Suicide Surviving to Life Thriving

It was this morning eight years ago my knees gave out and I hit the ground. 

The concrete was the only thing strong enough to support me after the words landed in my life.  My brother had just walked toward me with his head held low.  I could see he was searching for something.  He took me gently by the arm as I asked him “John, what’s wrong?”.  He hesitated for a brief second, while I stood staring.  Then he lifted his gaze to mine and he said “Tara…..Dad killed himself”.

That’s when I crumbled to the ground.  I was half holding on, half begging for it to swallow me whole.  It’s the moment I heard my spirit break and shatter into pieces.

I don’t often let my mind wander to that string of seconds.  It’s too difficult to relive.  The powerful impact, a swift and violent punch to the soul, is still something I physically feel as if it’s happening all over again.

In eight years I’ve learned to revisit this moment sparingly and only when absolutely necessary.

As I look back, I recognize massive shifts in my perspective and awareness.  Time is now measured by before and after.  Dad’s suicide the harsh beginning to a brand new reality.

In eight long years I’ve learned (the hard, bumpy, bruised knee and bloody knuckled way) of navigating Grief, living with Depression and managing two full-blown assholes called Anxiety and Panic.

In this time I’ve also learned how to patch my broken spirit back together into a mosaic puzzle I’m growing proud of.

It’s no secret that my family and I have experienced a great deal of loss that didn’t stop after Dad.  Tragic loss.  Unbelievable loss.  Too massive for our minds and hearts and souls to absorb.  Too big to hold on to and too heavy a burden to carry.

So what do you do with it all then?  If you can’t carry them, hold them or tuck them all away...where does it all fit?

Eight years ago I was certain I would drown in the murky water of it all.  I had no clue what my tomorrows would look like under all this heartache.  I had no space big enough to store it all.

Fast forward to today, after a tremendous amount of hard work and digging deep, the one and only thing I know for sure is that letting go of it, bit by bit, is the only option.  It’s not about storing it.  It’s about releasing it.

Release.  What an epiphany (when I allowed myself to have it).

Talk about true grit.

Each day I work at it.  I supplement the dark moments with memories that are lighter, happier and healthier.  It’s not always pretty.  In fact, it’s a hot mess.  Emotions swinging around like Kettle Bells, me doing my best to focus my energy on the positives and not feed the gluttonous negatives that wait anxiously in the wings.

I study.  I read.  I try my very best to be understanding and have compassion.  When I can’t do any of the above I turn the kindness onto myself and soothe the parts of me that ache.  In time, the gift I’ve been given in return for my hard work is Belief.

Belief that letting go is the gateway.  It’s where I will find the shift from surviving suicide and tragedy to thriving, one day at a time.

Each day I apply this practice I can feel myself healing.  My clenched fists begin unfolding, my sadness slowly lifting, my resentment tasting less bitter and my anger simmering.

Somewhere along the way I realized that surviving simply wasn’t enough for me.  I wanted more.  Thriving, in the face of it all, was my only true option.

So with that I decided I would let go, piece by piece, and set all those experiences ablaze on a trail of a life well lived.

Tragic loss, great love, mosaic soul patches and all.

:: Always from under the same sky ::

Tara

Tara Mazzeo Jackson

Co-Founder of Storytellers:  The Collective, 

Curator for Bohemian Living, Owner/Artist of Bungalow Wilde 

and Blogger at Bits & Pieces.

Tara is a lover of yoga, bleeder of words and a bohemian city-kid who has a knack for rescuing stray animals.  

She has a mean case of wanderlust and you’d be hard pressed to find her without these things:

a journal in her bag, a camera in-hand and sun kissed shoulders.

Tara writes from experience, pain, truth, triumph and that place, 

deep down, where the words simmer in emotion.

Tenderness & Tenderbits

This is today's Truthbomb from the ever-inspiring Danielle LaPorte.

Sounds easy, right? 

Defend your tenderness. 

Of course the things that sound easy never really are…are they?

Tenderness.  Those soft, raw, unexposed pieces of your heart and soul that haven’t been beaten to a pulp yet.

The parts that loss hasn’t carved into with the ferocity of a blade slinger.  

Suicide, drug and alcohol addiction, overdose, loss on top of grief on top of mourning.  

Years and years of mourning.

The weight of it all cripples any tenderness that has the balls to stand its ground.

Tenderness along with innocence are my casualties of circumstance.

What was once tenderness is now covered in scar tissue.

What was once innocence is now cold, hard experience.

What's even more concerning is whatever battleworn tenderness might be bunkered deep within can’t even find solace in my sleep.

This grieving and mourning and wailing doesn’t fucking quit.

I wake up with it.

I live my days with it.

I tuck myself in with it at night.

That's when things really get muddy.

As my eyes close and sleep takes over, my subconscious mind continues to rip apart at my tenderness.

Visions not suitable for waking hours.

Abysmal sadness.

So, so deep.  

It’s a wasteland of despair, my dreams.

I’m failing my tenderness.  

Unable to defend it.

Weak to protect it.

Lacking faith that I have any pure tenderness left.

My own truthbomb is this:  My tenderness is broken. 

Which leaves me with one question...

If defending it has failed and it’s broken to bits...

Is there HOPE to HEAL it?

Because luckily I can say...

Somehow, some way my hope is still in tact.

Tara Mazzeo Jackson

Co-Founder of Storytellers:  The Collective, 

Curator for Bohemian Living, Owner/Artist of Bungalow Wilde 

and Blogger at Bits & Pieces.

Tara is a lover of yoga, bleeder of words and a bohemian city-kid who has a knack for rescuing stray animals.  

She has a mean case of wanderlust and you’d be hard pressed to find her without these things:

a journal in her bag, a camera in-hand and sun kissed shoulders.

Tara writes from experience, pain, truth, triumph and that place, 

deep down, where the words simmer in emotion.

Grieving 101: The Emotional Marathon

“I can't be running back and fourth forever between grief and high delight.” 

― J.D. Salinger 

But I do.

It's exhausting, really.  It's something along the lines of an emotional marathon.  One that I find myself running every few years, against my will and against my wishes. 

Now, I've never run a real marathon before, however, this emotional marathoning isn't for the weak of heart either, that's for sure!  Each miserable stride burns more than the next breath.  You wonder how the hell you're going to get through this.  All those miles ahead, one thumping foot in front of the other.  Then, something happens along the way and everything quiets down for a moment when you realize... everything has gone numb.  You can't feel a damn thing!  Your reaction:  Hallelujah!  This respite allows you to coast for a spell.  Who cares if you can't feel anything.  Feeling, especially at times like these, is over-fucking-rated. This is your Menthol Mile, baby, and you better enjoy it.  Because slowly and then all at once the burn breaks through again and you'll be leaving a trail of smoke behind you for all the wrong reasons. In time, you'll stop screaming "holy hellfire" and simply accept the flames.  They are, some say, what make you or break you.

I don't know.  Sometimes I think "What the fuck?".  Sometimes I simply can't believe it all and I stand there wonderstruck, in the least magical way possible.  Every so often a wave of peace washes over me and I realize it's all ok, all of it, even the parts that aren't ok, if that makes any sense.

My thoughts ride a wicked pendulum.  They whip from side to side, up and down, from here to there, now to then and back again a million times in the blink of an eye.  Sounds fun, right? Yeah, just about as fun as that clown in Stephen King's "It" (insert shivers here please).  

It turns out my circumstances have demanded that I get good and clear on what I believe in….and I mean what I TRULY believe in.  As in...what is all of this heartbreaking, beautiful, chaotic, exotic, full blown insanity worth in the midst - and in the end - of it all?

My belief system, I've learned, is made up of the following:  Love, the amazing, true kind of love that makes all this shit worth while.  Heaven.  Family.  Life, this one beautiful life.  Friendship.  Forgiveness, regardless of what a battle it is to achieve it.  Impact, the kind you make and the kind that's made on you.  Karma, what you give, you get.  Peace, the sacred hunt for it.   And honesty.

It's my 3rd Emotional Marathon in 8 years.  

Although you'd think I'd be a frontrunner with all this "experience" the truth is, right now, I'm just pacing myself to get to the finish line without shitting my pants.

Tara Mazzeo Jackson

Co-Founder of Storytellers:  The Collective, 

Curator for Bohemian Living, Owner/Artist of Bungalow Wilde 

and Blogger at Bits & Pieces.

Tara is a lover of yoga, bleeder of words and a bohemian city-kid who has a knack for rescuing stray animals.  

She has a mean case of wanderlust and you’d be hard pressed to find her without these things:

a journal in her bag, a camera in-hand and sun kissed shoulders.

Tara writes from experience, pain, truth, triumph and that place, 

deep down, where the words simmer in emotion.

Ladybugs: Part V "The Fight"

When you find yourself so broken that death seems like a viable option; it changes you. 

I wish I could pinpoint how it changes you but I can't. I can only tell you it simply does. 

I was broken and damaged, the only thing keeping me among the living was a thread. Even though there had to have been a part of me that wanted to live, I continued to test my thread's strength:

...by swallowing too many sleeping pills which ended with me intubated.
...by overdosing and being hit with narcan more times than I can count.
...by shooting heroin and cocaine for almost two weeks until ending up in Somerville Hospital.  To this day I am still unsure of how I got there.

As selfish as this may sound I was like a cockroach: I just couldn't die. 

The last and final time I “actively” tried to take my own life was in the back of my busted up car that I was living in. I drank half a bottle of windshield washer fluid. 

You might be asking yourself “what's up with the windshield fluid?”.  And I can honestly say that I have no idea. I'm sure I could've attempted to harm myself in another way, however, it was just there at that moment, an option at that time. 

Of course, there were multiple detoxes, halfway homes and psych wards. All with no success. My final count of detox units is between 15-20. I completed approximately half of those; ending up in a long-term setting (like a halfway house).  However, no matter the setting or the facility I just could NOT keep myself clean. 

Out of everything that I have been through it is this part of my story that I find the scariest. But not for the reason you might be thinking. This part frightens me the most because once you look at death in a positive light (ie: to end your pain and to stop from hurting) you seem to never let that go. It just gets buried deep down where no one can ever see it. Almost like a dormant gene or something. 

So, even years later, when you think you have life figured out and your shit is all together: BAM! The demons in your head begin to taunt you and you must remind yourself over and over again… 

“I must fight. I must keep fighting."

Anonymous

Please read the complete Ladybug series by clicking on the following:

Ladybugs - Part I  

Ladybugs Part II

Ladybugs - Part III

Ladybugs - Part IV

Ladybug - Part IV "Lifer"

I have a confession to make: you aren't the only ones who have heard my story before. I have stood in front of medical students and veteran doctors alike and told [parts of] my story in hospitals across the Boston area. I do these talks not because I am paid, or because I get some sort of prize at the end like a sticker or lollipop. No, I do these talks for two reasons: the first is education. You would be surprised at how many doctors are not educated about addiction and medications to treat it. The second: to earn some positive karma points (in the hopes that it crosses out some of the shitty things I have done). In our society, judgement day is every day. I know that even after all these years I still get the eye when my criminal record pops up. Explaining why you were arrested for possession of hypodermic needles, possession, larceny, or any of the other fuckery that I was arrested for is never an easy task. And while society can be harsh, it is still nothing like the judgement of junkies.

See, what a lot of people don't realize is that no one is harder on addicts than other addicts. If you got high off of pills you probably thought you were better than a heroin addict. If you got high off of crack cocaine; you were looked down upon by those who only snorted the drug. This attitude that we had, myself included, even came to sobriety. 

See, if you were on the methadone clinic you beneath all of the above mentioned. From the beginning of my drug use, it was ingrained in me that methadone was “bad” and that it was the same as shooting dope. That people on the clinic were “lifers” doing life sentences handcuffed to another drug. Because methadone was “just replacing one drug with another drug and a person on the clinic isn't 'really' clean... I believed it all and judged every soul who made that choice. I think part of me thought I would be able to get clean once the time came… 

Unfortunately, that time came and went many times. I spent countless days in detoxes and halfway houses but sobriety just never stuck. The cravings were so, so strong. I always ended up in the same place: relapsing. I knew I had an addiction but didn't realize the mental aspect of it until I started to attempt sobriety. As a heroin addict, I was always concerned with the physical aspect of my addiction: muscle aches, anxiety, hot and cold flashes, nausea, cold sweats, and restlessness. 

After so many failed attempts at getting clean, it started to take a toll on me. I was overdosing left and right and was mentally fucked up so it made things worse. I was tired of the life and tired of spending day after day chasing my next fix. The drug that had been my friend, companion, and lover was no longer. As the days went by and the relapses added up; I didn't want to live anymore. It's quite simple when I look back: I was so desperate to stop the madness and I thought the only way to do it was to either stay sober or die: By the drug that I loved or by my own hand…

Anonymous

Please read the complete Ladybug series by clicking on the following:

Ladybugs - Part I  
Ladybugs Part II
Ladybugs - Part III