A few weeks ago, I found myself caught between a rock and a hard place, grappling with another bout of suicidal thoughts and urges. I considered various arguments for and against this perilous situation I always found myself in. Each time this happened, I couldn't figure out the answer. I searched under every rock and crevice to find the missing piece that would allow me to escape this intolerable pain.

In my last post, I shared the idea of finding meaning even in the midst of suffering. I have relied on that notion since I was fifteen. I rode a bike 545 miles in 7 days to find this meaning. I trained to become an amateur boxer in search of this meaning. I spoke about my lived experiences with others to uncover this meaning. I even hoped that becoming pregnant would be enough to make this pain go away.

But it didn’t. “This is supposed to be the answer, God? Why isn’t it working? Why aren’t you helping? Why aren’t you there? What kind of cruel and irrational God allows a person to contradict their existence by wanting to annihilate themselves? I did everything I was supposed to do, and this is how the universe repays me?”

I didn’t hear anything back. No signs, no voices, no way out. My cry reverberated into nothingness, and so did my self-worth. I had just one last hope left, one thing that could help me get through: if someone would just save me. “I’ve tried everything else,” I said, “and I don’t have any fight left in me. If only you said the right words, if only you told me you believed in me, I’d get better. I promise I’ll get better.”

“I believe in you, Phoenix,” they replied.

I desperately tried to will it to be true, to replace the constant urge to kill myself with those beautiful words, but even that wasn’t enough. I could no longer trust myself, and last December, I found myself back on the inpatient unit.

For a while now, my psychiatrist believed that my hormones played a critical role in my increased symptoms, but we hadn't intervened due to the risks associated with that treatment. However, I wasn’t getting any younger, and now seemed like a good time as any. What did we have to lose? And so, my treatment team induced a medical menopause while I was in the hospital. Three days later, I could hardly hear the voices that told me to kill myself. With each day moving forward, I would say to myself, “So, this is what it’s like not to have suicidal thoughts breathing down my neck.”

It took me a while to believe that it was working. I waited for the other shoe to drop, for me to revert to my old ways, but I was progressing. Six months later, my treatment team decided it was time to reintroduce the hormones that had been absent since the initial treatment. Taking those hormones would fortify my bones against osteoporosis, help prevent cardiovascular disease, and support my overall well-being.

But I was in for a surprise. A day or two later, my suicidal thoughts and urges came back in dramatic form. We hoped that things would settle down, but it just got worse. Within a week, my treatment team and I decided to discontinue the hormone medication. And as a result, things started to stabilize again.

We’re so close. Is it possible for me to live without suicidal thoughts and urges? I had never imagined it. I didn’t want to dream about it because I thought it would hurt too much. I couldn’t allow myself to think that my urges to die might worsen. It felt like bad luck to realize I could thrive. So, I didn’t hope.

But now, I can feel it. When I contemplate the possibility, it’s not just me who’s thinking about it. There are also other people who believe in me. I have people in my corner who are rooting for me and hoping for the best. Even with all the difficulties, I’ve realized that those people do make a difference, and they have become the little point of light in my vast sea of darkness.

I am no longer alone with overwhelming pain. I can finally understand that they will not abandon me, that they will be there to help me through. So, if things don’t work out for me, if my urges to die continue, I don’t have to believe that my life is not enough. Even if my struggle is all that my life amounts to, and these people support me in my time of need, maybe that’s my meaning. I can be a human being who needs the help of others, even if I still live with suicidal thoughts, even if they never go away, and the struggle never ends.

If I were physically disabled, living with a fatal illness, or had grown old and needed others to help me function and stay alive, then those relationships would prove that I could live a life of dignity. I would accept their help willingly and humbly, doing my best to honor their work with me. I believe in them just as much as they believe in me, and maybe that is enough.

I’m starting to understand that there’s something beyond pain and struggles, and life and death, of getting rid of the suicidal thoughts and urges. It is the bond between people, the acceptance of each other’s roles in our lives, and love that persists. It reverberates like that quantum physics phenomenon I watched on a PBS special: When two or more particles become interconnected, the state of one instantly influences the state of other, regardless of the distance.

This is called quantum entanglement. The two particles are linked or correlated with each other instantaneously, no matter the distance, even if one of the particles is placed farther than the stars we see in the night sky.

Love is like that. Love transcends us and extends to the infinite mystery of the universe, while simultaneously being very real and tangible—like a feeling that you can sense in your bones.

All this time, I believed love was not enough to make the worst of my mental health challenges go away. I had it wrong. I was so busy trying to be saved that I missed the whole point. Perhaps getting rid of suicidal thoughts and urges was not the goal. The truth is love remained despite death throwing everything at me. Love stayed when I hit rock bottom. Love insisted on being there when I was finding the so-called courage to kill myself. Love wasn’t afraid of coming close, of becoming vulnerable, of talking from the heart. It still showed up in the most desperate times, times when I lost all faith in humanity.

I’ve decided, after all my searching, that this is what my life means. I’ve got to try to make the best of each moment with others and realize what matters. Every stage, instance, or chance interaction; every heartache, longing, or loss—they are all worthy of my life, of giving my most human, engaged, and compassionate self, no matter how much I suffer. Henri Nouwen says it best:

In order to become full human beings, we have to claim the totality of our experience.

Maybe, by claiming that role with these people, and this circumstance, I will find a new me—the one who doesn’t have to clench my fists so tightly, trying to convince others to save me; the one who acknowledges their pain and knows there is more to me than just suffering; and the one who will try their best to give and receive love openly. In a way, suffering—or this belief that what is happening to me shouldn’t be happening—this suffering will no longer exist. It will just be what it is.

To all the people who believe and love me, thank you. Your love helped me realize I want to be here with all my might, no matter what. Perhaps you didn’t cure my illness, but instead your words kindled the fire within me, one that helped me see my unique way of becoming a full human being. You helped me realize that I do, indeed, exist, that I matter, and that has always been enough.

Warning: This story contains content about mental illness and suicide. If you are in crisis, experiencing emotional distress, or worried about someone you know, call, text, or chat 988. https://988lifeline.org/

As it is commonplace for me, I am struggling again. Last night, while I was having difficulty with images and voices urging me to end my life, I became willful, meaning I was so angry that I had to deal with this once again, that I refused to be skillful, to ask for help, to think dialectically. I cursed at the heavens, at hell, at my lot in life. I said, “Give it your best shot, I’m tired of trying! I don’t care anymore! I don’t want your help!”

Maybe I just had to let out my frustration because after that, I asked for coaching from my therapist, and she was so incredibly effective despite my willfulness. She said, “See if you can take your night meds and get some rest. The day is almost over, and hopefully you can sleep soon.” I hemmed and hawed to myself, but eventually I got ready for bed, took my night meds, and fell asleep.

The next day, I woke up early, and the urge came right back. I followed up with my therapist, saying, “Today, I'm focusing on what I can manage, including going for a walk outside and connecting with at least two people. I’m trying to be skillful and not spiral. I’m trying to remind myself that I have much to live for and that these bad feelings will pass.” This was my intention, my way of saying, “The only thing that is helping me be willing instead of willful is that I don’t want to go back to the psych ED (sometimes it’s necessary, I know). I don’t want to have another crisis, have my life interrupted, have my son worry and miss me, and can’t see me for weeks on end.” Yesterday I told him I wasn’t feeling well and he asked me, “Why aren’t you feeling well? Are you sick?” I told him, “No, I’m just not feeling my usual self, and I think I need to go to bed early.” I think that helped quell his insecurity, but eventually I have to tell him what’s going on, because today I felt so bad that I didn’t know if I could make it.

To push forward genuinely and authentically, I had to realize that how I was seeing my struggle was not working. I have been running around in circles, doing the same thing, expecting different results. And so, today, I stopped. I had the wherewithal to reflect on my behavior and reactions, how I’ve been feeling, and what my body is trying to tell me. I’ve been fighting myself and my body, wrestling with whether I should live or die, and I even temporarily gave up. There was a sense of urgency to solving this pain, and I knew that for me to survive, I had to stop fighting. I typed into Google, “radical acceptance of suicidal urges.”

Radical acceptance, a term I learned from Marsha Linehan’s dialectical behavior therapy, is:

* Accepting the facts of a situation as they are, without judgment or resistance.

* Letting go of the need to change or control the situation.

* Embracing the present moment, including both the positive and negative aspects.

Only yesterday, radical acceptance of suicide urges would have scared the hell out of me, and I wouldn’t have allowed it in my vocabulary. To think, I would have to embody these things when dealing with suicide? It would be as if I were on the edge of a cliff and I started to lose my balance.

I was desperate for change, however, and this was the most significant change I thought I could make. I found an article that talked about this exact thing, and I learned that maybe the pain of suicide, of wanting to die, is paradoxically because we want to live. It wants me to flourish and find freedom. It wants me to be the most alive I’ve ever been, and when it gets stuck in these states, it thinks that the only choice is death. I’ve been blind to what these feelings are actually saying to me:

Listen, I know this storm is hard, that you feel this is the most difficult thing you’ve ever experienced, but you’ve got to remember who you are. You grew up with spunk, creativity, a vivid imagination, and a zest for life. You were a ham, wanting to perform in front of imaginary audiences, whether it was being a rock star, a stand-up comedian, or a baseball player. You’re that alive. Remember?

And so I think, what if this pain is reminding me of what I live for? I know this struggle of mine might never go away. I know it hurts, and I can’t think of anything except getting rid of the pain by dying, but what if this was my way to live life to the fullest?

I thought I did everything to help myself. I’ve done all that I thought was asked of me, I’ve listened to all the doctors and therapists, and taken all their directives. Yes, I’ve made some progress, but here I stand, wanting to die all over again. This is not change, because if I had changed, I would no longer suffer. That’s my roundabout, nascent, logical, rational-mind way of thinking:

If I worked hard enough, I would no longer suffer.

But that’s not the answer. That’s not where freedom comes from. I don’t know if I’ll ever be free of mental illness. But maybe my life becomes meaningful by the way I’ve approached my mental illness—how I live out my pain. For someone who cannot escape pain, even as I write this now, there is a way to live out my life not only despite my pain, but maybe because of my pain. I don’t know what it is yet. I’m still feeling my way through the dark, but I know I’m onto something.

When I was 15, I read Viktor Frankl’s “Man's Search for Meaning” for school. In that life-changing book, there was a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche:

“He who has a why to live, can bear with almost any how.”

Ever since then, I have been determined to find my why. I rode a bike from San Francisco to LA, competed in the Golden Gloves as an amateur boxer, and spoke on big stages and in small, intimate groups, all because my pain was unbearable, I needed to be able to bear with any how.

And maybe it’s not by pursuing all those things. Yes, they have a time and place, but for someone who cannot escape the struggle towards death, Viktor Frankl talks about something else: keeping one’s dignity, or a positive stance towards unavoidable suffering. We can choose our outlook, regardless of how bleak it may seem. I know I can do that. I know that’s how I survive this. That’s how I’ve made meaning from my current situation.

Today, I'm ready to live with the dignity that only I can give myself, and I’m committed to making that happen.