Waking Up, Alive: The Descent, The Suicide Attempt... and the Return to Life. by Heckler Richard A

Author:Heckler, Richard A. [Heckler, Richard A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suicidal, Motivational Help, Loss of Faith, Depression and Pain, Suicide Survivors, Suicide Help, Waking Up Alive: The Descent The Suicide Attempt and the Return to Life
Publisher: Author & Company
Published: 2014-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

The Road Back

FIRST STEPS

The doctor was right. I still felt I wanted to die. I knew I still wanted to die, but I was also angry. I realized there was no way in hell that I wanted my husband to raise my daughter. I didn’t want her to feel as powerless and abandoned as I felt. It felt like he was giving me a task I could accomplish even though I felt so bad.(Chris)

Every journey begins with an intention and a first step. In ways varied and innumerable, a crack in the door appears and light penetrates where it may never have entered before. After the failed attempt, people cautiously entertain a change of perspective, an alternate reality which may have hovered close by but which remained hidden during the trance.

A voice of compassion had melted the armor that surrounded Chris. Patient and gentle, her admitting physician seemed to be the very archetype of the Good Doctor. Skillfully, undemonstratively, he empathized with her dilemma while challenging her to poke through her suffering and grasp a wider perspective.

I knew nothing about psychological innards at that point, but two things had happened all of a sudden that were new. First of all, he didn’t put me down for wanting to leave my husband. Most everyone else seemed to think I was a bad person for wanting to leave him. And then, even though I still felt real dead inside, there was this other thing out here, separate from myself, that was a task worth trying to accomplish.

This was the first step. First steps represent a subtle but critical shift in attitude. At this juncture, one can feel both the familiar desire to die and the first hints of wanting to live. In such moments, people simultaneously experience the pain of the past and a still embryonic sense of nourishment in the present. These are the moments when the suicidal trance gives way and one begins to entertain new possibilities. These are the first moments of recovery.

In one short stroke, Chris felt radically different. Someone had entered her world and acknowledged the legitimacy of her pain. She had also been compassionately challenged. The doctor related to her as an adult and as a capable person, despite the circumstances. This was precisely the kind of help she needed. It gave meaning to her present predicament and offered her a reason for living. Her daughter’s welfare was critically important and she needed to devote herself to that end, but at the same time there was still much that Chris had to discover about herself. She had always been a set of contradictions: passionate yet timid, stubborn and strong-willed underneath and yet docile and conciliatory in personal relationships. The connection forged in a few minutes that morning awakened the desire within Chris to investigate the puzzle that was she, and for the first time in years she felt this might be a worthwhile project. Someone believed in her, and in an important and necessary step, she was willing, at least for a while, to suspend her doubt.

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