Tag Archives: suicide

Deniability, Transcendental Meditation and Discovering Yourself.

Posted on by
Reply

It fell from the truck, rolling, flipping and resting on the edge of the water. It lay there against the shore, the water pushing it lightly against the bank until the rush of new water pushed it into the stream.

It floated down the river, its shape changed mildly by the water until it drifted below the surface.

Walking through life, we get caught in the pull of things which aren’t under our control and they push us and pull us against other forces until we see the pull of one thing as our life’s purpose.

I always believed I should write, but I never knew I’d write something which people would read the way Delusions of Ink has.

I fell from the highest I’d been. A new child, a great wife, but I wasn’t the person I believed myself to be. I was only pretending to be that person. My facade was I was great husband and father, though I’ve learned that I was much harsher than I should have been.

When we discover we’re not the person we’ve been telling ourselves we slip from the bank of life, slide into the roaring river and float until we’ve become waterlogged and slip under the rising tide.

When I slipped under I didn’t know how to get to the surface. I was afraid of becoming someone other than I believed myself to be and I felt that changing who I was wasn’t the problem, everyone else should change to accommodate me.

When I began TM, I wasn’t aware yet. I wasn’t functioning the way I am today.

I was depressed, suicidal and I wanted my wife and kids to be happy. I felt they weren’t happy with me and suicide would fix that. I believed they’d be better without me.

Nearly a year after I wanted to end my life, I’m reaching people through the blog and through what I write. I’ve had confirmation of this and to have someone say you’d helped them is the greatest gift I could receive this holiday season.

The holidays are when suicides spike. So, when you see someone who doesn’t seem like themselves, please ask them if their okay.

If you have a friend who’s recently divorced, broken up with partner or someone who has no one, invite them to your party, they’ll be grateful and you may save a life.

If you’re having trouble this holiday please call the suicide hotline – 1(800) 273-8255

Have a safe Holiday season and Happy New Year.

Brian

Advertisement

The Day I Almost Didn’t See.

Posted on by
1

We never think about when our loved ones leave us until it gets closer.

It was 5:37, the phone pierced the early morning silence. Her hands unsteady, my mind racing, I watched her reach for it.

I tried not to listen, but by that time he’d already become another father to me.

I lay there with her in the predawn light, pieces of sun pushing through the blinds, her head on my chest, the tears flowing, hers and mine.

I held her until she had to get up and clear her sinuses.

My chest moist from her tears, her hair damp from mine and as she returned to bed, I realized what we’d been through the last 16 years.

She’d watched two of my grandfathers pass and one grandmother. While I saw her grandmother and that morning her father, but through all of it I never had that moment of clarity which expressed itself that morning.

We’d seen the worst of each other. The worst of our parents and yet we still clung to each other that morning.

I see her today. Her face bright, her multicolored eyes shimmering and I think about a year ago when I nearly took my own life.

I see our kids, their beautiful faces and remember thinking, “they’ll be better.”

But the truth was, I believed it then.

Today I see the life I almost gave up and I hug her tighter because I almost wasn’t there to hold her, to embrace her and wipe the tears away.

The last 8 months has changed me. Transcendental Meditation has changed who I am and I never thought I could feel this happy, but I never believed I’d live this long.

When I Wanted the Story to End.

Posted on by
Reply

Looking at life from a writer’s perspective, there’s a beginning, middle and end, right?

What if like some novels, we choose to end the story in the middle or not quite the end?

When we reach the point of ending the story prematurely, we discover who are friends are, who the people are that really care about us and whether our lives mean anything to someone else.

There are two times I’ve wanted to end my story, but I kept the writer guessing, wondering which way I would go.

When we keep the writer guessing, we keep life interesting, and if life is interesting, we want to discover how the story ends.

The first time I wanted to end the story, I was 13, I was bullied often and generally treated horribly.

I sat up late one night, holding a hobby knife as if it were a crucifix. I remember that night better than most. The way my sheets felt, the way I cried, and the way the story kept going.

I let the writer keep doing his thing because I wanted to see how the story would end, or at least how I would get out of the situation I was in. Things got better, I moved in with my mom and step-dad and I started a new school. I made friends, none of which I can remember, but I got through it. I let the story go on.

When I talk about these things some people believe I shouldn’t talk about how I wanted to die, not because I was selfish, but because I thought it was the best thing for my family. I believed they would be better if I weren’t there.

The second time, was more recent.

In February, I sat in my car after work, cried for 20 minutes and called my wife and told her, “I think I need to do something different.”

My work day had been horrible. I got in an argument with a co-worker. My work had been poor and didn’t really care if I made it home.

The whole drive home I hoped I would get in a wreck, I would die and my family would be better off. I believed that because my mind told me that’s what would happen.

That night, I sat at my computer, wrote a little bit and felt a little better.

I didn’t get in a wreck, or try to cause one, but I wanted to. The reason I didn’t was I wanted to see how my story ends, and I know it isn’t close to the final chapter.

I still have grandchildren I want to see. A daughter I want to see get married and a son I want to see turn into a man.

There are many parts of my story which are waiting in future chapters, the most important are still to come and I know that life isn’t done until the those two words come across the screen…The End!

Writing, Depression and Staying Away from the Cliff.

Posted on by
1

What do you do when the cold runs in. When the snow comes to your shins, or higher, and you think…how did this happen?

I see there are things we have in common. I once felt that the snow, ice, or whatever weather you prefer was rolling in all the time. I felt my life had been switched with a meteorologist on some backwoods station, but alas, it hadn’t.

I’d experienced the cold. Had things happen in my life that I didn’t or couldn’t do anything about, but I’ve also done things where I didn’t accept responsibility for my actions.

There are many reasons for this, the biggest being I wasn’t mature enough to understand my life was in my hands and I should stop making excuses for what I’m doing and stop blaming others for my screw ups.

Well, the cold came, it came in a torrent one year ago. I felt it run down my spine, into my soul and wrap every molecule with its frosty embrace. The truth a year ago was I was afraid to be who I wanted, I knew that who I was wasn’t what everyone wanted.

I wanted to be this free spirit. I wanted to care about the people around me who cared about me and to hell with the rest.

In the last year I’ve been down the drain of depression, felt the exhilaration as I reached the top of the cliff and stared at the little ants, and they had no idea I was standing on the cliff. They didn’t understand the cliff was closer than they thought, and possibly myself as well.

When I was able to step away from the edge, find myself and let everyone know what I’d been through, I felt ashamed that I’d stood on the cliff. I didn’t want anyone to know how close I came, hell most people believed I was the sanest person they knew.

The cliff is still out there, waiting for its chance to surprise me. Indeed it surprises me that I’ve even told my story of depression and coming out of it.

I’ve wanted to be this other person for so long, the one I am now, that trying to be the person I want is harder than I thought it would be.

I want to write as much as possible, but I’m like a dog in forest filled with squirrels.

When I tell myself, “You have to write” something happens, whether it’s a distraction or something else. I find that my time away from the keyboard is one that I don’t often like, but I do it, for the weirdest of reasons. I’m afraid to show some of what I write for fear that it would either make people afraid, or my wife would have me committed.

I see that I’m becoming who I want to be, without the distraction of caring what people think about me or my writing, and I’m finding that living in my world is getting better as long as I don’t climb the mountain and get near the cliff again.