the shitty things that you have done, you are not alone. You are a lovable, amazing, spirit who has some healing to do. Your mess may be your message that could change someone's life or even save a life. Share your story, speak your truth and remember you are love, light and spirit.
You can and will experience your own piece of heaven on earth one day and you will be so thankful that you chose to stay. That you chose life over death.
Below is a list of books that when studied and applied to life can help you heal
Seat of the Soul, Gary Zukav
Self Compassion, Kristen Neff
A Return to Love, Marianne Williamson
The Body Keeps the Score,Bessel Van Der Kolk
Breaking the Habit of being Yourself, Joe Dispenze
You can heal your life, Louise Hay
Tell Yourself a better lie, Marisa Peer
The power is within you, Louise Hay
Untethered Soul, Michael Singer
The Tools, Phil Stutz and Berry Michels