How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me One Person's Guide to Suicide Prevention Chapter One Hello Congratulations. Your lungs are breathing, your fingers are touching these pages, and your eyes are reading these words. At this very moment the part of you wanting life is stronger than the part of you that thinks it doesn't -- otherwise you wouldn't be reading this book. Let me repeat that: At this very moment the part of you wanting life is stronger than the part of you that thinks it doesn't -- otherwise you wouldn't be reading this book. Every word, belief, and idea it contains is dedicated to you. I wish I could make your suicidal thoughts disappear, but I can't. What I can do is teach you how to get through those excruciating moments when every cell in your brain and body is screaming, "I want to die!" By surviving those moments unharmed and learning new ways of coping, you will gradually create a set of tools that can make life more manageable. Suicidal thoughts will occur less frequently and with less severity. The thing to remember is that change takes time and practice. Fortunately, you'll have plenty of time to practice. The good news is that practice and repetition can make these skills a part of you, and that increases your chances of getting rid of suicidal thoughts altogether. How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me is based on the following beliefs: Most suicidal thinkers don't want to die; they just want their feelings to change or go away. Every single feeling we experience eventually does change with or without any help from us. They never stay the same or at the same intensity. Feelings and thoughts are just electrochemical impulses in the brain. It is possible to out think the brain, actively change feelings and eventually eliminate suicidal thoughts. The reality of suicide is far different from the fantasy. Most suicidal thinkers romanticize their death by suicide, failing to realize that any suicide gesture or attempt can result in permanent brain, kidney, or liver damage, loss of limbs, blindness, or even death. When I was fourteen, I never thought I'd live to be twenty-one. Ironically, I didn't make my first major suicide gesture until I was twenty-five, one year after I found Sylvia, the therapist who saved my life. In the years following the 1991 overdose, I was locked in a psychiatric ward three times; wound up in the intensive-care unit twice; and made two more big suicide gestures -- an overdose in 1992 and another in 1998. During the eighteen years I had suicidal thoughts, I experienced the excruciating "I-want-to-die" moment thousand of times and did my best to destroy my life. Fortunately, I did not succeed. The brain has a mind of its own, particularly when it's trying to kill you. It can say nasty things, based not in reality but in old patterns, fears, and intensified emotion. Since most suicidal thinkers don't want to die -- what they want is relief from emotional pain -- it's important to stay alive and healthy long enough to find the relief that's out there (and inside of you). To stay alive and healthy I had to develop new coping skills and philosophies. These tools I affectionately named "Tricks of the Trade." They've saved my butt countless times. I hope to teach you these tricks in part 3, leaving room for your own creative imagination. Even if a person calls for help after making a suicide gesture (like I did) or leaves a clue so that he or she will be found before the suicide is complete, what most of us fail to realize is that we might not be found. We might wind up losing a limb or the use of a limb. We might wind up with brain damage, paralysis or internal injury. We might even wind up dead. One thing I finally got after ten years of therapy was it's okay to have suicidal thoughts, just don't act on them. They are just thoughts. instead of feeling isolated or ashamed for having them, I had to acknowledge my suicidal thoughts, look beneath them at the feelings, and find a healthy way to address the feelings in order to diminish the thoughts. I had to grasp the notion that all thoughts are temporary -- even suicidal ones -- just as all feelings are temporary. Letting go of suicide was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. It took tremendously hard work and determination, but if I can do it, anyone can. If you don't believe me, simply borrow some of my strength and belief in you. I had to borrow other people's strength and belief in me for years. Now I have plenty for myself with extra to lend. That's not to say my road to healing was smooth and straight. I battled for years, ripped with despair and loneliness. Often my brain held me hostage and tried to convince me that I was pathetic, useless, and unloved, and that ending my life was the only solution. It was wrong. If you feel resistance while reading this book, that's a good sign, and it's perfectly natural. It means something good and new is sinking into your brain. When I am starting to change a part of my psyche, my brain sometimes feels threatened. Resistance can take the form of fatigue, headaches, shallow breathing, distraction, a sense of being overwhelmed, tight shoulders, a swimmy head, a squirmy stomach, a "what's-the-use" message from the brain. If any of this happens to you, take a deep breath and read on, or take a break and do something nice for yourself. If Resistance Gets Too Strong: Find some way to get it out of your body: Take a look at the Tasks and Activities List and find a few things... How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me One Person's Guide to Suicide Prevention . Copyright © by Susan Rose Blauner. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me: One Person's Guide to Suicide Prevention by Susan Rose Blauner All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
