Out of Darkness - Why I Walk

Dear American Foundation for Suicide Prevention,

I gathered with hundreds of Santa Barbarians on a glorious morning for the Out of Darkness Walk last Sunday. After years of saying, I should join the walk and not doing it, I finally gathered up my courage and signed up. I signed my young children up too, thinking it would be a good experience for the four of us. Newly licensed as a psychologist, I thought it was a good idea to create more professional connections and joining some members of the psychological association in the walk would allow me to network while supporting a cause that was very important to me.

There was a lot of bickering on the way out of our house that morning.

Just get your sunblock on please, I’ve asked you to do it three times.

Why do we have to do this? I don’t want to go.

Because it is for a good cause.

Where are my shoes?

Why don’t you put them on the shoe rack when you take them off, then you wouldn’t lose them so much.

On and on it went, anyone with kids knows this grumpy routine of leaving the house and trying to be the left-brain for everyone. It is especially bad on an early weekend morning when we’d all prefer to hang around in pajamas for a few lazy hours.

When we arrived at Leadbetter Beach, my kids were surprised at how many people were there. We made our way through the crowd to the sign up desk and got our nametags and then moved over to the bead table.  I was not prepared for the bead table. Displayed before us was a rainbow of beaded necklaces. Red is for the loss of a spouse or partner, orange for the loss of a sibling, gold - a parent, green for my personal struggle, blue for support of the cause, teal because a loved one struggles, purple for the loss of a relative or friend, white for the loss of a child, silver – a lost first responder or military service member. Standing at the table my children said to me, “What should we take?” I said, “purple for your cousins’ grandfather who died by suicide in October.” I took the purple beads too in honor of him and for the two friends that I lost before him. I also picked up blue and my children grabbed it too. We were there to support the cause of suicide prevention. Then I picked up teal, “Who do you know who needs that,” my son asked. “For Uncle Monkey who is still struggling, for some of my friends, and for a few of my clients.” My children began to walk away with their three necklaces dangling from their necks. They were looking for the pastry table.

I stood there, the green strand haunting me, calling to me - my personal struggle. My mind was racing. This will out me if I grab the green beads. Am I ready for this conversation with my kids? Are they too young? Maybe they won’t notice if I grab it. Will my colleagues notice? Would they ever refer to me if they saw this color around my neck? They will think I am unstable, even though I haven’t struggled for 2o years. Don’t take it, don’t risk it. You’ll be a fraud if you don’t take it. But, we need more people to be honest and take these darn, green beads.

There I was, frozen at the bead table. I have been a member of the American Association of Suicidology for years. It took me two and a half years to write my 300-page dissertation on suicide and survivors of suicide. I follow the research and community of sociologists closely. The suicide death of my classmate and colleague after graduate school showed me how my field, the mental health field, treated suicide. We were no different than the rest of the world. There was no outreach to her classmates or teachers – all of us knew she struggled with suicide and lost her mother to a suicide death at the age of 2. She did speeches about it to our class. But, we did not gather and talk about our feelings of guilt, anger, negligence and abandonment. Nothing was said, nothing was done, my school just pretended it didn’t happen. A few of us mourned together at her house with her husband and toddler son, but mostly, through the experience, I learned that mental health professionals were no more awakened to the plights of a suicide loss than bankers.

I am always struck by the lived experience of suicide and the brave folks who open themselves up to tell their story in order to address the stigma and to heal their shame. There is so much shame around suicide, all elements of it: the thoughts, the attempts, the loss of someone to a suicide death. Shame hugs suicide like a child in a large crowd hanging onto his mother’s leg for dear life.

When asked, I am a very open person about my experiences. I am also a psychologist who has been predominantly trained in psychodynamic theory. I am supposed to be a blank slate. I was never very good at being blank though. When I see brave people advocate against what harms them, I am full of admiration and experience a bit of envy. I am an introvert by nature and advocacy is an extrovert’s journey. Grabbing that green strand of beads would mean so much. It would mean that I am ready to support the cause from all sides as a survivor of suicide, a clinician, a researcher, and a survivor of suicidal ideation and behavior.

I picked up the green strand and hung it around my neck and walked over to my children to take a picture in front of an enormous chalkboard titled “Why I Walk”. My daughter misses nothing. Immediately, she said, “why do you have green on, Mom? Did you try to kill yourself?” I responded to her, “I did go through a really hard time when I was a teenager and I am happy to talk to you about it, but let’s do it when we are alone after the walk. You all can ask me any questions that you have”.  

We walked over the psychology association’s table to say hello to my colleagues and I watched some of their eyes glance down toward the strands of beads swaying from my neck. They did not say a thing. I was the acutely aware of my green strand and had a strong urge to tuck into my shirt. I also knew that one of my clients was in the crowd and worried about them seeing me. Before the walk commenced, we gathered as a group and speakers shared stories of suicide loss and personal struggles with suicide attempts. Then they made us hold our beads up over our heads. They went from color to color, spending time honoring each person’s experience. I was mortified. Not only had I donned the green strand, but now I had to take it off and proudly hold it over my head. I did not know it at the time, but I was being filmed in that moment and it was my hand on the news that evening holding the green strand.

I walked with courage and gratitude with my children that morning. Holding the beads over my head was an awakening. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I am a survivor of the effects of mental illness and I am proud that I have lived experience. I think my journey near the edge of that great abyss has deepened me as a person and enhanced my work as a clinician. And quite frankly, any clinician who judges me because I have been deeply touched by suicide is not someone I would refer to either.

Why do I walk?

I thought I was walking for the tortured souls whom I cared about and lost to suicide. I thought I was walking for those who are under my care as a clinician. I thought I was walking for prevention research to help find a way to stop the ever-increasing numbers of those who die, attempt to die and lose a loved one to suicide in this country. I thought I was walking for my fellow Montanans who have the highest rate in our nation, for Native people who are second to Caucasians in suicide deaths, for women who attempt suicide 3 times more than men, for men who die by suicide 3 times more than women. I thought I was walking for the millions of people who, like me, lost someone to suicide. I was walking for all of these reasons and for one more. I was walking for myself. I was honoring the path behind me that was hard and dark and dangerous and the path before me on a spectacular beach on a warm, summer morning with my three, beautiful, brave children at my side. Last Sunday, I left my shame on Leadbetter Beach as if it was a moldy, old towel that no one should wrap herself with after surfing the salty waves. 

I will see you again next year.

Brooke

Letter to My Friend's Son After She Died By Suicide

My Dearest Gabriel,

It has taken me too many years to write this letter to you.  It was just too difficult for me to find the courage, the honesty and the words to talk about your mother, her life and her death.  Thinking about her still brings a lump to my throat and sends a shudder of melancholy and a pang of guilt through me.

I was a friend of your mother’s.  We were in graduate school together.  For two years I was a student with your mother.  I got to know her well as we worked our way through a night program that was teaching us about how to help people who are in pain.  Your mother was beautiful.  When she walked into the room the first night of school, she took my breath away.  She was the type of person who always looked so put together and who seemed so proud.  Your mother had a smile was wide and warm.  Her energy beamed like a lighthouse. 

Your mother was the bravest among us in graduate school.  She would volunteer to be the first of us to practice the art of therapy in front class without shame or hesitation.  She was always up for demonstrating being a therapist or client, or for being hypnotized or for offering a real life example of what we were learning.  One night, she demonstrated being a therapist on me.  I can still see the way she looked at me with such empathy and kindness as I stammered shyly through my own life’s pain. 

Your mother was by far the most honest person I have ever met.  She would share things about herself. She divulged things that many people burry deep inside themselves and let fester there.  But your mother, she would talk openly about her terribly painful, traumatic and tragic childhood.  She talked about her own devastating loss of her mother to suicide when she was just two, just like you.  She shared her history with addiction – how she turned to drugs and alcohol to try to cope with the trauma she experienced as a little girl.  She was eloquent about her terrifying and overwhelming battle with depression.  Her honesty was inspiring.  If only more people could be so open about themselves, so many barriers would fall, shame and stigma would be overcome and so much more healing could be done. 

But most of all, Gabriel, she would talk about you.  When she spoke about you, her eyes would come alive.  It was like seeing a flower unfold itself for the first time or like watching the sun peak up from behind the San Jacinto Mountains illuminating the morning dew like millions of tiny gems laid perfectly across the lawn.  She told me that when she was pregnant with you, it was the happiest that she had ever been in her life.  She talked about you growing up so quickly – learning to walk.  One day, she and I followed you toddling around our classmate’s backyard.  She was so sweet with you and just beamed with delight when she looked at you.  She was also careful with you and so very proud of you.  One especially dark night, your mother told me that you were the only reason she was still alive.

I used to tell your mom about this song that I loved that had the same name as you, Gabriel.  I sang a terrible rendition of it for her.  I gave up midway and told her, “I’m going to bring you the cd.  This song seems like it was written by you.”  I never gave her that cd, so I am giving it to you with this letter.  I want to share with you the lyrics. 

Gabriel

Written by Lamb

I can fly
But I want his wings
I can shine even in the darkness
But I crave the light that he brings
Revel in the songs that he sings
My angel Gabriel

I can love
But I need his heart
I am strong even on my own
But from him I never want to part
He’s been there since the very start
My angel Gabriel
My angel Gabriel

Bless the day he came to be
Angels wings carried him to me
Heavenly
I can fly
But I want his wings
I can shine even in the darkness
But I crave the light that he brings
Revel in the songs that he sings
My angel Gabriel
My angel Gabriel
My angel Gabriel

Near the end of our schooling together, your mother’s depression began to take over.  Her class work slipped, she no longer came to school the put-together woman we had come to know.  A few classes she smelled of alcohol.  Our last course together was a group therapy class.  In that class, one Sunday, I told your mother that I had pulled away from her because based on my own history, it was too difficult for me to be around her when she was using alcohol to cope.  I told her this in front of our professor and all of the other students and she began to cry.  She cried and cried and cried.  She skipped the lunch break that afternoon to cry in her car.  Everyone in class said it was brave of me to be honest with her.  But, all that I could think was: I hurt her… I hurt her… I hurt her…  How can I take it back?  To this day, the black tar of guilt still oozes inside of me when I think of that moment.  I imagine that so many of us have been left behind with similar moments, holding onto them like hot coals from a fire long extinguished.  Burning us as we wonder about how we might have added to her pain.  Believing, if we changed this one thing, we might have changed her fate.  The thoughts….if only, if only, if only…trailing behind us as if we are wearing them like a cape.

There were so many warnings, Gabriel, that your mother would die the way she did.  All of us saw them, heard them, experienced them.  She was surrounded by professors who were licensed psychologists and students who were training to be therapists.  She had old and new friends, a therapist, a lawyer and your father.  All of us knew.  We knew she was at risk.  We heard her threats.  One of our classmates was speaking with her on the telephone a few months before she died.  Your mother talked to her about how bleak she felt about her future, about her sobriety, and about how her choices and behaviors had caused her to lose custody of you.  Our friend asked her directly if she was threatening suicide.  She said, “If you are, I am going to hang up the phone and get you some help right now.”  Your mom assured her that she would be fine and she would not do anything like that.  But we all knew that she could.  She knew that she could.  So the afternoon that I got the call that your mother’s body had been found, I cannot say that I was shocked, but I was devastated. 

I imagine you reading this now and experiencing it as something like a confession letter.  Me telling you that I feel guilty about publicly humiliating your mother and that I have blamed myself all these years for not doing anything about her serious, life-threatening warning signs.  With all of my training, (I actually did an hour and a half speech to our class about suicide, she missed that class), I did not stop her.  In fact, I lost touch with her.  I heard that she went to rehab, I was so happy that she was sober.  I heard about her from others, but I never reached out to her.  I am not sure that I will ever get over my regrets about her death.   

When I think of your mother, Gabriel, I think of her warmth, her strength, her honesty and courage.  I think of her smile.  I think of her tragic, too short life.  And I think of you.  Suicide is never an answer.  Suicide is not an ending of pain, it just disperses the pain among all of the people who are left behind.  Your mother exhausted herself trying to heal her depression.  She got a Master’s degree to try to understand how to heal, she tried medication and therapy, she tried to use relationships and drugs and alcohol.  Her past haunted her, her sadness overwhelmed her and I have come to believe that she saw no other options.  Such is the nature of the suicidal moment, pain leaves no room for comfort or silver linings. But there are always options, Gabriel.  Even in our darkest hours of our longest nights, there is a sun that promises to come if you can just get through the moment.  I wish I could have held her hand through that night, I wish I could have played her that song.  I wish I could have reminded her, in her mentally sickened weakened state, you do have something to live for, you have someone to live for. 

Gabriel, I know that your mother’s death has put a scar on you that will always send a spasm of pain.  I imagine that her death and your grandmother’s death might have planted a nasty seed in you.  One that if nurtured could bloom a weed that tells you this could be your destiny too.  But, do not water that seed.  It is merely a tiny one, smaller than a poppy.  Without attention, it has no power.  I hope that someday your scar might become a gift, a reminder that you were loved more than you were left, that your life was born from a happiness that overtook the most powerful of despairs.  May your scar become an inspiration to make your own life or other’s lives better, to stop the legacy of suicide and learn how to help others.  Gabriel, there are so many people in this world that wear similar scars and it is how we wear them that can shape our lives.

For me, now three years after your mother’s death, I have a scar too; one that I’m using to fuel research about how to help others who feel like you, your father, your mother.  I am writing my doctoral thesis on survivors of suicide.  I am researching about how therapists can best help people who lost loved ones to a suicide death.   I am trying to do something to help me let her go.  Your mother’s suicide has sent me on a long journey of forgiveness and healing, a journey that I am still finding my way through.

I am so, very sorry for your loss, Gabriel.  I hope that somewhere inside, you can feel that brilliant light that your mother embodied because she had her angel…Gabriel.  I hope that light will always be brighter than the darkest of nights. 

With my deepest sympathy,

 Brooke Sears