In the US, someone dies by suicide every 13.7 minutes. In the time it takes to write this post, an average of 4 people will have taken their lives.
When I say that I had thought of killing myself before I checked into Alexander, it was not something that I had ever planned actively. I had no stash of pills, no drugs, no gun, nothing like that. I was more passive – life seemed too painful, and if something were to happen to me, maybe that would have been all right, but I never got to the point of helping it along.
Nearly 1,000,000 people make a suicide attempt every year.
The best example I remember is being asleep one more morning and waking a little to feel my cat, Horace, raking at my arm with his claws. That wasn’t unusual; there were man mornings when he would pill his claws through my hair to wake me so he could get fed (such a funny feeling, having my hair combed by the cat). Sometimes, it was playful, sometimes not so, and when he was really hungry, he would get mad and exert enough pressure to hurt.
This particular morning he must have been starving because all of a sudden I felt him dig a claw into my arm and push. It hurt a lot, and being half awake, instead of working my arm loose, I pulled it away fast. I felt a long and deep tear, the kind of sensation that would have caused anyone else to leap up and check whether they had blood pouring down their arm and needed to go to the hospital. Not me, not in the state that I was in.
I lay there and considered that I might be badly hurt, that Horace might have hit a vein or artery and I might be losing a lot of blood. Then I lay there some more. I didn’t move, didn’t even roll over. I just lay there and did nothing. I wondered about it a little, in a detached sort of way, but not enough to look at my arm, which was still flung over the side of the bed as it had been when Horace clawed me. I stayed that way for a very long time, until I finally decided that I really had to get up and go to work. I sat up and glanced down at my arm. Sure enough, there was about a three-inch gash, all the way along the top of my forearm, but I had been lucky. There was some blood dripping down, but not enough to require a visit to the hospital, and it looked like it would heal okay without stitches. I didn’t care enough to find out, so I took a shower, got dressed and went to work.
Saturday November 17th is National Survivors of Suicide Day and I want to take time to bring attention to the events surrounding the day. Spend some time learning about how you can support survivors of suicide at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and, if your life has been touched by suicide, consider attending one of their events.
I’m commemorating the day by pledging to make a $2 donation to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention for every copy of Southern Vapors sold between now and December 1, 2012. All you need to do is click here to purchase the book and use the code TG2JVC3K at checkout.