To be, or not to be

Have I ever thought of giving up on life? Yes. Several times. No, more than several. Sometimes on a daily basis.

How is this possible? It's a combination of chemicals in my brain, self-hatred, loss of hope, and tunnel vision.

I have felt less than human for most of my life. I am an adoptee. Yes, I know that I am human, but I didn't feel like I belonged to the human race. I was a changeling. I could speak the language and understand how to move about my surroundings, but something was never quite right. It's like living in a foreign country--and for some adoptees, it is a very REAL foreign country--but most people don't want to admit out loud that you don't belong. No matter. You KNOW it. And if you verbalize this feeling of not belonging, you will be squashed and ostracized by the "bitter/angry/ungrateful" police.

No matter how hard I tried, and no matter how much my parents loved me, I thought my life a huge mistake. It didn't help that I always felt like an outsider, and I was treated like one in the community in which I grew up. I had different goals and ideals. I didn't want to be average. I was taller than most kids until high school--and even now, I am not a short, petite woman. I stood out, literally and figuratively.

It didn't help that I couldn't love myself. It is incredibly hard, however, for most people to love themselves, and even harder, in my opinion, for many adoptees. We felt we were abandoned, whether we were actively abandoned or not, by our original families. And if an innocent baby is beyond the love of the people who made her, how could anyone else love her? Ever? I know this seems far-fetched to many of you who are not adopted, but imagine being set adrift and having to try to understand who you are without any point of reference. It is excruciating and exhausting.

I started cutting in high school. I wanted to self-mutilate because I preferred physical pain to emotional pain. I thought about cutting my wrists, deeply, so that I would bleed out. Not existing seemed a decent option to a life of never-ending pain. But I was afraid.

I thought again about suicide in my 20's. I was unhappy in graduate school, and none of my intimate relationships ever seemed to work out. I can see much of that now as poor choices made on my part, but at the time, I thought that academia was right, and I loved those men. Why could no one love me back with the same faith and intensity, why could my adviser cut me down at every turn? When I was 27, one particular breakup--and graduate school--left me wanting to die. It wasn't so much missing the guy as feeling that my situation was entirely hopeless. No one would ever love me, I would never get a job, I would always be the whipping girl. What was the point? I was the first person that people would sacrifice. I was worthless.

It is really hard to communicate how it feels to be suicidal. Death simply makes sense when you're in the pit of despair. Telling someone not to kill themselves is a good thing to do, if it is done with real kindness. If it's just that you think suicide is morally wrong, and the person who feels suicidal knows that you aren't invested in him or her, it's probably more irritating than anything else to be lectured. It's like condescending head-patting when others want to smooth things over and take control, rather than accept and acknowledge the suicidal person's very real feelings of pain.

I remember my psychiatric nursing rotation vividly. We watched a difficult documentary film called The Bridge, about people who committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge over the period of one year. We discussed the film with our professors, and learned what is useful and not useful in supporting someone who is suidical. We learned about what it takes to 5150 someone. I liked this especially because I learned what it was safe, or not safe, to say to people who have the power to commit me. I don't want others to take control over what I do. I've had enough of that in my life. I cried when I  worked with the many suicidal children in the in-patient unit, many of whom were adopted, and from Russia and Guatemala. Coincidence?

To be quite honest, I was actively suicidal from May of last year to early January of this year. I was functional most of the time. Very few people knew how awful I felt. I had my adoptee friends in my corner; they kept me afloat. I saw a series of different therapists, none of whom helped me. I tried Zoloft and then Wellbutrin. People berated me for even thinking about suicide because I would be abandoning my children. And you know what? I. Didn't. Care. So much of my life had been spent taking care of other people's feelings. I knew my kids would be devastated, but I wasn't going to stay alive for any reason other than wanting to stay alive for MYSELF. Living for others is a very, very hollow experience. I don't recommend it.

I cannot even describe what it's like to be hanging from the cliff by one fingernail. It's so horrible that nothing, absolutely nothing, matters, except ending it all. There were times I was suicidal when my parents were visiting, but I knew I couldn't do it when they were around. I didn't want them involved with the immediate aftermath. I didn't want to leave a note. I just didn't want to go on, to breathe, to do ANYTHING. Every act of living was too much.

What saved me in the end? My first mother and her compassion.

She knew I was suicidal. We talked about it. She was very kind and honest, and by opening herself up--at last--and allowing me to be part of her life, I finally felt that my whole existence hadn't been one huge, damned mistake. I finally belonged to two families, both of whom love me. I was not an alien any longer. C owned what she had done, and by taking back all of that guilt and silence, she freed me from a huge part of my burden.

I know that C's family tree is deeply gutted by depression and suicide. That was good to learn, as well. It wasn't that I was aberrant or strange; severe depression is in my genes. That's not to say I can't conquer the dark feelings and blankness. I can. I am still on Wellbutrin. I am finished with therapy because I am not opening myself up to be misunderstood, yet again. I know my limits. I will try not to give up. But it's a battle.

I don't know what the future holds. I may end up on the brink again. Right now it seems like that was a different life, but I am too wise to try to convince myself it will never happen again.