Let's Talk About Asking For Help & What That Really Feels Like
When I made the decision to get help, I felt dumb and overdramatic, and I never identified as the person who deserved to reach out for help.
This post discusses suicide. If you need to reach out to someone urgently, please call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or 988.
I know I’m not alone in feeling particularly rocked by the news today that brilliant dancer, creator, DJ, husband and father Stephen “tWitch” Boss died by suicide. I wouldn’t call myself a superfan, and I didn’t know him personally, but this loss has my brain spinning.
“He was so happy!” “We NEVER know what someone is battling.” “If it could happen to him it could happen to anyone.” Seem to be the messages I’m nodding my head to in agreement. It feels especially scary when someone who appears to have tons of support takes their own life.
I don’t want to speculate about this particular death, and his personal struggles. The rest of this post is not about Stephen, but inspired by where my head has been today.
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People will say “I wish they asked for help. Please ask for help if you need it,” on repeat, but I wonder if the people who need the help know what asking for help looks like? What it feels like when you have to make that decision? Because, having been in that spot a few times now, I can tell you that when I made the decision to get help, I felt dumb and overdramatic, and I never identified as the person who deserved to reach out for help.
And yet, when I look back, I know for certain that those were critical moments for me, and I was deserving of help and love and grace and compassion. When I look back, I can see the exact moment I diverted myself from a path that would have likely lead to an attempt to end my life.
I’ve been asked a few times, “How did you know you needed to check yourself in? What did you feel like?” I felt like a fucking idiot. I felt like the reason I felt so bad was stupid and invalid. I felt like I was probably going to wake up the next day and be just fine and feel like I wasted time, money, resources, etc.
Or, I would just die. And I was ok with that.
It wasn’t like this primal urge in me to seek help. I wasn’t exactly scared. I was exhausted, and defeated, and done.
The switch that flipped each time I did make the hard choice to seek help was the realization that I didn’t know how to love myself anymore. If I woke the next day and wasn’t in crisis, I would still loathe myself. And I was ok with not waking the next day, even though the people who love me would be left with my trauma. There were no other forward paths.
Yes, in hindsight, I can see a ton of other mental health red flags, but in that moment, none of that stood out to me.
And the thing about hating yourself so much you want to die, is you are quite certain you do not deserve the help you’d offer someone you love because you are not someone you love.
I know that may sound hyperbolic to someone who’s not been in that spot before, but it’s a simple fact for me.
We will never know for certain, but I would guess many suicides are sparked by things that, to people on the outside, seem trivial or easily overcome. I have a personal false narrative that people only attempt suicide when things get “REALLY BAD.” And so as long as I’m not, Idk, facing time in a federal prison or just lost all my family in a car accident, I’m probably just fine, and I’m overreacting like I’ve always been told I do.
But then, I find myself dissociating, under the covers, thinking I’d really be ok if I got off this ride before the next day.
There is no CLICK to alert me I’ve switched over from “I’m really disgusted with myself” to “I want to die.” There is no MOMENT where I realize NOW I deserve to ask for help.
The beautiful souls I met in my outpatient group therapy program last year came from such a variety of pain. They had been laid off, were lonely and afraid to die alone, alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts, burnt out, abusers, abused, etc. And nobody got more time because their trauma was “worse.” We were all there, showing up with our entire, broken selves everyday, because we all needed the same thing- to learn how to love ourselves… again or for the first time.
We were all there because we made the messy, muddy choice to seek or accept help. Not a single person shared that they wound up in our program because there was an obvious moment that this was the next right step. I think we all, at some point, questioned if we even deserved to be there.
So how do you know if you should ask for help? I don’t think I have a solid blueprint for this, and I would love to hear your personal experiences and advice in the comments to add to this conversation.
For me, I think I have to remember that I likely won’t know, and work to love myself enough to be ok asking even if I don’t think I deserve it. In fact, the more my brain tries to tell me I’m foolish for thinking anyone should help me, the more I should probably ask for help.
The morning that I checked into inpatient psychiatric hospitalization was a culmination of many mornings where I was, yet again, disappointed that I had even woken up at all. I knew something was wrong when I kept telling myself that my husband and 4 year old would be better off without me alive. I had one tiny moment of clarity: “but Monica, what about the trauma you’ll leave behind?” And that’s when I called my husband up to me, where I lay sobbing in a puddle on the bed, and told him, “I have a plan to kill myself today. I need to go to the emergency room.” And we went. I just remember being exhausted, terrified, ashamed, and defeated. I’m sure I could go look back in my Facebook photos from the week before, and you wouldn’t be able to tell. Suicidal ideation is insidious, and I can see how the alternative to life seems so peaceful sometimes. This was five years ago for me. I’m finally stable and happy. Im still cracked in some places, but that adds character. I’ve learned to sit with my feelings and honor them, rather than run from them. I am broken and flawed, and I am still beautiful and whole.
I nearly lost my job when I was struggling. I had my 2 "best friends" walk away from me because I was acting like I was. I didn't know how to reach out to grasp the hands offered to me. It took cutting my wrist (not suicidal per se, just needed to release pain) and driving myself to the hospital to get help. It's scary and painful and messy. I wish more people would reach out instead of turning their backs. I recently just took a mental health first aid course. What an eye opening day that was! Now I'm a lot more careful about what I say, how I approach others, etc. Thank you for phrasing it as "died by suicide" instead of "committed." Words do matter and do does support and kindness and awareness.