Spiritual Gaming Co

This post will be very personal to me. I’ve struggled with depression my entire life. Hopefully, by me sharing my story with it and suicide, I’ll help out the next person. So let’s get to it, shall we?

I’m no stranger to death. I used to joke with my then-partner that I had 9 lives, and over 35 years, I’ve steadily marked my lives off. If I’m keeping score, I have roughly 3 lives remaining. I remember myself at the age of 10 wanting to die and thinking about offing myself. What in the fuck do I have to stress about at 10 to the point I’d think about hurting myself? I couldn’t honestly tell you. I would get extreme bouts of sadness at a young age. I always felt alone, even in a crowded room, I felt alone. I never resonated with anyone; I was a weird kid. I didn’t really have any friends, so I embraced solitude at a young age, and even today, I enjoy my privacy.

“I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that”

Robin Williams

Over the years, unfortunately, I’ve made some fatal mistakes here and there. I’ve overdosed 3 times: once by accident and twice intentionally. During my partying phase, in my 20s where I started to dabble in drugs. And I’m not talking about the kiddie pool shit, but the hard stuff: coke, heroin, meth, ecstasy, LSD, and bath salts, to name a few. I know it’s a lot. When it boils down to it, I did it because I wanted to experience it. I did it because I wanted to. I’ve never been the type to follow the social norm. I’ve always lived my life the way I wanted to live my life, ya know?

The whole point of this post is to share and hopefully enlighten you as well. I want to talk about my recent suicide attempt. On November 7, 2022, I laid down that night, took a handful of my Fluoxetine (Prozac), and made peace with not waking up the following day. But before I get into my suicide attempt, I should start with the why? I struggled with my depression, and my mental health declined last year. There were instances within my life that fueled the fire; work, finances, and the relationships I had with the people in my life: regardless if it was romantic or platonic, I stopped reaching out. I stopped talking. I stopped going to therapy. I stopped taking my medication. And eventually, I just spiraled.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I know everybody has shit to go through. I get that. But during that time point in my life, I also felt like I was giving more than I was receiving. So fast-forward to November 7; I take a handful of my Prozac, sleep, and drift away. I remember waking up and thinking,” Well, shit.” So I get up and get ready for work that day. I was having issues with my job at the time. That very same day, I was laid off. So, my mind is now racing. What do I do now? My partner at the time tried to help, but eventually, I guess it was too much for her because she left a couple days after that. And this honestly broke me because there were instances where I felt like I was there for her through her dark times, yet when I needed her, she just gave up because it was easier to deal with it all. I felt abandoned. I felt like I was worthless. Unworthy of love. I felt like something was fucking wrong with me.

In just a week, I tried killing myself, failed, and woke up the next day to go to work. I got laid off that very same day, and two days later, I split with my partner. When I say my life was flipped upside down, it felt like it. Like I couldn’t catch my breath. I remember thinking,” Man, you’ve got to be one of the most worthless, shitty human beings alive to have all this shit happen to you in only a week.” Oh, and when I say rough, it was rough. I’m still healing currently from it all.

November was a rough month for me. December was the worst. I remember crying myself to sleep for the whole month of December. I remember feeling so drained from how often I balled like a baby, especially with my breakup. I took it so hard because I thought we’d spend the rest of our lives together. But, I must say, I welcomed it. I greeted the pain, heartache, sadness, depression, anger, frustration, confusion, loneliness, and feeling unworthy, weak, and insignificant. Life has a funny way of teaching and evolving you.

I decided I didn’t want to feel the way I felt anymore. I didn’t want to wake up and wish I was dead. I didn’t want to have the mindset that I was unimportant. So, I got myself back in therapy. I’m exercising regularly again. I’m practicing mixed martial arts; as an outlet to release my anger/aggression. I’ve learned to give myself grace. My therapist helped me redefine myself and start me on my own path of self-enlightenment and growth. It’s hard. I’m not going to lie to you: there are instances when I still get sad and go to that dark place, but it’s not as bad or unmanageable. I now implement proper dieting, sleep, exercise, and medication, and I’ve been doing better.

My therapist helped me stay true to 3 never changing factors in life that have helped and continue to help me, which are the following:

1. I can’t change the past. What has happened, happened. What I can do is learn from my mistakes.
2.  I can’t change the future because it hasn’t happened yet. I can focus my time and attention on finding a solution for a problem at hand, but after I’ve exhausted all my options, I’ve learned to let that shit go. If I know I’ve given 120% followed by action, everything following is ultimately out of my hands. My therapist stated that 75% of what we worry about never happens.
3.  I will miss the journey and adventure called life if I never learn to experience the experience. Meaning taking it one day at a time. Giving myself grace and love when I need it. I enjoy everything now. I take my time going places and am never in a rush. I focus only on what’s in front of me now because everything else is simply farse until events play out.

I’m humbled by the journey leading up to now because I’ve gotten to experience some remarkable things simply by letting shit go. Soon as I stopped worrying about what I couldn’t control, I got a new job offer the following day, making more than what I was making at my old job, the schedule I wanted, and my personal office.

When I talk about suicide, it used to put a bad taste in my mouth because I had so much self-loathe for myself. I thought myself weak for even thinking about it. I’ve come to share a different mindset nowadays. I am powerful. I am worthy of happiness, love, and abundance. I deserve to love unconditionally and be loved the same in return. I will make mistakes, but those mistakes will never define who I am as a man. And most important, I’m in charge of my own happiness. I can’t expect any other person, place, or thing to make me happy. Finding happiness is my job and my job alone.

The journey has been eye-opening. And I’ve learned so much about myself that I didn’t know or even have forgotten. It makes things a lot more interesting. I enjoy the journey now, not the destination.

But before I go, I want to leave whoever reads this with words I wish someone would’ve spoken to me during my time of need. It’s ok to be not ok. It’s ok to be sad, mad, angry, anxious, fearful, scared, etc. You are human. It’s ok to feel lost and confused like you don’t know where to go or what to do. It’s ok to take the time needed for yourself to take care of YOU. It’s ok to practice being mindful of your needs when it helps with your mental, physical, spiritual, and/or emotional growth. You aren’t alone in feeling the way you do. You aren’t broken or weak. Every day is a struggle for you, yet you’re still here. That’s powerful. That means something, something substantial. You are meaningful.

If you need to get help, get help. Don’t be fearful or afraid to talk about it. You aren’t the only one that deals with it. It’s ok to be vulnerable. Allow yourself to express how you feel positively. Talking about it all helped me in more ways than one. I hope it will help you also.

Remember to give yourself GRACE. You are only human and are flawed by nature because you aren’t perfect. You are beautifully imperfect. Be courageous and honorable. You are worthy and worth more than diamonds and pearls. You are priceless. You are loved. If you don’t think so, let me extend my love to you. I LOVE YOU. And the world needs more light than dark, so stay awhile. Kick up your feet, and ride the wave.