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September is suicide prevention month, so if you guys dont mind, I would like to talk about suicide for a moment, specifically the first time I danced on the edge of killing myself. Those who are sensitive to this subject should probably skip this one
I was 16 years old, and in a world of trouble. Not only was I still dealing with an abusive alcoholic stepfather, not only was I having nightmares a lot, and not only was I struggling with a lack of social skills that made high school hell, but I had one whopper of a secret - a struggle with a feminine part of me that I had no way to deal with.
I wept, I prayed to God for help, for relief from what I saw as a struggle with sin and sanity, but I was met with only silence from Heaven, which led me to believe I was already dammed.
So I started making plans to ... not be around anymore.
I figured that if my desire to be a girl was a sin, and I couldnt get rid of the desire, the next best thing to do was get rid of me.
So one night, I went into the bathroom, found the strongest meds I could, and took them back to my room.
Somehow, I got the idea that if I took way too many, I would just make myself sick, so I poured out the pills onto my bed, trying to figure out how many it would take to end me, without taking so many I would just throw them up.
I counted, and I counted, but eventually I realized I had no idea what the magic number actually was. I wept, and eventually, I put the pills back.
I got dressed, went up the hill that was behind our house, and looked into the sky and started yelling.
I yelled, I swore, I called God every name I could think of, basically daring Him to kill me, since I had failed to do the job myself.
Eventually, I ran out of steam, and I just looked skyward with tears in my eyes.
And then I felt it.
I felt .. Him.
I cannot do justice to what I felt, the closest I can come is to say that I felt God ... loving me.
There was no sign of disappointment, no condemnation, nothing except pure, unadulterated love.
And it was enough to help me go back to my bed, and fall asleep and face another day.
Unfortunately, it wasnt the last time I would be on that edge. But each time some thought would come to me, and it would be just enough to deflect me from following through on a plan to die.
I am very grateful I flunked killing myself. I would have hurt those who care about me, and I would have missed out on all the blessings I have been given since - my daughter being one of them.
I guess what I am trying to say to any who are struggling, I have been there. And if you need help, reach out.
Because tomorrow might just be better than today.
Comments
Been there,
Decided to live, then still made an attempt. Even if you think you are safe if you are depressed you may need help. Reach out, you will find people who care.
We would have missed meeting you Dorothy
Very well put Dorothy and thank you for staying around to say hello to us. For other readers, as Dorothy says “tomorrow might just be better than today.”
Rhona McCloud
I was met with only silence from Heaven
I know the feeling. I discovered I was Trans (although I thought it was a cross-dressing hobby) at age 9 and then became a Christian at age 14. After being very involved with my church for four years, I drifted away. I the time I was going to church, the urge to cross-dress was low and I didn’t deal with it. 18 years later, I came back to church and began working to clean up my act and remove sin from my life. I learned to pray and hear from God through the Bible, and others' idle comments, but most importantly I learned to hear that “still small voice” God uses most of the time. I had good success in putting the big things behind me.
But then came the incessant cross-dressing. I discovered my “hobby” had taken over and I really couldn’t lay it down for more than a day or two. Oh, by then, I was under-dressing 24/7; I had no men’s underwear. What’s more, I couldn’t bring myself to go out and buy some. In my church, it’s common for people to fast and pray when they are seeking God on a particular subject, so I decide that when my wife would be gone over a weekend, that I’d fast and pray. I took Friday off and started a three day fast.
I spent most of that time in the basement where I had set up a study table with all kinds of Bible helps and different translations of the Bible. Now mind you I’d been praying about the “cross-dressing” for over six weeks already. Drinking only water I began to pray in earnest that Friday, I prayed from the time my wife left for work until she got home. She and the kids were going to her folks place for the weekend and I had begged off. She said they’d pick up some take out for dinner on the way and I’d be on my own. That was great for my plans.
For all my fasting and praying, “I was met with only silence from Heaven.” While God had spoken to me on many occasions about many things, on this he was silent. It was as if he wasn’t even listening. Finally, about midnight on Saturday, I went up to my bedroom and dressed -make-up, wig and all - knelt by my bed and cried out to God. It must have been nearly an hour with nothing, only silence from Heaven. In the end, I slumped over on my bed crying, feeling totally abandoned by God.
Then God gave me a vision. It was me, dressed as I was at that moment, in the place of Jesus in that picture you see with him praying in the Garden of Gethsemane with the light of heaven shining down. He then gave me a scripture. “The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” I Samuel 16:7 b.
God looks on our heart. My heart was on/in God. He didn’t answer my prayer because he really didn’t care what I wore, only where my heart was. So when I sought his opinion and guidance in my cross-dressing, he had no opinion and was content to let me do as I pleased in that area.
Just recently, the senior pastor at my church, in the midst of a Sunday sermon, said, “Some people want to make a sin out of something God doesn’t care about.” I’m convinced; he’s a man who hears from God.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
I think that I have given up
I think that I have given up on suicide.
It doesn't seem to work for me.
I knew that I was wrong in my body at 3 years old.
I was told that I was what I was, and I could not change it.
By the time that I was 5, my stomach had been pumped out 3 times.
At 7, I fell down the stairs, on purpose, and only broke my collar bone.
At 18, I had my stomach pumped out again.
Three years ago, I had a gun to my head, and the police put me in a lockdown.
I almost succeeded 6 months later, but woke up 5 days later in the hospital.
I'm done.
I quit.
I am obviously the most inept suicide on the planet, or maybe someone up there is watching out for me.
I am glad you are still with us
huggles.
I'm glad you flunked too
The world would be a darker, and much less fun place without you, my dear.
I lost someone I loved very much to suicide. Her name was Ginger, and she was 27 when she took her own life. She was my sister-in-law, but I had known her since she was nine, and watched her grow into a beautiful, witty, and oh so talented young woman. In the letter she left us she said she knew we'd all be better off without her. She was wrong.
I've never thought, "I want to die." Instead, I think things like, "I don't want to be me anymore, I just want to be someone else." Whenever those thoughts try to swallow me I remember that day when I opened the front door and found a sheriff's deputy and a crisis counselor standing there. I remember the agony of being the one to tell my wife and her family that she was gone. I remember my mother-in-law falling to her knees and wailing, over and over again, "Why?" And when I remember all of that, all the pain and misery, and I feel the scar that's still there, deep in my heart over a decade later, I know I could never inflict that on someone else.
Seanan McGuire posted this on her LiveJournal a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to share it then, but I was hesitant, because it is such a sensitive topic. Since you've blazed the trail, Dottie -- and thank you for that, because it's something we need to talk about -- I figured I'd share it now:
I'll See You Tomorrow
Hugs,
Bree
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy
http://genomorph.tglibrary.com/ (Currently broken)
http://bree-ramsey314.livejournal.com/
Twitter: @genomorph
My brother commited suicide,
It saved my life. I got his kids and finished raising them. When I was thinking really hard about killing myself I found I couldn't do it to them again.
It still hurts, a lot. It is a form of insanity, you just want the pain to stop, however you can do it.
You just want the pain to stop
That's how it is for me when I have suicidal urges. Something happens or some thought occurs to me that triggers that pain, and killing myself seems like the only way to stop it. I never go beyond thinking about it, though. Especially now that I have kids who need me.
When I was a child, I felt that way all the time -- both the pain and the wanting to end it. But I was also terrified of killing myself. I used to (mentally) beat myself up because I was too much of a coward to go through with it.
I can't say that God -- or beliefs about God -- helped me, though. I guess I thought that God would be like all the other people in my life and tell me it was all my fault. My feeling about God (assuming God exists) ended up being like my relationship with my parents: I won't bother you if you won't bother me.
I'd be a liar...
If I said I'd never thought about it. I do. I tried once. Never found the courage to try again. But on most nights I still go to sleep wishing I wouldn't wake up the next morning.
~And so it goes...