 I have thought about this letter a lot and I knew I had to be in the right space to write it down and embrace it. I want to write this carefully. I want to tread lightly. I know others who are doing amazing things to bring more awareness to mental health and suicide and, at this point, this is what I can do. I can use my story and who I am. Please remember this – I am NOT a psychologist, psychiatrist or counsellor. I’m an early childhood educator. I speak only from my own experience and my own thoughts on this topic. There are amazing experts out there who can do amazing things. Seek them out if you need help to get through another day. Alexis, When you are old enough to read this letter, let’s sit down with a coffee and talk about it. Let me answer all your questions and all your concerns. I’ll answer everything you need or want to know to the very best of my ability. The emotions surrounding this letter are real and, while I am no longer in that space anymore, I am fully aware that I was there. It’s not something you can forget quickly. If ever. In fact, if I ever do forget, my struggle would have been in vain. August is a big month for us. It will always be the most amazing month because it is the month in which you entered my life. However, this year also marks four years since I was planning to kill myself. It was the 25th of August and it was a Tuesday. Your dad took every second Tuesday off work to look after you, so that I could work. I had thought about committing suicide over and over, I deliberated over when would be the best time to do it. My timing had to be just right. I knew that when I didn’t show up for work or when I didn’t show up to pick you up, your dad would know. Not that I wanted him to find me. I didn’t really want anyone to, but I didn’t know any other way. I decided that Tuesday the 25th August would be the best time. I had studied and researched different options. I was nervous. I was driving to prepare myself, thinking through my checklist for the morning. There was almost a sense of relief washing over me; my pain would end soon. I pulled my car over as I needed to breathe. I opened my phone and my automatic reflex took me to Facebook. Facebook told me that it was a dear friend’s birthday. A very dear friend. I had promised myself that I would not do it on a day that was important to anyone. Even though I was so ready to leave this earth, I knew that other people would be sad. I had seen the effects of suicide and death enough to know that family and friends are always left behind to mourn. I could not do this to someone I loved. I would not make their day of celebration into one of mourning. It turned out that the celebration of her life saved me from my death. Maybe I didn’t really want to do it. Maybe I was looking for an out. Maybe. I don’t know. At the time, I felt almost bitter towards her for taking this away from me. Now, however, I am only grateful. I hadn’t told anyone about my plans for that day. I didn’t want people to try and talk me out of it. I had made up my mind. I hadn’t packed up my belongings. I hadn’t given items away. Doing all that would just slow me down. I just wanted to leave. I just wanted my pain to come to an end. I needed it to stop. I needed to go. I have spoken openly about my struggle with mental health many times and I will continue to do so in the future. Until now, however, I have never felt brave enough to talk about my struggle and desire to kill myself. I used to drive around, imagining what would happen if I just didn’t turn the wheel when I needed to. Or what would happen if I drove with my eyes closed for long enough. I knew that a car crash might not be enough though. I didn’t want to be left injured. I wanted to die. If I was going to do it, I was going to do it properly and I was going to do it well. Sometimes when I cut myself, I would imagine getting the right vein. I would hope for it. I knew where the veins were. I would tempt myself but it was never the right time. You were always home and I couldn’t have you waking up to that. I needed you to be out of the house and away from me. I wanted out. I hated life, and I thought, believed, and was completely convinced that this world would be safer, better, happier without me. I told myself so many times that you would be better off without me. I believed that I was ruining your world and that I would continue to do so in the future. I was convinced that your life would be better if I was no longer in it. I didn’t feel a sense of belonging in the world. Not only would it be better off without me, but me without it. I’ve heard that suicide is a selfish act but I can’t agree with that idea. I can’t find it in myself to believe that. I think that when you are in that place of wanting to save everyone from yourself, you believe that it’s the most selfless thing you can give anyone anymore. I believe that the person who wants to die is so convinced that this world would be better off without them, they don’t see it as taking their life away, they see it as giving everyone else a chance, giving everyone else’s lives back to them. Even though I knew people would be sad, it didn’t make me not want to do it. I wasn’t being selfish in this, although I admit that it sounds like it. I honestly believed that I would make everyone’s life sadder if I existed in it. When I joked about suicide once, someone said to me, “What about Alexis? You would never do that to her!” The words “no, never” left my mouth, even as my thoughts told me that you would be much better off. There is a lack of understanding when we say that people thinking of committing suicide are dealing with a “problem’. I don’t think that those that have struggled with these thoughts and feelings see it as a problem, it’s their existence. It’s not just one thing, it’s everything. It’s being awake. It’s being asleep. It’s the fake smiles. It’s feeling like you have to say you’re okay when you’re not. It’s not telling anyone how you feel and avoiding talking to people. It’s not wanting to make any promises to anyone that you will make it through the night. It’s not wanting people to try to stop you from doing what you need to do. There isn’t any one thing that you can just deal with. Your mind, your emotions, your feelings, your heart, and your soul have let you down. They have disappointed and abandoned you in every possible way. It is so hard to describe how I felt. There aren’t words great enough to describe just how lost, sad, empty and hopeless I felt. There was no hope. Without hope, I had no way forward. I remember this feeling of hopelessness. I remember it too well. I can feel an echo of it now. I feel it in my chest. It feels heavy and makes my lungs work harder. Can you feel it too? There was no God. And I didn’t know where or how to find Him. I struggled over whether God would let me into heaven if I did this, but then I didn’t know if God was even with me anymore. I didn’t know if God was with anyone anymore. My heart breaks for what I went through and continues to break for all the lives that have been lost. It breaks for everyone who has little or no control over the thoughts that go through their minds. For those who think about taking their lives over and over. For those who feel trapped. My heart breaks for those who have killed themselves, for those who tried so hard but couldn’t climb out of that pit of absolute despair. My heart also breaks for their friends and family, those that mourned them. Don’t be angry at them, Alexis. They tried. They really, really tried. They were not selfish; they did the only thing that made sense to them. They didn’t want to hurt anyone and they didn’t want to hurt anymore. This option was the only option which made any sense to them. Suicide is not okay, but it is not the individual’s fault. It’s not the family’s fault. Workplaces cannot be blamed. No one is at fault. Suicidal thoughts are a cancer. They eat away at the person, slowly destroying everything that made that person who they were, everything that held them together. Those who commit suicide are no longer breaking. They are broken, utterly destroyed, in a way that no one else can completely understand. Have grace for that person, even in their death. Cherish what they achieved. Focus on who they were while you had the privilege of knowing them, don’t focus on how they left this world. So, you ask, how is it that I sit here now writing this? I went to work that day. On the 25th August, I restarted my car and drove to work. By the end of the day, I had broken 2 cups and somehow managed to spill a milkshake up the wall. Don’t ask how that happened, I have no idea. While driving across the bridge on my way to get you, I cried. I thought to myself, “I survived. On the day, I was meant to die, I didn’t. I survived. If I survived this day, maybe I can survive all of the bad days.” I called my doctor and went in the next day. I looked at him and said, “I want to kill myself.” I told him, “Yesterday, I was going to kill myself and I didn’t. So can you please help me, because I don’t know how to not want to kill myself.” I’m crying as I write this. I will never forget it. He asked me what I had to live for right now. “Alexis,” I said. “Only her. I have nothing else.” Alexis, you saved me. I don’t want you to you to think of that as a burden though. I say you saved me because you were the only positive thing I had in my life. I didn’t depend on you to keep me happy or whole. I would never put that pressure on you. You saved me because you gave me a reason. I am lucky to be sitting here writing this. Sometimes, I think that God gave you to me because he knew that you were the only thing that would save me. I decided that day that if I wasn’t going to die, it was time that I started to live. It wasn’t easy. There were plenty of other days that I begged God to take me. The difference was that I decided if God wanted me gone, it was going to be up to him to take my life. At times, I begged him, pleaded, sobbed on the ground, lying in the foetal position, whispering for him to step in and bring me home. The pain was unbearable. And it stayed unbearable for a long time. There were plenty of days that I wished you were at your dad’s house. Plenty of them. Then the thoughts slowly started to leave me. They would still come into my mind, but they didn’t stay there for long. It took a long time and a lot of tablets and a lot of psychologist appointments. Sometimes I still think about suicide, but never like I used to. Now when I think about it, it’s along the lines of “geez, it would be easier if I wasn’t here”. It is never, “this world would be better off without me, I’m destroying everything and everyone I love”. There is a big difference. I don’t want to die anymore. I desperately want to live a big and amazing life, full of love and laughter, unique experiences and quiet moments of peace. In regards to what can be done about suicide, can anything be done? Is there an answer? I don’t know. You can tell someone to get help, tell them to go on medication, encourage them and love them, but the heartbreaking truth is that sometimes it’s not enough and sometimes nothing is enough. You can make someone promise they won’t do it, and they still might. You can ask all the tough questions, use all the right words, but someone who is truly lost in the grips of their suicidal thoughts may not be able to hear those words. And, the truth is that you might not ever know that they are struggling until after it is too late. I believe that we should communicate with our loved ones as much as possible. Tell them (and then tell them again) that they are loved, worthy of love and that you are glad they are here. Tell them repeatedly and hope your words get through to them. Maybe they will hear, maybe they won’t. If you know they’re suicidal tell them they will be missed, that there are people who would never, could never, recover from losing them. They deserve to know. We all deserve to know that we are loved. We should message them. Check in on them. Show them with actions that they are wanted and loved. You cannot save anyone from themselves; you do not have that ability. You can, however, support them, and ask them to talk to someone who can expertly support them and give them survival strategies. Alexis, I hope that you never have any experience with suicide and I desperately hope that you never struggle with these thoughts. I pray for it all the time, I pray that your mind won’t deceive you, as mine did to me. If you do ever find yourself in this position, can you please try to find a reason to live? Please. Please talk to me. Please let me stand by you. Please don’t go through any of the hard things alone. I promise to be here, to love you, to do what I can for you. I promise this with everything I am and everything I have. Live, Alexis, and encourage others to live too. This life is worth it. Your life is worth it. Every life is worth it. Lifeline Australia: https://www.lifeline.org.au/ 13 11 14 Suicide Call Back Service (24 hour online counseling service): https://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au/ R U OK? Day - www.ruok.org.au National Suicide Prevention - wspd.org.au Beyond Blue - www.beyondblue.org.au  Three thousand, one hundred and twenty eight. That’s how many precious lives - sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, family, wives, husbands - were lost to suicide in 2017. From September 21st - 28th Ben Hirst will be running laps around a school oval at Guilford Young College in Hobart. Each lap will represent and honour the total number of reported Australian men lost to suicide in a year based on the latest statistics from 2017. Meaning he will run 775kms in 7 days. Ben is aiming to raise $20,000 for SPEAK UP! Stay chatTY. SPEAK UP! Stay ChatTY was founded by Mitch McPherson after he lost his younger brother Ty to suicide in 2013. The organisation exists to promote positivity mental health and prevent suicide by reducing stigma and encouraging people to seek help. If you can, please donate. If you can’t, you can sign up to the Lap for Lads virtual run. As someone impacted personally impacted by the power of suicide, I will be donating and attending the virtual run and the event itself. I’ve added all of the links below: Laps for Lads: https://www.mycause.com.au/events/lapsforlads Laps for Lads virtual run: https://www.facebook.com/events/740549573067350/?ti=icl SPEAK UP! Stay ChatTY: https://staychatty.com.au/ 
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