I recently came across an unattributed quote:
“I don’t know how my story will end, but nowhere in my text will it read, “I gave up.”
The quote encourages a fighting attitude, which is an inspiring message.
But, I want people to know that their text can read “I gave up.” As long as that’s not the end of their story.
I gave up. Then, I began to fight again.
On May 15th, I woke up without any hope at all. Another morning in a string of endless days waking up without any promise or anticipation of what was to come. In that moment, I gave myself exactly one month, until June 15th, to feel hope. Any hope at all. Hope would give me something to live for, without it, I didn’t want to exist anymore. I couldn’t exist as I was, I couldn’t live the life I had. I had a plan for living, but I also had a plan for dying.
Like any other human necessity air, shelter, water, food and hope is something imperative to survival and I was quickly running out of time.
In my mind, one solitary moment of hope didn’t seem like too much to ask for, and one month seemed like a reasonable amount of time to find it. So I gave myself 2,592,000 seconds to feel hope. I wanted just one.
While I didn’t have enough hope, I had too many memories, too much pain, and was too tired to fight anymore. There were too many moments ingrained so deep in anxiety and panic that my brain shut down. Anyone who has witnessed my chronic panic attacks and dissociation could attest to that. Years of abuse, trauma after trauma, and the decline of my own physical health fractured my soul in so many places, I could barely recognize true feelings anymore. Except hopelessness. That one never truly leaves you.
Suicide will tell you there’s no other way out but death.
Several weeks after my decision, I told my therapist, “this is what I’m waiting for and this is how I am going to die.” It wasn’t a cry for help; it was more factual than that. I honestly don’t know if he even took me seriously. But, that night, I was admitted to the psychiatric unit of the hospital.
I admitted myself. So there had to be some fight left in me. I just didn’t recognize it. I still had my life ultimatum and that extended beyond the confines of the hospital’s walls, but there was something else there as well. I entered the hospital with only one thought in my mind: I wanted to end my life.
While I spent my time at the hospital, moving through the days and group assignments like a zombie waiting for a bleeding heart, my psychiatric team worked on admitting me to a residential facility in Illinois that specialized in treating the whole person, rather than just the broken pieces. After all, even the strongest glue only works temporarily. Eventually both the treatment center and my insurance approved the admission.
After I was admitted, I couldn’t let myself believe that I was going to get real help; I didn’t let myself feel hope. If I hoped, I would lose it, certainly. And that was a loss I couldn’t afford. It was only after I arrived in Illinois did I believe I was really going to get the help that I needed. From there, I spent 6 weeks gradually becoming more active in my own recovery and finding the traction I needed from which to fight.
Eventually, I started to believe that I was going to survive.
And I let time pass, that’s the only cure. Little by little, I started to feel something again. In the beginning, it wasn’t quite hope, but something worth fighting for.
Taking Moments at a Time
You take one moment at a time. Not a day or a week or a month - just a moment. Every second you breathe in, there is time. Time to find yourself. Time to love yourself. Time to live and find hope in even the smallest moments. So you survive the moments, and you survive the days, and they eventually turn into weeks and months. And then you realize that your pain will end without your life having to.
One day, you’ll look up at the sky, feel the hope and know there are so many more moments worth fighting for.
