When I Reach Level Five

**Content Warning** This piece discusses suicide and suicidal ideation, as well as the loss of a child.

If you or someone you know is suicidal, please, contact your physician, go to your local ER, or call the suicide prevention hotline in your country. For the United States, the numbers are as follows: The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255), or message the Crisis Text Line at 741741. Both programs provide free, confidential support 24/7.

Suicide hurts, and deeply for those left behind, I'm seeing that now as I mourn the transition of my "stepson". Stepson is in quotes because his mother and I were never married, and we're not even together now, but I helped to raise him for 5 years of his life. Most of the time I felt like we didn't get along; he was a typical teen boy: lazy, selfish, rude, stubborn, etc. He would sneak out to do things with his friends that he knew he shouldn't, was always in trouble at school, and would never do what he was asked. He drove me crazy most of the time, and I was the disciplinarian so I usually felt like he didn't like me much either, but now I grieve in sorrow wondering if I was too hard on him, what should I have done differently, and what could I have said that might've made a difference? What was he feeling or going through that he felt he couldn't or didn't want to talk about? How could we have not known that things were so bad inside of him? Why couldn't I have been there? I reach out for answers that I'll never know.

Suicide kills more than just one person, it takes pieces of the souls of others with you. I know I'll never be the same again, nor will his mother or siblings. I know the person who commits suicide isn't thinking about that at the moment, I've been there. I've lived with severe clinical depression and social anxiety most all my life, I've been suicidal since I was 14 years old, so long that I've told my therapist that I was a professional at being suicidal. I knew what to do to talk myself down most of the time, but I've had some extremely close calls before, so close that I know I'm lucky to still be here. So this really feels personal for me. It hits home deep inside, knowing how close I've come on so many occasions to doing the same thing. I know how hopelessness feels. I know what it's like to live with. Yes, suicide is very personal for me. I know it like an old, unwanted roommate that I've lived with for years.

I've heard it said that suicide was a cowardly and selfish act; selfish perhaps, but not cowardly, just painful. It takes a lot of pain to choose to end your life for all time. In time everything passes, but not death. It takes a lot of courage to pull the trigger to end your life. It's something you know you can't come back from, but for some, the idea of living is even more frightening than death. The sadness can weigh so heavily on you, the sense of hopelessness can be crushing and paralyzing, and you truly feel that death is the only peace you will ever know again. I've been there too many times, but this is the first time I've ever been on this side of it and to be honest I'm not handling it very well.

I feel so much grief because he was so young (only 17). His life was only just beginning and hadn't even started getting good yet. I think of everything he's never done -- and now he never will. Death is such a finality that it's difficult to wrap your brain around; it's hard to imagine the concept of never, or forever. We live in a world where anything is possible at any time, whether we think so or not, but that ends with death. When you die nothing is possible ever again in this world, and that's so hard to imagine or accept -- especially when one is so young.

I think in the past month I've at least touched base with all five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, but I feel like it's only been a preview of going through those stages again in greater intensity now that the shock is wearing off, but I think right now I'm still in denial anyway. It's just so hard for your heart to grasp that a child has surpassed you to the grave, it's just not natural, it's just not right -- now I smell anger coming.

There just has to be someone responsible, doesn't there? How is there not? How can there be no justice for this great loss? Why wasn't I more attentive, why didn't I call? And if there's no human fault to be found then god is responsible -- but I don't believe in god. Now I'm reanalyzing my faith (or lack of), confused about what I believe and don't because I want to blame a god that's not there in my mind. Now I'm bargaining with my beliefs so I can find some rhyme or reason for this unbelievable reality, but wrestling with a god is grasping at smoke.

I just feel numb and in a fog with a crushing sadness that literally feels like weight, but life wants to keep marching on. Maybe that's a good thing though, to distract myself with work and the common daily rigors of life, but now I wonder, am I on my way to acceptance or circling back through denial again? Grief is so complicated, and feels endless. I feel like I've been grieving for a year and it has not yet been a month. I wonder if this is only the beginning of a long journey to come?

I've lived with suicidal ideations for most of my life. It feels like part of my life, but this time it's finally got to me, but I have to live through it. I think this is going to take more than a month. I haven't reached the final stage of grief yet, that may be a little while. Until then I must rise with the sun and live my life, love the living, preserve and maintain what we have left, and heal slowly -- believing that healing will indeed come in time if I continue to eat and sleep. I'll live one day at a time and collect them in my pocket and one day when I don't notice I'll breathe again as I once did. When I reach level five.

If you need help, or someone to listen please call

Crisis Services 1-800-691-8426

If talking isn't your comfort zone you can text

Crisis Text Line text NAMI to 741-741

And if you have been thinking of suicide, please, please reach out to

National Suicide Prevention hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

And remember, it gets better, the night must yield to morning, so never give up.

In Memory of Branden

June 29 2004 - February 3 2022