"You must have been in a place so dark you couldn't feel the light, reaching for you through that stormy cloud" - Rascal Flatts "Why"
The frozen air stung my lungs as I gasped in a shallow breath and let out another loud sob. I was 17, and I was performing my version of personal abuse. Each morning I would go out to warm up my car before I drove to school, or at least that's what my parents thought. In reality I was sitting in the front seat of my car, sobbing, as the neighborhood around me remained frozen in the pre-dawn moments before the day started.
Every day I would listen to the Rascal Flatts' song Why on repeat, and I would do the heaving crying that I couldn't risk at home, for fear someone would hear me, and I would have to explain myself. I couldn't risk that. I couldn't do that. At 17 I didn't know anything except that something was wrong with me. Something inside of me was broken and defective, and the pain of it was slowly suffocating me to the point of praying for death.
The song Why was the only thing at that point that was keeping me from ending my life. It talks about what it feels like to be someone left behind after a suicide, wondering "was there anything I could have said or done". I would listen to that song on a loop, reminding myself that if I killed myself I would leave my mom behind to ask those questions. I would leave my baby brother behind.
Those three musical minutes were the only thing that could clear my head enough to see that my suicide could hurt other people more than it could help them. And for months I performed my daily ritual of sobbing in my car, pulling myself together on the seven minute ride to school, so that by the time I got there I could hide my puffy red eyes with some makeup, and no one would ever know.
People describe suicide as selfish, and shame victims for the emotional wreckage they leave behind. I can understand that, but as someone who has attempted suicide, and who has spent years dealing with mental illness, please let me show you the view from this side. Someone who is suicidal is looking to escape the agonizing physical and emotional pain they experience, but more often than not they are also trying to spare the people they love from having to deal with the tangled mess of land mines that surround mental illness.
I can't speak for Kate Spade, or her thoughts, struggles, or fears. But as more information comes out, and as she is publicly and privately mourned and scrutinized in the media, please know that she was likely not trying to hurt her family, or thinking about her daughter growing up without her. Kate Spade was probably trying to spare her daughter wondering why her mom was always crying, or why she didn't laugh as much anymore. She probably wanted to spare her daughter from wondering if there was something she had done wrong to make her mother not love her anymore.
Mental illness isn't easy, or selfish, or easy to understand and untangle. It's hard to ask for help because we're scared of being judged, or becoming a burden on the people we love. Suicide can seem like the only way to end our suffering, and end our reign of tyranny and unhappiness we drag our loved ones through. People need love and understanding and the judgement and shaming have to stop. We can't ask people to ask for help if we aren't able to create a caring, open environment for them to ask from.
"This old world really ain't that bad of a place. Oh why, there's no comprehending and who am I to try to judge or explain. Oh, but I do have one burning question. Who told you life wasn't worth the fight? They were wrong, they lied. Now you're gone and we cry. 'Cause it's not like you to walk away in the middle of a song.
Your beautiful song
Your absolutely beautiful song"
