AABC – September 2024

This isn’t going to be like my typical Adventure Awaits Book Club blog posts.  

I am not certain of the research behind the effectiveness of trigger warnings but this post, out of any of mine, would likely need one.  I plan to address suicide.  

I started reading the book I chose for my book club this month.  It’s The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.  

The back of the book did not appear to allude to what the book actually happens to be about.  I owned this book when I lived in Texas but never got around to reading it there.  I think I’m grateful that I didn’t.  It’s not because it’s not a fantastic book, but it’s because I don’t think I was in the head space for it to have the effect on me it had reading it now. 

While reading this book, I felt I needed to write some emotions down in one of my journals.  The first sentence of the journal entry states, “I thought I’d always want to die.” 

Oof. 

I met with a psychiatrist back in 2023 and the beginning of 2024.  I’d been going to therapy for almost four years and nothing in my life felt like it was improving.  I thought maybe medication could help.  Maybe it did, but it never got rid of my thought that not being alive would be so much better than living.  

Due to life circumstances, I stopped taking the medications.  They didn’t get rid of the thought I wanted them to, so why keep taking them?  A few months later, I moved back to where I grew up.  

I had complained for so long about nothing in my life changing and suddenly everything had changed.  I was greeted every day by my mom’s beautiful smiling face.  I had someone hang out with me while I fold laundry (mom, again), I had someone who hung out with Henry on the days when I wanted to sleep longer than he did (yes, it was my mom). 

I needed my mom.  I spent years telling her I would never move back home.  I spent time trying to convince her to move to Texas, but something knew that wasn’t the path I needed to be on.  I needed to be home.  

2014 was the year I felt everything inside me change.  My mom often comments how the sparkle in my eyes has been gone for so long, and that’s when I think it left.  Everything about the life I imagined for myself started to fall apart.  I got divorced.  Grad school wasn’t what I pictured it to be.  I entertained other romantic relationships that gutted me in ways I didn’t expect.  The years kept coming and nothing really improved how I thought they should.  My best friend almost died.  I lost my grandmother.  I wasn’t doing fulfilling work.  Another relationship that sucked the life out of me.  More jobs that weren’t what I wanted.  2017 started to turn things around.  I found a fulfilling job, ended a relationship I should never have been in, and started taking care of my health.  Things were okay for a little bit, but my brain still convinced me it wasn’t enough.  I sought out a past relationship and ended up pregnant.  For the next six years, I did everything alone.  For four of those years I told my therapist over and over how I felt stuck.  I felt like nothing would ever change.  Why didn’t I get the family I wanted when I started communicating with my child’s father.  Why couldn’t I find the time and energy to go back to school?  Why did I have to feel so alone?  Why did I want to die?  

For 10 years I prayed over and over for cancer or some sort of death that wouldn’t completely traumatize my family.  I never had thoughts of harming myself, but I knew I wanted to be taken out of this world.  

Moving home has shown me that the thought I had for so long actually isn’t normal.  I convinced myself that my thoughts weren’t actually suicidal ideations because I had no intention of hurting myself.    Girl, please.  You wanted to die for 10 years!  I don’t know how you couldn’t see that your brain was telling you a lie.  

Honestly, I probably didn’t share what I really needed to with my therapist or psychiatrist.  I never told them how much I begged to be taken out.  I never told them that the thought lived in my brain every day.  I thought it would always be there and that I just needed something in my life to change for things to improve.  A new job. A husband. Money. Something. Anything.

That brings me back to the book I read this month.  If you haven’t read it, maybe don’t keep reading because I’m going to write a few things that will give away the ending.  

The character in this book was exactly where I was mentally but unfortunately, took the next step and attempted to complete suicide.  That is what was left off the back of the book.  It explains that she has the opportunity to try and do life differently but does not indicate why she was given that chance.  

The majority of the book is her doing things differently.  Trying out lives that were different because she went down a path that she had avoided in her first life.  

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve said I want to go back and do things differently.  

I’ve wanted to go back and never get married.

I’ve wanted to go back and never enter any of the relationships I entertained. 

I’ve wanted to go back and submit applications I didn’t because I was depressed. 

I’ve wanted to go back and never become a mother.  

I’ve wanted to go back and finish every degree I can possibly get. 

I’ve wanted to go back and spend money differently.

I’ve wanted to go back and spend more time with my grandparents.

I’ve wanted to go back and focus more on writing.  

The character in The Midnight Library tried so many lives.  She made so many different choices.  It didn’t matter what she chose, nothing ended up being like what she thought it would be.  Every life had its own set of challenges, even in the ones that seemed perfect.  

I don’t want to go back anymore.  

I had a bracelet that meant the world to me back in Texas.  I got it to try and trick my brain that things would be okay.  It said “Keep Moving Forward.”  They were the little rubber bracelets that are popular.  I got two in case one broke.  The first one broke and it felt metaphorical.  My life was trying to break me.  The second one broke and then I painted a picture of the words to be able to see them every day.  I was trying to find a way to keep doing what the words told me despite not really wanting to do it.

I want to keep those words forever as my life motto.  Keep Moving Forward.  Even if I went back to try life differently, I’d face any number of new challenges.  I want to focus on the future.  I want to live my crazy life and see what’s out there for me.  

I know now that I need my mom.  I’m on a path that feels like it was meant for me.  I’ve met people that feel like they were meant for me.    I don’t know what my future will look like but like one of the lines in the book says, “…that’s the beauty, isn’t it?  You just never know how it ends.”  She may have been talking about chess but we all know the author meant it about life.  

I’m going to throw in here a little bit of advice from someone who has experienced the feelings of wanting to die.  Tell someone.  Be honest about exactly how you’re feeling and truly seek out the help that you need.  You’re not meant to feel this way.  You can’t go back to change your past but your future can look different.  Your future will hopefully give you so many more coping skills and supports that help you get through all the crap that will inevitably be thrown your way.  You deserve to have days where your brain isn’t lying to you.  You deserve to live!  

I’m grateful for reading this book when I did.  Had I read it in the depths of my depression, I would never have gotten out of it what I did.  I might have felt a little hopeful but being in a place where I truly want to live is completely mind blowing.  

I’m going to end this blog with another quote from The Midnight Library.  “My depression-prone brain remains…I don’t want to die any more.”

Isn’t it beautiful?  Please reach out for help if you need it, especially if your brain is trying to convince you your thoughts are normal like mine did.  

988 is a great resource and is the suicide and crisis lifeline.  Call them if you don’t know where else to turn.  

Also, follow the author, Matt Haig, on instagram. I follow him there, and I appreciate his vulnerability in sharing some of the hard times he’s experienced.

I love you, you amazing beautiful humans!