In Honor of World Suicide Prevention Week: September 8-14

With the upcoming World Suicide Prevention Day on September 10 I stand in conflict with myself, because a matter of such importance, and still so little attention, it is easy for it to vanish between the countless of days we are celebrating, for everything under the sun.

Not only are the issues of suicide, depression, and mental illness important to me because of the daily wave of emotions, from happiness in one moment, to a rope and a note the next that I’m experiencing. These things also matters to me because of the labels out there that’s still preventing people from coming to the floor with bravery and confess their battle and confusion about these haunting demons.

Also, this is for the thousands of families having to sit through every emotion; every doctor’s appointment; every morning’s “don’t forget your medicine” conversation, and every monthly bill from the therapist. Every time he or she leaves the house and don’t pick up their phone after three miscalls you begin to imagine the worst might have happened. This is for the families and friends that keep on praying that this person would see the value and sacredness of their lives; the prayers that always ends with, “and God, please let them see themselves the way You see them”. It is not that easy, believe me. Because it’s one thing to see beauty in others, and it’s another thing to notice it in your own self, but it’s an entirely different thing to see and accept your beauty through the eyes of others.

My heart breaks every time I hear of someone who has committed suicide. For them. For their families. Their memories, and for the missed opportunities. In the midst of such tragedy, the one question everyone asks is always ‘why’ (why did they do that). I know it’s an attempt to understand but it can easily become an overrated excuse for “why didn't I see it coming”. The old-aged slogan of “prevention is better than cure” deserves every bit of exposure it can get, on these issues as well. That is what the week in September will be for: to remind ourselves that pain is inevitable; depression is treatable, and suicide IS preventable. Although I've been there myself, more than a couple times, there should be NO reason why any human being should ever feel so lost and alone that the only absolute to them is death by suicide.

I am fortunate enough to have the gift of friendship that gives me the room to not be okay sometimes, and I have a strong appetite for life despite the clashing of my fears and dreams every so often. But there are those who do not have that. Who want it. Who crave for it, and ache for it through every late night Facebook status or tweet, but their aching always returns hollow in a virtually overcrowded space. So, September 8-14 is for them.

May we come to see the aching around us.

May we come to support them, and love them, and offer healing to them whether it be through treatment, prayer, hugs, or walks on the beach.

But most of all, may we prevent them from staying in those dark places they once called home.

In Honour of World Suicide Prevention Week.

To be Better

"...I try to remind myself when I feel great and infinite, that there will be another terrible week coming someday, so I should store up as many great details as I can, to hold on to during those terrible moments..."

It seems that no matter how many great details I store up of every single moment that made me feel like it was the only thing to live for at that time, the dark places I use to call 'home' has a way of making me forget all of that in a second.

For the past three weeks I've gambled with a thousand reasons why the word has no longer a need for me. That it would be so much better to be on the opposite side of life watching as people pass by my open casket whispering things like "too soon. he died too soon". And each time those thoughts surface I try to forcefully pick myself up and search my memories for the moments when my heart smiled at the simplicity of beauty. I struggled to find any.

I thought about dying so much, and in so much detail that I wrote a letter to the people who love me. You can read it here. I'm not ashamed in the least for writing this and that, because it was the shame that pushed me there. The shame of what people would think of me when i confess that I want to die. its the shame that kept me from reaching out to the many close people I have in my life. its the shame that tells me right now I'm making the biggest mistake of my life writing this. but I don't care. I want to be better. i want to be free. i want people to know that beneath every person's smile and sigh there might be a bottomless pit of darkness, if only we were to notice it.

Some will read this and see a pitying cry for attention; some will read this and judge; some will feel sad for me, but I know there are those who will read this and see the bravery with which each line was written. Through whichever lens you may look at this, my only desire is to become better. To become the fun, laughing, loving-life person you once knew. I would give anything to be him again, but I can't sit and just wish him back; I need to reach out to you friend, family, stranger. And i'm doing so in the only way i can express and articulate properly, though writing.

Believe me, I have no intention to kill myself anymore, but i know also that I'm not healthy, and if I don't reach out for help I might visit the dark room more and more, and might not return from it.

I need help. I need a rescue, not in a spiritual way, but in a way that feels and is human. Somehow I feel I should have done this sooner but asking for help has no expiry date.

Pray for me. Talk to me.

I just want to be better.

My Last Letter, it was supposed to be.

I’m writing this in advance, because I know it’s only a matter of time before it’s the end. Believe me when I say I’m no coward. I’m really not. I’m just SO tired of living; tired of thinking, hoping, believing that things might take a turn for the better. Let’s not be fooled. It only gets better when it’s been good for some time already, which in my case, have been never.

Real life, I hate to leave you behind, but my guess is that it’s only gonna be a matter of years, maybe months and I’ll be forgotten, because there’s just too many of us. We are a lot, but our voices are too soft.

My only real regret for leaving is the people I’m leaving behind- the ones who cared, each in their own way. My heart ache for the pain I’m leaving you with. Please don’t walk around with guilt and shit. Cry, for a few days at least, and then live glorious lives. The lives you’ve always wanted to live. Take it from me; I choked myself because I could never live the life I wanted. You can call it weakness, cowardice, selfishness, but I could not dare to live another day with all these secrets eating away at me in any way.

I have lived with pain. I have lived with pleasure. True joy has befriended me at times, but I haven’t been truly happy for a number of years now. My smiles were genuine and my love for others was real. I could not have faked that. For I love people too much. I have always looked out for people, and I would die for a friend, but I have never cared to look after myself. I have never cared about my own happiness because I never believed I could honestly be happy.

I’m 28 years old but I have lived close to a hundred years of stories and they seem to weigh in on me. I can feel it. I have lost my sanity in it all. I couldn’t handle it any longer.

The past four years I’ve listened to over hundreds of gigabytes of music. I have felt the truth behind the phrase ‘music is a safe place’. I have found comfort in the Taylor Swift’s and meaning in the Demon Hunters. They both provided a place for me to get lost into, and I needed that. I would’ve left you much earlier most probably if it wasn’t for music.

I’m leaving most of you with nothing more than questions and confusion, but the darkness I’ve lived through were even more confusing every single time I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror.

To everyone who has loved me, I am so sorry. I have no idea how I got to this dark place while I knew you were there. I knew most of u were just a call or text away, any time of the day. So many times I wanted to 

just pick up the phone and say, “hey, I’m having a bad day. I’m having a hard time believing the truth about myself, but I never did. And the more I could not press ‘call’, the more I felt alone.

I started StayAliveFriend for the people I knew who struggled with their demons and needed a place to feel safe about it, but I never felt safe about my own. For some time I’ve found freedom in your braveness, but the heaviness I felt at night alone were too over-bearing.

Forgive me friends, family and everyone who believed in me. You were the very reason I held on for so long.

Every person that I’ve hurt that I haven’t had the chance to make amends with, I’m truly sorry for whatever it is I did to you.

We live in a world with so much pain. Not a day went by that I have not stepped out the door thinking about every person I’m meeting up with and wonder what pain they are hiding beneath perfectly made hair and shining shoes.

Please make the world a better place for yourself and the people you meet.

I know there’s a million better ways to cope than through this. I know if I had just talked to someone. I know things could have been better, but I did not, and things did not go better. I’m here. I’m ready. I’m gone.

Love,

Ivor 

Hello Fear

This weekend I got to spend a precious amount of time with an old college friend. He invited me to his church's youth camp and asked me to share my testimony, in light of my biggest fear. 

I have never given my fears much thought, and given that I have shared my story on numerous occasions, in front of numerous people, I didn't prepare as I would do a sermon.

We certainly live in a culture where fears are watered down to spiders, the dark, ghosts and all sorts of superficial things. But we rarely talk about what really scares the hell out of us (I hope hell don't scare you). We rarely talk about the things in our hearts that give us a fright, or the the amount of headspace we give to certain things keeping us up at night.

I had a speaking slot the Saturday evening, but as I sat in the sessions the Friday and Saturday morning, I began to realize that I have no idea of what scares me, and that's a big problem. We have to identify the things we fear most so that we can deliberately push ourselves into situations where we can face those fears. I doubt that there's another way around it.

Fear numbs. I know. It has numbed me more than once. The moment i look at a situation and the outcome is not as I expected, fear seeps in with its deadly poison. It numbs all of me, sometimes even my physical body. But because I didn't know WHAT scares me, i couldn't grab the thing by the throat and flush it down the drain.

I fear rejection. I fear dying without accomplishing anything. I fear 'man'. i often fear myself. I used to fear love and being loved, now I fear losing that.

I read Donald Miller over the weekend, saying, "Sometimes, the best thing you can do is just show up, don't run, stand there with your hands in your pockets and live IN the fear".

I want to live in the fear. But to resist fear, I HAVE to embrace honesty, at all levels, even if it hurts. I have to be honest with myself; the people in my life, and the stranger on the road. I often sound so in control of my life when people ask me what am I doing and where am I going, but truth be told I have NO idea where my life is going. Often times our fears are masked with confidence, and sometimes the lack thereof. I can sound so confident about my life, that no one will smell the fear its driven by.

Kirk Franklin sings this beautiful song called "Hello fear" in which he says, "Never again will I love you; My heart refuses to be your home; No longer your prisoner, Today I remember; Apart from you is where I belong".

As from today, I resolve to live in the fear. I choose to get hurt, fail, or be rejected, but I shall not fear again.

You are not alone in this?

"You are not alone in this"

I have this battle in my head. I have this battle to convince myself that I don't have to know I'm not alone in whatever crap I'm in. i want to feel like I don't need support, sympathy, help, whatever.

To say I'm between a rock and a hard place is like saying "I know I'm gonna make it; I just don't know how and when". I'm beyond that. I'm beyond believing, hoping that things might, with a crap load of luck, change for the better.

There used to be a time that i trusted the whole "you are not alone in this" phrases. It brought a comfort of sort. I used to dig my heart deep into it and for brief moments I felt at peace with who I was, no matter what. The only thing with these phrases is that it never actually resolve to anything tangible. It never becomes real. Maybe its the thought that counts but I have constantly found myself deserted and alone. In those moments I want those phrases to come alive and give meaning. i want it to take on flesh. I want it to become a phone call or a visit, or a hug.

I have people around me, I really do. I have wonderful, loyal friends, but what I did discover was that sometimes, and sadly for me, many times you are left with only yourself. Naked and alone you entered this world; naked and alone you often stand in your deepest moments of need.

I wish this wasn't as depressing as it is, God forbid, If I'm not here tomorrow, this is as it is.

Silence Within-guest post by Paula Bredenkamp @paulieepooh

It's so easy to be silent in front of other people, but to keep the silence to yourself is a challenge in itself.

Most of the time, in order for us to be silent on the inside, is to speak up.

Think about it, when we are silent towards the people who loves us, it builds up inside. But, in choosing to share how we think and feel we can quiet ourselves down on the inside. This seems a lot like extreme reverse psychology. Like everything in life, there are a few things we need to remember when it comes to this.

I spoke to a friend earlier this week, where I just completely let go of myself. It was a relieving, yet fearful moment, because I'm always afraid of bringing down the people I share with. He reminded me that it's necessary, because if we don't, who will ever. For me, it was always an issue of giving people hope when I share parts of myself with them. I never used to share the parts of me that really aches, and his words made me realize that my brokenness, in many ways can serve as a channel of hope to people. People often tell stories of how they WERE in a bad place; how they WERE struggling, but you hardly hear people telling stories of how they ARE in bad places, and how they ARE struggling to get through it.

I wrote this poem the other night, and I hope it make sense:

This is what I feel now

You keep on asking me how

How can you share this feeling

I thought you were done dealing

I choose to reply

With something as simple as a bye

Cause something like a "fuck you"

In times like this would'n do

What I do validates how I feel

Even to you it might seem unreal

I have to choose to be strong

Even though I want to do wrong

I need to stop this pain

from driving me totally insane

I really just want this to end

This broken heart can no longer mend

So don't ask me how I am

I'll just answer with a "fine, thank you ma'am"

I will keep on fighting till the day I die

But for now just allow me to feel like a fly

Useless, small, broken, alone

Thinking I'm doing this on my own

But no matter how bad this might seem

This is just the in between

So, in order for me to be silent within, I need to speak up and in order to speak up I need to learn that it's okay not to be okay, and that there's a reason that I am where I am right now. Me speaking up right no, just might be the story someone else needs to hear.

Many times we are hurt just so the person next to us can grow. So speak up; don't be ashamed of who you are and allow yourself to become silent.

This Year

Most of my past was covered with dark years. I had years where I lived in poverty as a child; in prison as a teenager; and a confused young adult trying to fit in thereafter. But there were better years, like my years as a student at Pneumatix. People often refer to years as ‘seasons of life’.

Somehow out of it all though, this year has been in particular the toughest year I’ve had to face, and the year still got 140 days and some couple hours left. I wish I could say it was a year or season of growth, and maybe it was, or is. Maybe I’m not aware of the growth, or maybe the growth will only show in due time. All I know that it was and is still painful.

I’ve spent this year mostly soul-searching, discovering who I want to be at age 28 and what I want in life, even though, for a long time I was pretty sure of what I wanted. Somehow this year has pulled a mat from beneath my feet, my head hitting the floor, causing some destiny memory loss.

I’ve fought with the voice that keeps on shouting I’m not good enough; I’ve fought with people I care about; I have lost friends and I have lost a part of myself. This year made me stagnant, fearful and passive in all the areas where I used to drink from life as much as I could. My passion and care for social justice has shifted to hollow facebook statuses, tweets, and quotes of what other people said and did. I have never loved and hated loneliness as much as I did this year. Whenever I was with groups of people, I felt extremely inferior, forcing me to rather be by myself, and when I’m alone I felt worthless.

I have never considered suicide as an option until this year. This year has been tough.

Don’t get me wrong though. I had wonderful times, with wonderful people that I will cherish forever. This year had its good parts for me as well. I had people who showed me in genuine ways they cared for me. I have a girlfriend who stood by each ache, every weight, and every depression. I had days, sometimes weeks where I woke up every morning with new courage and hope for what’s to come. During those days, the possibility of this year becoming better almost always felt possible, but then it would disappear.

Today is one of those days where I’m ready to pick myself up again and move forward. And I know if I don’t get this out; if I don’t write about this; if I keep it in, it will disappear sooner than I can think. My heart is heavy as I’m writing this but my heart is hopeful, that redemption is on its way. My heart is in the waiting of something new and fresh. By no means am I saying I’ve conquered my demons but I want to start living again for the things that made me feel alive a while ago. I wanna thrive on the things I’ve been given; I wanna be thankful for family, awesome friends, and a loving girlfriend.

I want you to pray for me. I NEED you to pray for me. Pray that these beautiful things would continue to give me reason to fight, again, and again. I want to grow and change, and be a better me this time next year. I don’t want you to pray for me for an easier life, I gave up on that long time ago. I know a lot of tough years might still lie ahead. But I also know we are more than the struggles that holds us.

We are more than the lies we tell ourselves.

We are more than the years.

I am more than the years.