Resilience. Interesting word. For people who’ve known me most of my life that may not be the first word that comes to mind. You know that game we all play? What’s the first word that comes into your mind when we say a person’s name? I suspect most people might respond with angry, violent, unpredictable, but not resilient.

I am a suicide attempt survivor. But that’s not what defines me. I’m also a certified peer specialist, a project manager for a spiritual wellness check series for attempt and loss survivors, and I help oversee a teen center. I’m a trainer for More Than Sad and ASIST, and I’m a public speaker about healing from my suicide attempt. And it goes on. I live with bi-polar, borderline personality disorder, depression and PTSD. I was traumatized by sexual assault as a child, been married and divorced, have step-children and step-grandchildren. And, oh yeah, did I mention that I just spent 18 months battling breast cancer and other blood infections after a double mastectomy?

So where did this all begin and how did I end up here?

I was misdiagnosed, over medicated and dismissed. As an adolescent, I was sexually abused and then ignored when I sought help. Instead of receiving help and support from my parents, I was blamed. By my mid-teens, I was beyond angry, bitter and violent. I tried to fit in, to do the society says dance. My only real relief was sports. I was an excellent athlete throughout high school, but academically, I was just pushed through classes.

And the anger continued to fester wrapped with irrational shame and guilt that it “must have been my fault.” The “it” being everything from the abuse as a child, to my grades, to always getting into trouble, to lack of parental support…the pain inside burned like a volcano ready to erupt.

I’d love to say that my childhood was normal. When I look back, it sucked. I was seven or eight the first time I was molested and too scared to tell anyone. I went to church. I went to Sunday school. My mother wanted me to be like my sister and take tap dance lessons and become a child model. I tried that and hated it.

Then I found little league baseball – not, softball, baseball. The real deal. And I was able to escape my fears on the field. But that only helped for a little while. At twelve, I finally went to my mother to tell her what was happening to me. Her reaction?

“What did you do to cause that?” She blamed me!

My world crashed. Where was God? Why was it my fault? I didn’t do anything wrong. And the rejection and fear and pain just grew. I existed in my own little hell and that young me became convinced that I was a bad person, no good, and whatever happened to me was my fault.

At 14, my friends and I began to play the eraser game – rub your skin as hard as you could until you couldn’t take the pain any more. I always won – that should have been a flag waving in my face…that I was able to try to erase my skin away until it bled…and we walked around showing everyone what we’d done. No one ever said a word about it – like why did you do that? Or, don’t do that to yourself. That’s about the time I began to self-medicate to try to numb my feelings.

In high school, I threw myself into sports. I also threw myself into a few other things like drugs and alcohol, the wrong crowd, really bad behavior in class, and worst of all, considering the work I do now as an adult – I became a bully. Other kids were afraid of me.

I graduated from the eraser game to punching walls to hurt myself and to not hurt other people. I’d punch anything – the wall, a door, the car, school lockers were good targets. My pain was internal and manifested itself in an incredible rage. I had no idea why. I know now that I had buried the sexual assaults so deep, they didn’t exist. But the anger and drive to hurt myself did. I know how hard it is for someone to understand, but the pain actually gave me some brief relief from the storm inside of me.

Somewhere between my junior and senior years, I attempted suicide for the 1st time. I woke up in the morning and never told anyone. For the next 10 years, I vowed I would never, ever tell anyone how I was really feeling or thinking. I had no idea what was wrong with me but hell would freeze over before I would ask anyone for help. The struggle to keep a lid on my rage was a daily battle. I continued to break a lot of things, including my hands more times than I can count, still punching things so I didn’t punch people.

In my late 20’s, the walls began to crumble. My dad got really sick and he passed. And the volcano inside me erupted. It was like I was rolling down a hill and couldn’t stop. The flashbacks came back, day and night.

The internal pain increased. And that’s when I began to cut, and cut…it began with little scratches, then they got deeper, and all over my body. To this day, I cannot explain why I decided that cutting was the thing to do but it gave me some relief. When people asked me about the scars, I got more tattoos to cover them. But it wasn’t enough. But please understand: self-injury is an attempt to communicate, not to manipulate.

The suicide attempts came fast and furious. One hospital lock up after another. One diagnosis after another. One more bottle of pills after another, all of them wrong (I would learn later). I tried so hard to be well, to be “good.” I put down the drugs and booze, I went back to work, I tried my best to play “house.” I went back to counseling. But the pain inside deepened. It was more than I could deal with. I gave up. I went to my father’s grave and curled up on the ground and waited to die. The police found me unconscious. I woke up in the hospital.

Choosing life did not come easy.

I saw a new psychiatrist who blew my mind when she said the good news was that I was not clinically depressed; however, I was bipolar, had borderline personality disorder and PTSD. She slowly started me on a careful regimen of totally different meds. And what a difference that made after almost 20 years of hell. My entire life changed.

On my job, I deal with some aspect of mental health and suicide issues every day. Who better than an attempt survivor, peer to peer can do that? Who better than a person who self-injured over a 15 year period of her life, peer to peer, can do that? It took me three tries to achieve my Certified Peer Specialist. The first two times I was struggling with my mental health. The third time, I studied harder and then got really sick. I took the exam anyway…and passed!

About 8 years ago, I sat and listened to a suicide loss survivor share her heartbreaking story of losing her 20 year old son to suicide. And although the teen center was crowded, I felt as if she and I were the only two in the gym. I could hardly breathe. For the first time in my life I understood the full scope of devastation a loss survivor experiences. I couldn’t stop crying. I almost did that to my family. It was a turning point in my healing and recovery. It was literally life-changing. I have remained an active member of the suicide prevention coalition that hosted that event, helping out at events, speaking on panels at workshops and conferences. I do my best to carry a message of hope and healing.

The road has not been easy and I still question that anyone would describe me as “resilient.” I still had to battle my roller-coaster emotions and misunderstanding your intentions – what you said was not always what I heard. I finally began to put into practice the coping skills I learned in DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy). My life began to get a little better on the inside and the outside.

The next major milestone was the road trip to the Grand Canyon, with multiple stops along the way at Bryce Canyon and some others. But it was standing out on Bright Angel Point on a spectacular clear sunny day in June of 2010, letting the spectacular surroundings of the canyon wrap around me that had a profound impact. That was as close to a spiritual experience I had ever had. I felt a physical change, and it wasn’t the altitude. It’s really hard to describe. I remember my mentor saying, “Please hold onto that ‘Grand Canyon’ state of mind.” That was a challenge for the next few years.

And then I had a real-life encounter with prejudice and discrimination. Some call it STIGMA.

My mom finally lost her battle with cancer and congestive heart failure. Because I had better coping skills and was continuing to heal I was able to be there and support her in those final weeks. More importantly, I was able to be free of the anger and resentment I had almost allowed to kill me and sit at her bedside knowing that I really did love her. I know now that she did the best she could with what she had to work with. I was able to forgive her and I think she could feel that.

A year later, still coping with grief but doing the best I could, I was just easin’ on down the road when I was hit with the diagnosis of breast cancer. In two weeks, we went from a lumpectomy on one breast, to nope – they needed to perform a double mastectomy and remove all the lymph nodes under my right arm. The cancer had spread. And when I shared that publicly, people tripped over themselves to offer help – they all wanted to help me – to cook, to clean, to drive me places, whatever I needed. Coming home from chemo one week, I had a hissy-fit, totally blew up. In tears, I screamed, “Where the hell were all of you when I wanted to die?” I finally met STIGMA face to face. And I began to feel a determination I hadn’t felt since playing ball. I now know my life matters and I need to step out of the dark and shatter the silence and encourage other attempt survivors to do the same. And I have. And I am.

Cancer altered not just my physical body but my entire being. Week after week, confronted by jaw-dropping challenges – I was getting used to hearing doctors say, “We’ve never seen anything like this” all too often. And yet, I just kept getting back up on my feet and moving forward the best I could. It sounds silly but I reached a point of “don’t sweat the small stuff.” For sure, there were days when I just fell apart and cried and cried. Suicide was never an option. Everyone kept saying how resilient I was. I kept wondering who they were talking about.

I’ve done some PSA’s, participated in suicide prevention film projects, and serve as the advisor for new, way outside the box resilience workshops for attempt survivors (yes, I did say “resilience workshops”), programs I wish I had available not only when I was struggling but also as I was healing. I openly discuss the scars under my tattoos with teens and urge them to open up about why they are in so much pain.

And yet, with all of that said, there I was a year ago, in the midst of 1300 people all of whom are connected in some way to suicide. I was attending a panel presentation and wrote a note to my friend and passed it to her. It said:

For the last two weeks, I’ve been having suicidal ideations. Not sure where it’s coming from and what’s going on. I don’t want to talk about at all. I have no plan. It’s just feelings and thoughts. I’m telling you because it’s the right things to do. And I have been taking my medication.

Yup! Right smack in the middle of a major conference, surrounding by people who could help me. I am a suicide attempt survivor who continues to heal, but no one ever said that “stuff” wouldn’t still happen. Resilience? The next afternoon, in spite of wanting to throw up with nerves, I sat on my own panel and presented about the importance of resilience to attempt survivors.

In our spiritual wellness workshops, we often talk about the “Wicked Awesome Wish List.” Everyone should have one. I’ve spent years dreaming about the three things I most wanted in my life and I’m two weeks from crossing off the last item. In June, June 3rd to be precise – my birthday, I finally bought the motorcycle that my brothers told me I would never have. I returned to college in November, to complete my degree in psychology with a focus on addictions and, after years of struggling with my weight, and with complete support from my medical team, I’m scheduled for a gastric bypass. For so many years these seemed like wishful thinking and so out of reach. And here they are.

Now what? What do I do next? And that might seem like a simple question, but not for me. The wish list gives me hope and a reason to not give up on life. And that can be a lot of hard work to do every day, something many suicide attempt survivors can confirm. And I think I am getting a little better at understanding what it means to be resilient. Last night is an example of what’s next. A loss survivor and I shared our stories at a community conversation. We call them “weaving a tapestry of hope.” Several teens came up afterwards and we talked. I believe I gave each one of them some hope to hang in there. To continue to do that, to share my story and reach out to help others find hope. That’s on the new version of the Wicked Awesome Wish List.

I am a suicide attempt survivor and this is my story of hope and resilience.