1-800-273-8255 KARAOKE!!! (reprised for world suicide prevention day)

"dude we went to a karaoke bar together and she sang the suicide hotline song by logic...yeah man, totally made everyone in the place feel uncomfortable but it was so badass...like it's real, ya know? she's not afraid to bring up the real shit."

that'd be my reaction to me if i was on a karaoke date with me. no clue what my actual date thought, though surprisingly i didn't care. that was years ago and i wasn't feeling actively suicidal when i sang it, but that feeling-tone of the suicidal urge...you know, that longing to not be here, anywhere but here...it may have been temporarily deactivated but my body hadn't forgotten.

but the thing about feeling suicidal that only recently became clear to me, in this thou summer of solitary slowness, is that it's both a reaction and a distraction.

it's a tsunami-sized wave responding to some kind of deeper weather pattern. its deafening shrills of alarm bells and the urgency to survive...whatever is going on feels so painfully unbearable that the best bet to survive, in some soul-sense, is to die. that's the idea. a false idea that death to the body might bring ultimate relief from suffering.

and the feeling isn't wrong, in that something in one's life does need to die, to end, to change, shift...NOW. it's very serious about the now part.

the first time i experienced the suicidal urge was around age eleven or twelve. again, maybe around age eighteen, few times here and there in my twenties...and again, this summer. i have rarely told anyone about this out of fear of being judged, worried about, looked down upon, told to get over it and count my blessings etc. how silly, really, and simultaneously smart of me. the suicidal urge does scare a lot of people. rightfully so i guess, it is kind of terrifying.

no matter how heavy and all-consuming it has felt for me, there's always been a part of me inside that knows i just couldn't and wouldn't...and that doesn't make me any better or worse than anyone who has taken their life or attempted to, and it doesn't necessarily make it any more tolerable of an experience.

and yet, this summer when it made another appearance, i knew it was different. no more beating-the-chest in demands or zig-zagging away, this time it approached me slowly. it wore a tattered suit and cleanly scuffed dress shoes. it held its hat with both hands beneath the waist, politely stopping about five feet away from me, waiting. (okay okay it kinda looked like tom waits) it had scars on its face and a calm acceptance of itself. it wanted me to see it plainly and truly. like an old friend i had thought myself intimate with but never taken the time to really look at.

this was in an authentic movement session that it came up again. [in a quick nutshell: authentic movement is a meditative, subtle listening practice involving a mover and a witness. it is a practice of opening to a deeper sensing of body and psyche for the purpose of wholeness and integration by bridging the unconscious with consciousness.] in honor of the work, and how one debriefs after a session, i shall continue in present tense: i am on smooth-cushioned floors by the bathroom door. my body intuitively moves. i curl into a ball and back out. together, we (me and the suicidal urge) look to see what's underneath this desire to not exist:

an overflowing well of generational grief. waves of primordial sadness from perceived disconnection. a memory of my father threatening to kill himself. attachment wounds without repairs, for him, her, me, them, theirs - down the line. survival mode and self-protection. longing for home. this human predicament of hypnosis, forgetting our oneness and true nature. but also - resiliency. evolution. remembering. still waters of balance and clarity...

i am witnessed in love through this processing. no words necessary, no fixing or fixating. there is enough space and containment/support, equally, to be with it all. (is this capacity?)

as i leave the session, i am not exuberantly shouting "i finally want to be alive" like the ending of the suicide hotline song but i'm also not crying out the opposite. i cross the street and walk to the car. there is a subtle quality of new possibility in the air, unrecognizable but somehow within reach.

(written September 2023, reprised from a different but similar back porch in honor of World Suicide Prevention Day.)

//////// p.s. if you want the feel of discomfort in the room while i sang the suicide hotline song, look no further than around the 2:10 mark of logic performing it at the grammy's. as he walks through the crowd, there's maybe one smiling face and all else look a little comically ill-at-ease.

it can be a hard thing to reflect on and it is my intention by writing this to make it a little easier to talk about and a little less scary for anyone who might be experiencing it personally or relationally.

p.s.s. i have been inspired to write this by my friend's sibling, whom i've never actually met in person, but who has been posting about their healing journey online and sharing songs that have helped them through. so thank you to andrew and your vulnerability!