Suicide Is Not a Dirty Word
Trigger Warning: In honour of suicide awareness and prevention, I’m sharing my own approach to thinking about suicide backed by my personal experiences thus this article contains details about suicide that may be triggering for some of you.
While my aim is to break the stigma around suicide ideation, it’s absolutely okay if you’re not in a position to digest this information as of yet. It doesn’t make you any less of a mental health awareness activist/ally. Be kind to and take care of yourself first — at least that’s how I’ve made it this far.
“You’ll probably battle suicide ideation for the rest of your life… And that’s okay.”
My dear therapist’s words to me after I shared my suicidal thoughts with her for what felt like the umpteenth time.
Suicide is not a dirty word.
It’s a legitimate symptom of Depressive disorders and other mental illnesses like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Neither is it pretence or attention-seeking behaviour but a genuine state of mental torment; one that ravages the mind and withers the soul.
If you survive that period of torment and/or a suicide attempt, the road to recovery feels like utter resurrection because surviving a suicide attempt can leave you traumatised. So imagine going through this process every so often?
It’s completely exhausting.
What’s worse is that we’re often not allowed to name our pain or share it out in the open. Because to feel suicidal and/or attempt suicide is shameful and in some circles, it’s even considered a sin, further increasing the stigma around it.
Attempting for the first time
It’s September 2011, I’m one term away from completing my first year of secondary school. Suddenly this dark cloud descends heavily on me engulfing every part of my already insecure and fragile brain.
You see, I was a star pupil in my primary school years but couldn’t seem to replicate that same performance in high school. It seemed like the harder I tried, the lower I fell on the performance ladder. I was so ashamed and also felt rejected by an important family member whose validation I revelled in.
So this new glaring unfamiliar cloud (that I would later come to understand is the onset of a depressive episode) was the last straw.
I felt like a freak inside but couldn’t quite articulate this to anyone. I’d occasionally express my distress to my compassionate deskmate but she felt helpless in the face of my mental anguish.
I felt the need to vacate to a different school, possibly one where I’d get more academic assistance — a legitimate struggle that I can now clearly label as severe Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Aside from that, I had begun to associate my dark cloudy companion with my then school so I felt a change would do me some good. I finally got the chance to do so in my third year but I’d already attempted suicide one year before then.
It was April 2012 and the mysterious dark cloud had successfully carried over into my second year. At this point, I had just turned 16 and really couldn’t see myself living long enough to see my 17th birthday.
That’s the thing with depression and suicide ideation. Your mind begins shutting down while your body still tries to live, still tries to show up the next day. So you will attend class, you will show up for meals, you will go for club meetings but you’re never really there.
At least that was my experience.
So I lived on in this manner until I went home for the April holidays and right there, lying in my bed, I got tired of the mental torment. I got tired of hurting.
So I walked to the kitchen, reached out for a knife and;…
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Project Semicolon {;},
“A semicolon represents a sentence the author could have ended but chose not to. That author is you and the sentence is your life.”
Bearing this in mind, on March 27th 2019, three days before my 23rd birthday, I got a significant tattoo across my right wrist. The tattoo reads:
vulnerab;e
I chose the word Vulnerable because I vowed to boldly and openly talk about my symptoms, to talk about suicide, to talk about mental illness for the rest of my life.
And here I am.
Rising strong
Alongside helping me come to terms with my predisposition to suicide ideation, my therapist also shared a powerful mantra with me:
“Kate, you too are made to do hard things.”
It’s carried me through a couple of really challenging times, most recently finally getting a formal mental illness diagnosis.
Right before I was diagnosed, I underwent a very traumatic experience. One that sent me over the edge like never before. I barely slept and when I did I’d wake up in a panic. The racing thoughts and panic attacks were so severe I’d feel like I’m choking while experiencing shortness of breath. It was so taxing on my mind and body that I felt like completely giving in to the voices in my head. But this time, I knew I needed to see a psychiatrist right away.
Two psychiatric evaluations later and…
“My name is Katherine Wairimu Ndung’u. I am living with multiple mental illness and I accept myself. I also accept the joy of the responsibility to manage my symptoms.”
It took weeks of saying this affirmation over and over in the mirror to accept myself. I no longer really struggle with the specific terms/labels of my conditions — I’m a science nerd so I appreciate having specific names that explain my symptoms. It aids my self-acceptance journey.
However, that may not be the case for some of you so I encourage you to make your experience your own. Add plenty of self-compassion to your process. You are NOT damaged goods, you are NOT “too much” and your thoughts matter.
So OCCUPY SPACE.
Call suicide by its name
Six months of psychoeducation, medication and therapy later, I am fully alive, stable and functional. My diagnosis has given me back the life I only dreamed of since I was three years old. As I write this, I’ve just completed six and a half months straight of (mostly) daily exercise. I call it,
Training for the fight of my life
Because that’s exactly what living with suicide ideation as a symptom of mental illness looks like.
So calling it by its name isn’t triggering it or “attracting it to yourself”, neither is it sinful. It’s simply honouring the potential for severe mental torment that could quickly turn into a permanent loss.
Don’t sugarcoat your thoughts and feelings so that people feel “more comfortable”. This only reinforces the harmful idea that legitimate symptoms of various mental health disorders are somehow socially unacceptable, dangerous and even immoral.
Call suicide by its name.
This is why I love Kanye West’s song “I Thought About Killing You”. Because it’s an accurate, unsanitised depiction of a mind plagued by suicide ideation:
The most beautiful thoughts are always beside the darkest
Today I seriously thought about killing you
I contemplated, premeditated murder
And I think about killing myself
And I love myself way more than I love you, so
Today I thought about killing you, premeditated murder
You’d only care enough to kill somebody you love
The most beautiful thoughts are always beside the darkest
Just say it out loud to see how it feels
People say, “Don’t say this, don’t say that”
Just say out loud, just to see how it feels
Weigh all the options, nothing’s off the table
Today I thought about killing you, premeditated murder
I think about killing myself, and I, I love myself way more than I love you
The most beautiful thoughts are always beside the darkest
I think this is the part where I’m supposed to say something good
To compensate it so it doesn’t come off bad
But sometimes I think really bad things
Really, really, really bad things
And I love myself way more than I love you
See, if I was trying to relate it to more people
I’d probably say “I’m struggling with loving myself”
Because that seems like a common theme
But that’s not the case here
I love myself way more than I love you
And I think about killing myself
So, best believe, I thought about killing you today
Premeditated murder
This song goes beyond “I’ve been there too” and actually gives us words to articulate the debilitating loop of thoughts. It provides a reference point for what we frequently go through but are heavily judged for.
Training for the fight of my life
My countless experiences with suicide ideation have taught me to sit with my thoughts and feel all my feelings. To acknowledge the gory details as part of my life journey much like I always know I’m susceptible to a cold anytime no matter how healthy I’ve been.
I no longer hate myself for experiencing suicide ideation. I refuse to let the critics and uninformed shame me into inaction. I reject their beliefs and perceptions about the kind of person I am. I also refuse to reduce my fellow warriors who succumbed to suicide to that single act.
So what do I do once the dark thoughts set in? I honour the power I do have to take my own life then I remember the choice I’ve made to live and to live fully. Not all in one fell swoop, I take as much time as I need at each stage.
Then when I’m ready, I summon the courage that helped me overcome the last suicide attempt and the one before that. It’s like being knocked down in a ring then remembering all those times you got back up and won.
During times of crisis, I tend to lean into the mental fortitude I’ve developed through consistent training. I remember how I absolutely crushed a particular dance workout I didn’t think I’d ever master.
Or how I woke up and trained before work even when I didn’t feel like it. And I believe I can do anything I put my mind to — even live one more day when my mind is in full protest.
I love how Anthony Joshua puts it,
“I’ve felt 5/10, 4/10 on a spurring day and I’ve had a good session. If I feel a 7 or a 6 and I’ve got to fight with Povetkin, it shouldn’t be a problem cause I felt like this a billion times.”
Think of suicide as your “Povetkin” in this case. If you managed not to self-harm last time, you can try and ride out your current wave of suicide ideation.
But no matter what, this is the ring of life people and what works for one person may not be suitable for another.
Moreover, sometimes you win, sometimes you get knocked down and that one time you might get completely knocked out of the ring. And that’s all okay.
Because suic;de is still not a dirty word.
And in that same spirit of normalising conversations around mental illnesses, starting with this article I’ll be regularly sharing information on:
- Different types of disorders — mood disorders (bipolar and depression), neurocognitive disorders like ADHD, trauma disorder like C-PTSD, anxiety disorders and personality disorders among others
- The psychopharmacology involved — understanding how the medication works for different disorders, identifying your individual symptoms, how to advocate for yourself when it comes to your own medication and its side effects and effectiveness in resolving your symptoms
- The day-to-day management tools I use like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and (Social Rythm Therapy) and how I monitor my mood
- My journey — my experiences with psychiatric evaluations and therapy, tips for choosing your mental health practitioners and how I’m handling different experiences in my life with a diagnosis
I would like this space to be the resource I wish I had growing up, I hope it can be for you too.
Writing can be a lifeline, especially when your existence has been denied, especially when you have been left on the margins, especially when your life and process of growth have been subjected to attempts at strangulation.
- Micere Githae Mugo
See you next month!
