Content Warning: suicide, and a tiny bit of blood
I have been living on borrowed time for twenty-nine years. It was today, twenty-nine years ago, that I cut deep across my wrists with a razor blade, hoping that I would drift pleasantly off to sleep and not wake up.
So, obviously, that didn’t work out. But it might have, and so I have a blessing to count today.
I was mocked for my attempt. I know this, because my suddenly-ex-boyfriend told me so. Word had gone around at school that I hadn’t really meant it, because I cut crossways, and not lengthwise. Well, what did I know? I was eighteen, and that’s always how they did it on television. Believe me when I say that I was sincere. Although I did use a safety razor, so there’s always that niggle of doubt… did I really want to die, or had I just had enough?
This isn’t a story I normally tell. There’s a lot of shame involved. My mother was ashamed of me. My father was so ashamed of me that he told me that I’d committed a sin. My suddenly-ex-boyfriend’s mother informed me that I had never, in fact, been his girlfriend, so I can only conclude that he was ashamed of me, as well. My grandmother accidentally cut her hand in the kitchen and needed four stitches, making me ashamed of the mere three stitches my own wounds had demanded. Shame caused my attempt; shame followed my attempt. Shame led me to wear long sleeves for years and years.
Shame is a great silencer.
I’m telling you this today because too many people are drowning in their own shame. If writing this today helps one single person out there who needs to read it, it will be worth it. Because I want to tell that one single person: there will be blessings, too.
Consider: tulips in full bloom, only a day after the city was pelted by snow.
Consider: the soothing sh-sh-sh of a steam iron as it erases a crease in a garment.
Consider: a moment of learning shared with a partner, before the two of you each move back into the separate circles of your day.
Consider: television so badly written that it protects you from yourself on your worst of days.
If you feel a little less despair today than you did yesterday, count that blessing. It won’t cure your depression; I know this because it hasn’t cured mine. But if you can, hold the glittering moments in your hands and marvel at them. Hold them close.
And keep counting.
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