Tragedy and adversity are life elements that have always been very fond of me throughout my life, and these elements had but one common goal; try to convince me that my life wasn’t worth living! And at one time, it was a battle that I nearly lost.
~~This was the beginning of a war that consumed me for over 17 years, and an aspect of my personal life that I had never “gone public” with since the fear of what others would think kept this secret of mine suppressed and hidden from the world……..until now.
Suicide was a well-known “demon” within my family. My father died of suicide when I was 3, my mother attempted (luckily she survived) when I was 15 years-old. Even my abusive brother is chronically effected by suicidal thoughts and attempts, and I had been fighting suicidal thoughts/contemplation and periods of self-harm since I was 12 years old.
My father suffered horribly with Bipolar Disorder (Type 1) throughout the 1970’s and 80’s that included episodes of religious type psychosis. My mother was consumed with suppressed feelings of guilt and shame due to years of past abuse and traumas, and for me, it was being caught in between violent environments in combination with, severe mental, emotional and physical abuse I had been experiencing, but regardless of the causes, the “demon” was the same and it had the same end game………death.
Growing up I feared dying at an early age (before 30), however, when I was “in that moment” when I attempted… I’ll never forget how I felt. I was sitting on the bathroom floor with my back up against the door, and it was just after the latest round of physical abuse brought on by my brother (always chalked up to sibling rivalry and nothing more, which fueled resentment towards my mom) not to mention, a whole day of being horrifically bullied at school earlier that very same day.
Sitting in the bathroom….. I simply leaned over and pulled out a pair of orange handled scissors from the drawer…..even though this happened many years ago, I still remember vividly staring at the steel blades, debating on if they would be “sharp enough” to do the job….and even as I was having these thoughts, I remember being totally emotionally numb! –No anger, no hate, no happiness, no nothing….just…..numb.
My mind was firing off statements of “just get it over with” along with flashback thoughts of all the pain I had endured that day along with past traumatic experiences as well…all this was happening at once and the negative thoughts were so heavy and loud that I didn’t realize I had begun to drag the blade across my right wrist. I remember the feeling of being completely consumed with these negative thoughts and flashbacks….. but suddenly, out of no where, a massive internal “NO!!!!” popped in my head and it frightened me so I ended up plunging the blade into the top of my forearm, instead of through the vein in my wrist.
After I saw the blood begin to pour out of the top of my arm and fall onto the floor, it was like an emotional tsunami—-Fear, sadness, hate, anger, helplessness and even gratitude. I realized I was no longer in the “numb” state anymore. I began feeling the burning sensation start to set in, and right then and there, I threw those fucking scissors clear across the bathroom as hard as I physically could, and began to sob uncontrollably.
The realization hit me on how close I just came to following in my father’s footsteps and just the thought that I had gotten that close, turned my sadness and despair into pure anger; not because I “chickened out”, but because of the realization that my situation and environment, to me, was so horrific that I almost convinced myself that there was no other way to end the pain and suffering other than to die, and the entire time I was in the bathroom, not a single family member noticed I was in a suicidal crisis.
That was the only time in my entire life where I had lost ALL hope. In that moment I thought my life would always be surrounded by violence and abuse; that I’d never be at peace from the chaos, that my future would be mediocre at best. I felt no possibility of a genuinely happy life and no purpose for my existence. It was the scariest moment of my past, but a profound one since, In that bathroom, I realized I saved my own life…not sure where that internal “No!!” came from, but grateful that it forced me to rethink what I was trying to do.
After I bandaged up my arm, I remember getting a “fuck you suicide” attitude. It was an empowering feeling of “Ha, you failed bitch, you didn’t get me” and I adopted a completely new perspective once I walked out of that bathroom. No more…..
From that day, I began looking at suicide as an actual entity like something out of a horror movie, I was able to “see” it in its true form which is why I called it a “demon” because to me, that’s the form I visualize when I see or hear the word “Suicide”. Suicide’s plan for me back fired dramatically and instead of making me a victim, it turned me into a fighter with a brand new burning hate for it; instantly providing me with a lifelong purpose…… never let that bitch defeat me and to reach out to as many others as I can in hopes of preventing it from claiming anymore victims. I knew in order to do this successfully, I was going to need one hell of a powerful weapon. I just never thought in my wildest dreams ever that fitness would become that weapon, and at first, I highly doubted its effectiveness against this particular problem. I had the “Are you fucking serious” thought in my head, but I knew I had to trust my gut, simply because for me it was literally the difference of life and death.
This is where I began designing and building what would become my super weapon, and since my mind had given suicide a visual form, I gave my method one as well. I saw it as being a massive bad ass mega machine gun that was so powerful that it could fire off 16,000 rounds of ammunition each second. This thought made me laugh at first simply because in reality….I don’t even like guns, but this was the metaphoric form my method had adopted. Shortly after….I finally was able to give my method a name… Polykinetics (a collaborative effort)
As of today, as I continue my method’s development, I know that suicide will always be lurking cowardly in the dark shadows of my life’s negativity, but god as my witness, with this newly discovered mega weapon, I’ll always be ready and willing to fight because I now know the more I utilize this fitness method, not only will it naturally strengthen my body, but it’ll strengthen my mind as well and provide me with all of the strength I’ll ever need to live out a full life in a true and genuine happiness.
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