Looking back, depression was always the lens through which I viewed the world. As a child, I grew up to be a melancholy, oversensitive child. I was only 11 years old when I first held a razor blade to my wrist and contemplated suicide.
Over the years, I learned to work with my depression and later schizophrenia. I expanded my view enough so that it contained good days and bad days. I was always taught to hope that I would somehow be better, or different. As if my intense sadness was not enough, I was encouraged to change because of the fear that I would not be able to be a whole person. I felt pain so intensely.
I have found that self-improvement is one of the toughest challenges we can face. When we do not allow ourselves to be okay with who we are, we miss the only moment that we can really truly inhabit. We spend all day comparing ourselves to others, or to a past or future self. We do the same in writing—in black block letters on the mirror, we write “I am not okay.” We must be right here, right now.
I did this for years. For many, hope is a fine coping mechanism, but it is also a source of rigid expectations and anxiety. It removes us from the moment and shifts the focus onto a future that may be riddled with comparisons to the life we think we should be living. Touching on one’s sense of being okay, no matter the circumstance, comes from unconditional acceptance. It does not come from believing you will be different tomorrow, next week, or next year.
My story is not of one of hope. It is a story of realizing that life is workable. It is a testament to the brilliance of possibility in the present moment. What happens when you let go of fear and hope, or at least hold them with some degree of scrutiny, is that you can work with yourself without being caught-up in the shame of not meeting your expectations. This does not create laziness. Absence of hope and fear is where we stop projecting ourselves into the past. The future is where real work and real healing can happen.
Recently, a therapist told me that only in letting go of hoping for something to be different, we are able to make way for profound change. If we are able to be ourselves and live with our ugliness, our chaos, our true experience of the world, we can move past mental illness.
Right here, right now.
Change can only happen in the present. Psychological change takes time.
So, what does this change process look like? Over time, I gently accepted who and where I was. In time, after letting go of the self-directed aggression of aspiration, my heart opened. Gradually, it became apparent that I needed to help others. When you begin directly working with your sense of balance and your unconditional acceptance of yourself, then it just happens.
Surprise! When you part the clouds, there you are. You are beautifully imperfect and you don’t even care about your own plight. The focus has shifted and it’s no longer all about you. The world is not perfect either. Because you no longer judge yourself so harshly, you naturally have compassion for the world. This takes healing to a higher level.
Suddenly, after years of tumultuous emotions and a few more of having none at all, I now feel something that is worth opening my heart for. The more you open your heart, the more you leap into the abyss of not knowing how others will react. You are going to get hurt, but this makes you more alive, more human.
I have not described a cure for depression or any other type of mental illness. I still take medication for my schizophrenia as well as an antidepressant. They allow me to be healthy so that help others. I still struggle and obsess about not being good enough. Knowing that this is not the truth allows me to begin, again and again, to love myself. I know that hope has its place and is not going to disappear.
There is the hope that I will be somehow better, smarter, more attractive, more talented, more significant. That tomorrow will somehow bring some magic relief. Hope now gets in the way of my mental health.
If I can provide a suggestion to those who continue to cling to the goal of becoming someone you are not, I will give it with a smile. Hope nearly ended my life. Working with, accepting and loving myself as is, was the beginning of my recovery.
Right here, right now.
Topic: Suicide
