Grace

With permission today’s post is written by my beautiful cousin, Grace Alfredson. These are her elegant words:

Today is suicide awareness day. Nine years ago today, that meant nothing to me but for the last nine years it has meant many different things.

In 2011 it meant shame, in 2012 it meant guilt, in 2014 meant unworthiness, in 2018 it meant fear but in 2019 it means freedom!

We’ve heard it said, as suicide has grown increasingly more prevalent, “check on your strong friends.” I suppose I could have been that strong friend. Outwardly I was 21 years old, had just graduated college, accepted into graduate programs, smart, funny, pretty and the world at my fingertips.

Yet inside, I told a much different story.

I was full of shame, I felt unworthy, I saw all my flaws, I listened to the voices that said I wasn’t “enough”; I was drug and alcohol addicted, I was promiscuous; I had been raped, abused; I had been the adulterer, I had lied and cheated and mocked God.

I don’t remember a time where anxiety and depression weren’t a part of my life. I was an “emotional” child, to put it plainly.

I feel deeply and I hurt deeply.

I was everything on the outside and dying on the inside. The scariest part was I knew I had potential, lots of it, and I was scared to bring the dying version of myself into anything good. It wasn’t the first time I wanted to end it all, it was just the first time I tired.

On October 14th, 2010 at my favorite time of day, at my favorite place, I took the right amount of everything (really just all of it) and I planned to fall asleep and wake up somewhere else. Somewhere where I didn’t have expectations I would fail; a future I would definitely screw up; a mind that raced with fear, doubt and worry; a body that wasn’t hurt and broken. Somewhere where I wouldn’t hate myself and everything I wanted to be but couldn’t.

Somewhere where I knew there must be peace.

I did wake up, in a mental hospital, where I was Baker acted for a suicide attempt – I was angry. I’m supposed to tell you I was happy, that my parents found me and that I was there -breathing, alive – but I wasn’t.

I was angry.

I don’t know that ending my life was ever what I really, deeply wanted. I don’t think I wished deep down inside to hate myself. I don’t know I wanted to be anxious and overcome with panic attacks. I don’t believe I chose death as a want but as an escape.

Nine years later, I can finally tell you, I chose a different story. It wasn’t overnight and it’s not over, because it’s daily. I can’t tell you in the last nine years I haven’t ever thought how “out” would be easier, or better, or still questioned if I could deal with it all.

I can tell you after I left a mental hospital, where I vowed to stop abusing drugs and alcohol but I never did, just 90 days later I was pregnant with a baby I didn’t want by a guy I barely knew; if shame wanted a story it had a good one.

I had no life in me, and now I was supposed to give life to another person. At my first doctor’s appointment, the doctor did his little chart and without a doubt stated, “your due date is October 14^th.”

I couldn’t stop the tears or the pain.

Twelve months to the day I wanted to end my life, I would give life. I was supposed to feel better, but I sat in my car for what felt like forever and cried. I felt so unworthy of life, much less a baby; some people pray for these.

BUT God- He got my attention that day. I told Him in that car, the same car I wanted to die in, that I couldn’t do it; that I wasn’t enough, that I would fail. I told Him if He kept me alive for this, it would have to be all Him. I prayed that day, I don’t remember the last time I prayed before that day.

It wasn’t easy, honestly, it’s never been easy. I don’t honestly know if God hadn’t given me four babies in three years, keeping me pregnant or nursing for five years, if I could have or would have stayed (as) sober. I don’t know how I survived eight months of sickness or Post-Partum depression with my son. I don’t know how I’ve survived a difficult marriage. Three countries, thirteen houses, seven exchange students, eight job changes, countless babysitters and daycares.

I don’t know how I make it through almost every day. I’ve learned a few things about anxiety and depression, unfortunately, bi-polar disorder. I’ve owned those things. I understand it requires a lot of my mental bandwidth and energy to have joy. I understand how valuable positive friendships are, self-talk, me time and when I, if I must, scream I NEED SPACE, my husband has chosen to say, “Yes. How? What kind? How much? How often?” He has chosen to give peace, love and encouragement when I am melting and a loving reminder that I am enough and it’s time to get up when it is really time to get up and move on. 

I’ve realized I can be a voice to my children, and speak life to them; and even if I do that, they may still struggle and that they may just need me to sit with them on the floor in public and cry together because we are not made for this life and sometimes it’s just hard.

I’ve accepted this year, finally, that mental health is not about shame, because shame leads to isolation, but about saying, “YES this is real, I struggle, every day.”

Once I chose to accept what I could not change, I had power to change what I could! I may not be able to change why my mind races or my body fails me, or people judge me or disappoint me; I may not be able to change any single circumstance in my life, BUT I can change my words, actions and heart towards those things. It does not mean I am happy, or that when we are together that I am always present, or at peace.

But it does mean I choose me every day.

I choose me somedays to be a wife that day, to be a mom that day, to be beautiful that day, to be kind that day- to be whatever will get me through that day. I choose me. I choose me, wholly and completely, because I deeply and truly believe God chose me. On a cross 2,000 years ago, in a parking lot nine years ago and every single day that I wake up with His breath in my lungs!

He chose me!

If your struggling with the loss of someone to suicide, I pray you choose love; choose to love them anyway, to give them grace for their choice, and to grieve. I pray if you’re grieving, you choose yourself- to be a voice and a light, to be brave, because maybe that’s what someone else needs from you right now!

If you’re in the battle right now with someone who is struggling, I pray you choose them and yourself. Choose yourself to tell them you love them, choose yourself to show up one more time. Choose yourself to listen to them. Choose yourself like my husband has chosen himself, unknowingly when he chose me.

Choose them that they are worth it, that you see the beauty in them. Be brave that one day they will be brave and choose them self- and if they don’t in the end, have peace knowing you did what you could, how you could and when you could and it’s not your fault.

If you are struggling, I want you to know, I choose you and He chose you- to be brave and ask for help. To be brave to believe it will get better. To be brave to choose just one more day, one more day at a time. To be brave and accept what you can’t change, so that you change what you can. To tell the lies that are screaming at you that you’re not enough, to shut up.

If you’re struggling, you are told often that you are not alone, yet I know you still feel so alone, but I am here to tell you, I understand and you are not alone. 

If you’re struggling, I see you…and maybe, maybe just maybe that’s enough for one more day. I don’t know if the battle ever gets better but I do believe it gets easier. The voices have gotten quieter and I know when enough is enough.

I don’t apologize for all the crazy things I’ve done to stay “healthy”, hopefully I can shed light on the benefits of real lifestyle changes. I don’t apologize for taking nine long years to find my way wholly and completely back to God. To surrender, every day at His feet, with a bit of humor, that if He chose me, He can deal with my life’s problems.

I don’t apologize for not trying to be enough, for everyone, because I am enough for Him. I am enough not because of what I do or produce or how successful I am or what cause I stand behind but I am enough simply because He chose me!

We live in a society where we have been brainwashed to believe some things make people less valuable, the color of their skin, the length of their gestation, the size of their bank accounts, the letters after their names, the check marks on their bucks lists, the number of followers and likes….but I hope and believe that someday we all understand we are Chosen!

I said before I don’t know how I make it through every day but I do, by His grace – I just don’t know how it’s enough, but it is, it really is!

Today is suicide awareness day, after nine years, I hope and pray maybe one less person goes too soon, that one less family is missing a piece, and that you be brave, for one more day! I don’t know how your story will end, I don’t know how mine will end, but so far, being alive, it’s been beautiful. I believe, deeply, that yours will be too!