Life Line

I find it refreshing to be disconnected from social media, but I must admit I am connected more than I’m not. With all the noise on social media, it seems everyone has something to say, and while their words may be true, there are only so many ways to say something. It’s exhausting at times to be so connected in this world. 

Rarely do we hear someone say, “There's no going back now.” The point of this story is to encourage you to be vulnerable enough to ask for help when you need it. I understand how difficult it can be to reach out to others; it took a near click experience for me to say those words. I was so close to what I now call the click–the last sound you hear before death. Nearly 38,000 males commit suicide each year, which averages out to a man dying by suicide approximately every thirteen minutes. That’s more than one hundred a day. Let that sink in. The pressure is intense out there. I’m just being honest. Some days, you just want to quit. 

My transparency may be my enemy here, but I must write this story for what it is. This is the fourth start of this story. I have left the others in their place and have not changed them. They will speak for themselves as you read. I felt an urgency to write about transparency and how that plays a role in our healing. As we traveled home today from Southport, I realized I might have misled you in my writing to think that I am completely healed, whole, and perfect. I am far from that and still struggle daily with this awful unholy body that experiences the triggers that force me to be in places that I really don’t want to be. Sometimes a conversation, a place of business, a restaurant, or even a certain smell can trigger feelings and memories of my past. Even a person’s glasses or a reaction of a conversation can ignite an emotion that causes me to want to escape this world. It’s real, and I haven’t experienced healing for that. There is only secondary management to these symptoms of destruction. They are manageable, yes, and that’s the wonderful news here. It may be a mystery now, but the hope in the end is there is victory. 

As I sit on the edge of the Cape Fear River bank today in Southport, I realize there is less to life than it has been. Life is short. Each and every day that goes by, my focus funnels into this small lens of reality. Heading into this story, I wonder if this is my last one or will there be more? I have such an urge in my soul to write this one. I really don’t want to because I know it’s taking me places I don’t want to go to and expend energy I don’t want to expend. My soul wants to push forward, so we will do it together. Just me, my soul, and my spirit. Softly, we will travel this journey of death, destruction, and hopelessness. This has been a writing journey so far; night and day, I keep adding to this story. 

There is so much to write here as they are all gone, and my soul is blessed to be still here. I’m still here! I’m coming off the last story, Jenny, which was so fun to write and full of love and beautiful endings. I’m not sure how this one came to life, but as with all my stories, they just happen at will. It seems all my stories may hold clues to my healing. I hope to put these clues together one day and see a beautiful ending. That day will come, and I feel it will be soon. 

As we head into June, which is men’s mental health month, I wanted to share a series of ominous stories with you all. They entail both past pains and present pains. This story includes several red door stories all at once and one that might become a red door story if I don’t write it out now. I don’t want to bury this present pain deep in my mind and lock it in my soul forever. In the past four years, I have learned how to unlock the clues of healing through stories and experiences I have been through. I am not singular in this journey; there are so many with me. I am not alone, and surely others are traveling with me now. Come and join me in this journey. I know you are here with me even now. I can feel you reading this story and know that I am speaking to those of you who are afraid to tell someone. Tell them! Tell them now! Speak what you need to say and let it be known that you need help to live before you become one of them. 

I will name those that did not speak. There is my dad, Matthew, click. There is Tammy, click, who I was engaged to before I met my sweet Lisa. I truly loved Tammy. Then there was Tammy’s mom, who was murdered. There is Kevin, click, and his wife Kathy, click. There is Kevin and Tammy’s son, Matt, and there is my brother Chris. There are those who were in your circle but disappeared into the darkness and now don’t exist in this world. There are those you have prayed for who have left this earth so unaware and quietly that even time itself has forgotten. Have we gotten so involved in our own social circles that we have missed them. Mine are just a handful of so many. Those whose tragic endings impacted many lives; some say they made the choice or the choice was made for them. By murder, by noose, the trigger, or jump, their decision was based on life choices before the event ever took place. Most say it was their choice, and I am going to strongly disagree. What happens to you, that which is invisible to the world, brings people to a point of no return most of the time. I want to write more about this one day and maybe I will. For now, we are going to move forward.  

What happened to our hope, our purpose, and our calling? What happened? 

A bullet, a noose, a jump, or even a plunge into a deep pit of overwhelming pressure took their joy and their lives because they could not say the words that they needed to say. Hey, can you help me? I was once in their shoes, and that’s the most frightening part of writing this story. I wanted to quit. I wanted to be with them. I was one click away. 

I had one desire and that was to be alone and leave a note for my family. I felt so alone, but on the outside, no one saw anything but a normal person full of joy and happiness. No one saw beyond the mask, and I made sure to never show my true feelings. For those who are hiding behind the mask, it’s a show to the end. My voicemail would have sounded like this, “Hey, I just want you to know where to find me and know that I love you forever and ever. I adore you and with every breath I adored you. Know that my life was for you and for the girls. I love you, girls. I just couldn’t continue any longer. It was too great and the pressure was too much. I’m so sorry to leave you this way. I love you.” Then, click!  

Now to the present. I made it! Yes, I made it. You can make it, too. No click, no noose, no plunge, no plan to exit. I am breathing a sigh of relief. I’m going to do my best to explain what’s going on right now and what happened in the days that led up to this moment. But there is a twist to this story, and I want you to be ready for it as it will not end with all love and flowers. Here’s the real story.  

This all started about four and a half years ago. Death had approached my doorstep in the form of memories that were calling me to death. It’s time, they said. You can do this. Night after night, I didn’t even want to sleep anymore as the call was so ominous and intense. It was real to me. Just recalling it now makes me nervous about sleeping tonight. If you’ve been in a similar situation, you know what I’m talking about. It’s a voice and voices that are never silent. They have but one goal and that is to destroy and kill. I told Lisa to hide the gun and never tell me where it was. It’s still hidden to this day. You who are here reading this now know what I am saying. Let this story speak to you; let it rest in your soul and seek some help.  

Suicide has been a strong voice in my life for many years; it was even whispered in my ears as a young child. In my formative years, there was no hope and the only answer was death. In the years that followed, only death could have brought peace to my troubled soul. It was an option to my soul. Then I decided enough was enough. and I would reach out to someone. 

I made a call from work that day to a friend hoping she would help me. I hoped she would hear the urgency in my voice and she did. Ava is my friend but also a therapist. We agreed to meet the next week, and she said we had fifty-five minutes in the session; that was the only fifty-five-minute session we ever did. 

From then on, our sessions were at least two hours to two and one half hours long. Ava often joked that on Mondays she cleared her appointments after 5:00 pm and didn’t schedule much that day in general. Mondays were the day. I looked forward to them most of the time. They were exhausting but at the same time, relief came out of each session. Our conversations were in-depth and no boundaries were unexplored. 

I explained what was going on and shared with her my past from age five to now. This is where I am now wanting to end it all. Her response was, “Do you have a plan? You know, a plan, the plan to end it all?” My response was a hard no, but she knew I had been thinking about what the outcome might be. Her response back to me was simple and true even to this day, “If you come up with a plan, please call me and let me know what that might be, and if you can’t get me, call 988 right away.” I smiled and started to nervously laugh. She was dead serious as she looked at me without smiling and with no expression on her face. She was letting me know the seriousness of my state of mind. Her urgency set the tone for each and every session. 

She dug into the depths of my being and discovered things that were hidden and forgotten for all eternity. Ava is gifted as she had an unwavering way to dig down to bedrock and turn over stones that were so heavy that even I could not overturn them. There she would find the gold and every now and then a nugget. She was patient to share these findings and insert them in my mind in perfect timing. Often saying, “You know, George, or apparently George, you don’t know. You keep doing the same thing over and over, thinking the same and enduring the same. There is a better way, let me share it with you.” 

I had hidden things so deep and didn’t want to ever expose them to anyone. Lisa sat quietly with me at each session and discovered even more about me, even after forty years of marriage. Four years went on and each session brought new life to me and a new beginning to my life. I began a fresh journey and discovered a different pathway, full of meaning and purpose. I discovered a new way to deal with my pain, a new plan, and a new light to my path. The most important plan is having no plan to exit this life. 

Therapy has ended for me now, not because I wanted it to but because circumstances changed. The tools Ava has given me will last a lifetime. She poured herself into my soul for four years, and I am forever grateful. I am now in what I call secondary management. Past the point of the click and now in the living for purpose.  

Here’s what secondary management looks like: it’s evaluating every circumstance and deciding if I can sit here, stand here, be here, and see this. If not, what are the risks involved and is there a plan to escape? There is always an escape route in all circumstances. With this plan in place, I feel like I could take on the world. It’s been now more than four and a half years with Ava. Am I healed? That is relevant only to the circumstance and how it evolves and what the outcome becomes. It’s not perfect but very manageable now. So, there is going back now. Now is relevant for today, so stay into today and don't worry so much about tomorrow.