I can't say why I ever do it, but sometimes I find myself looking down at my arms. I'll often look from my left inner wrist to my right inner elbow. At my wrist, I study the outline of my burn scar, where I put out a cigarette on myself sometime during my nervous breakdown when I was 18. Then there's my elbow- after said nervous breakdown, I found myself in day hospitalization, having agreed to see a psychiatrist and all the long drawn-out story that is (I still don't trust psychiatrists to this day, really any medical health professional doing his/her/hir job, but especially psychiatrists) and among many chemicals they put into me, one of them was Lithium, which meant weekly blood draws to test my liver levels. In my elbow, without even looking particularly close, you can still see the marks where needles went into my vein- more than a decade later.
But I've jumped ahead- I think I've taken "Dr. Who" too much too heart; I'm not very good at linear progression. An unhappy childhood filled with bullying and dieting led to losing my virginity to rape at the age of 13- *thanks* to abstinence-only sexual education, I didn't realize that I had the right to say no, that sex should be anything under than the fearful experience I had at the hands of a gang-banging 17 year-old. Inappropriate responses from my parents and a burgeoning infamy at a small high school- this found me in my first attempt (swallowing something). A dear friend trying to be helpful told the guidance counselor at middle school- enter every bad joke against middle/high school guidance counselors you've ever heard. Ineffectual counselor sent me to equally ineffectual crisis counselor. After this point, I can't really recall all my attempts and trips in and out of counseling.
Now skipping back forward to today. I sit here as a 35 year old mother of a teen, wife/submissive to a wonderful Man, always super busy with my four at-home jobs. I'm engaged in all sorts of activism, a bunch of it down through Unitarian Universalist channels. After the short stint of dealing with psychiatrists, I removed myself from psychiatric treatment- I felt unlistened to, disrespected. To this day, I carry my distrust of medical health professionals. My family doctor probably is treating me with kid gloves- just guessing- because I've been honest with him that I have a really hard time trusting him and it's not even his fault. While I wouldn't recommend what I've done to anyone, I've pieced together dozens of things- from acupressure to a more holistic, vegan diet to constant music playing to writing and my activism to BDSM activity with my beloved Master- I've carved out a life without psychiatric medication. For someone with my mental health issues (bipolar, recovering anorexic, trust issues, boundary issues), there's quite a cocktail of medications I could be on.
How does that last paragraph relate to suicide prevention? I haven't attempted suicide since the fearful days when I found out that I had become pregnant unplanned. My Master's support has been central to that- my path has been anything but mainstream, but that's okay to me today.
Swinging away from my own life, of course suicide has been a topic in my writing. There is something to be said for the adage "write what you know"- although I doubt most people who've written serial killers have first engaged in such killing first. In the as yet unnamed "Book 6" of my "Vala's Story" series, Vala comes upon one of the other submissives listening to "Hate Me" by Blue October- I have yet to decide how I'm going to deal with issues of copyright, whether I will have the pivotal line of the song in-story or what. Vala stops the attempt, taking away the razor, and takes this submissive to The Queen. Of course this subplot brings in more elements that one wouldn't normally expect to find in an erotic romance- I don't like following rules :D.
The scene "title" for the suicide attempt foiled mentions the National Suicide Hotline and there's further info in Vala's "Media" page planned for that book. http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
**Edited to add- I realized when I logged into Facebook this morning to receive an email from my minister, I give first credit for getting off my self-destructive path to my Master, but once He'd done so much, it gave me the chance to re-find Unitarian Universalism as an adult (I'd heard about it from my second girlfriend as a teen and thought it sounded like a fine idea :D). So a few more links :) Unitarian Universalist Association is a great place is find out tons more about UU-ism. And I attend the online Church of the Larger Fellowship: you can find the page for "seekers" here and the page more for people who know they're UUs here. And of course, for me, no mention of UU-ism is complete without mentioning Leather and Grace UUs for BDSM Awareness- the religion and faith movement of UU-ism is so important to me, but engaging in activism and education through L&G gives my life a lot of its shape and gives me hope.
**Just a note- I've joined up with some blogging friends to post regularly on one topic on Tuesdays. Our fearless leader :D promises a "fun" topic next Tuesday.
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