Choosing to live, again and again

Today, April 1, 2025:

I’ve struggled my entire life with mental health issues… since I was a small child, a toddler. I’m not sure who I’ll be when I wake up each morning, I don’t know which version of me I’m going to get. Will I be practical and goal-oriented, feeling little to nothing, just observing, but also motivated to make things happen? Or will I wake up exhausted, and drowning in my own extreme sadness, with hopelessness destroying any wisps of bright light or sunshine that may have snuck past my mental defenses?

I don’t know. (I'm even back on my medication, and I still don’t know.)

Why am I telling you this? Well, I’m telling you this because I want to share a journal entry I’ve written, one that I didn’t upload to my blog after writing it. I didn’t upload it because I didn’t want anyone to see the ever-present, constantly circling craziness that invades my headspace. I wanted to be seen as “normal.”

Well, I no longer believe in normal. To me, normal doesn’t exist. Plus, that ship sailed a long time ago, if I'm being honest, and I am, of course.

So, be forewarned, what I’m about to share is sometimes dark and depressing, and always just a little bit nutty, with no discernible point or conclusion.

The following entry, September 2023, was written just after I’d quit my second job in the space of less than a year, and without a backup job waiting. (To put it politely, the job was negatively impacting the state of my already precarious mental health and to stay would have been my end. Dramatic? Maybe, but it’s also true, and a story for another time.)

September 2023:

We live in an unforgiving world, one that can be both beautiful and ugly, one that can be both loving and monstrous. What world you ultimately live in depends on a lot of things, with your perspective and attitude playing a larger role than you might think, but that’s not the whole of it… it’s so much bigger than that and that’s what I want to talk about today.  This blog will not be for the faint of heart, meaning if you know yourself to be easily triggered, walk away now because my plan is to be brutally honest and authentically myself as she presents herself today.

If you’ve read my previous blogs, you know that suicidal ideation is an issue I’ve struggled with since my very early years. To give you perspective on this, I’m now 53, so it’s been a lot of years. In the past few years, I’ve been reflecting more and more on who I’ve been, where I’ve been, what I’ve faced, and what my reactions to those events were then versus what they are or might be now. On a positive note, I’ve come a long way. A LONG, LONG, LONG way! And yet…

The only reason I’m still here is because I made a promise to my children not to take my own life. Before them, I came close several times but there was this innate need to “beat the system” or “win the challenge” that ultimately brought me back from the edge – just enough – each time. There was also a fear that I’d take the bottle of pills or jump off the ledge of the building only to realize I’d changed my mind, but it’d be too late. I wanted to be sure. I wanted there to be no questions in my mind. Eventually, I got there, to the “no questions” state of mind OR I thought I did anyway – clearly, there were some questions left because I’m still here.

After my divorce, about a year after my divorce, I’d dropped my children off with my ex-husband and the woman he replaced me with, and I went “home” to the house I’d rented for my children and me. I was not in a good head space.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I have attachment issues, codependency issues, and severe issues with low self-worth, self-esteem, and self-confidence. (Seriously, how many people have two university degrees, a college degree, and an abundance of experience in several industries, but still can’t find a job? A person with no self-confidence, that’s who.) Also, I have complex PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Oh, and did I mention the chronic lifelong depression and anxiety? Or the undiagnosed autism or ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder)?

In any case, it was the last day of 2008, the eve before 2009, and I was at an all-time low, and I was about to take every pill I had in the house – and there were a lot – when my phone rang. My friend Stu was on the other end and for whatever reason – probably a smidgeon of hope somewhere deep inside – I answered the call, and he helped me save my life that night.

It didn’t “fix” my life. I had to work at wanting to or trying to want to be alive from that moment on, and not quite a year later, I found myself back “home” where I grew up, living with someone I wasn’t in love with but who I trusted, and trying to “stay” here on earth, one day at a time.

I wanted to die. I talked with my then-doctor about it. She convinced me that my children were better off with a living mother who was broken and struggling psychologically (physically, emotionally, and spiritually, too) than they would be with a mother who was gone because she’d killed herself. So, every morning I woke up wishing I was dead, but I’d try to focus on being as present as I could be for my children.

In retrospect, that wasn’t much. In fact, I let my children down a lot - too much - after my divorce. I wasn’t capable of being the mother I had been or the mother they needed me to be and for that, I will forever be sorry. (Yes, I’ve since apologized. Unfortunately, apologies don't fix the past, and they can't change it. But I have made a concentrated effort to be better and to do better... and I believe that I'm doing that, with a few slips along the way.)

Back to my story about suicidal ideation...

Eventually, many months and years later, waking up didn’t set off my “I wish I were dead” thoughts anymore. I started to heal enough to start focusing on growing, evolving, and trying to be a better person. I made a lot of changes, including moving back to Ottawa against my family’s advice near the end of 2015.

That year, 2016, turned out to be the year from Hell, but it wasn’t because I moved to Ottawa. What happened that year could have happened anywhere. I was struggling in my relationships with my children. I was struggling to stay afloat energetically and financially. I had stopped taking all my medications without doctor assistance. I was facing some hard truths with my ex-husband. I broke up with a boyfriend who was a total dick two or three times that year – if you’ve read my blog, yes, it’s him, the idiot I broke up with in 2021 for the last time. (Yes, it really was the LAST time.)

I also did some online dating and met some dangerous predators, one who raped me (as well as dozens of other women) and one who tried to marry me. (His version of marriage was nowhere near mine – he was expecting us to live on a secluded rural compound where I would be naked 24/7 and at his beck and call. Ya, no thanks.)

Anyway, having been raped at 17, I’d vowed to myself to never put myself in a situation where I couldn’t protect myself again. And yet, that’s exactly what I did. This time, I was embarrassed as well as traumatized. I was embarrassed because I put myself into an unsafe situation, one I’d warned my daughters against time and again. I felt stupid. And to say that it didn’t help my feelings of low-self-worth would be an understatement. (To be clear, my issues with self-worth, self-esteem, and self-confidence stem from childhood and I’m probably not going to get into that here but rest assured, I have been tackling those issues, as well, in the last few years.)

On top of these traumas, the government decided to cut off my access to my bank account. They would have done the same with my pay, but they didn’t have updated information on where I worked at the time, apparently. Yes, I owed them a bit of money, but I had called the revenue department just a few months prior (September 2015), so I could set up a payment plan. The person on the phone told me not to worry about setting up a plan right away if I couldn’t afford to pay yet because, she said, the only repercussion would be interest on what I owed. Of course, I didn’t record the conversation, so I had no proof of the call when asked for it.

When the government decides you’re an evil criminal mastermind, it really doesn’t matter who you are because you won’t convince them otherwise because it doesn’t fit with the narrative they’ve set. (Don’t get me started on the government and its unfair practices – I’ve worked at an accounting firm, and I’ve seen businesses who owe hundreds of thousands of dollars given substantial financial breaks, but a single mother who owes $10k? Well, that just won't stand! Not even while she gets herself sorted and is willing to set up a payment plan.)

And then my car was in an accident. Luckily – thankfully – my daughter, who was driving, was unharmed, aside from the mental trauma that’s associated with that sort of thing, of course. My car, on the other hand, did not fare as well. She was written off and I still owed more than the insurance company was willing to give me for her.

(That's what happens when you declare bankruptcy, which I had done after my divorce. Getting a car - the car in question - meant paying more than twice what the car was worth, on top of fees and an interest rate that was astronomical "because of my risky situation." Basically, those facing poverty are set up to fail. The car I bought, which would have cost someone with money, $14,000 plus applicable taxes, cost me close to $40,000... and because I still had roughly $10,000 left owing when it was declared a write-off, I was in no shape to buy or rent a new one. I had paid for my car more than twice over already, but was left in another precarious situation because of financial policies created to punish the poor, but benefit the wealthy. Don't get me started on that one...)

I should mention here that I was about one month away from have my bankruptcy cleared. I'd suffered through the seven years of penalties, and I'd come out the other side where I would have great credit again. Except... I didn't.

So, to recap the beginning of 2016: I had just been raped. I had no access to money. I had no car, except for the temporary replacement I received through insurance, that lasted for about a week.

During that time, I was stopped for slowing down too late when the speed limit went from 80 km to 60 km. Honestly, I was doing 60 when I hit the 60, but I didn’t realize you were supposed to have slowed down significantly BEFORE that. Lesson learned. Fine attained. Of course, I didn't have money to pay the fine, but that's neither here nor there.

Also during that time, my aunt died. We had been close when I was younger. She had saved me from some life circumstances that I would (and I will) never be able to repay her for, and I loved her. My sister convinced me to go visit her, as she didn't have a lot of time left, as she was suffering from terminal cancer. I was scared at the time, afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing, convinced I would somehow make her situation worse. Crazy, right? Ya.

In any case, I went because I wanted her to know that I loved her. When we left, I was driving, and I was crying. I should have pulled off to the side of the road, but I didn't. Just as I was slowing down from 80 km to 60 km, as per the upcoming sign, I was pulled over by a young officer that decided, yet again, that I hadn't slowed down soon enough. (It's entirely possible that he was right, but looking back at where he pulled me over and where the signs were... no, he wasn't.) I just accepted the fine without comment or argument. What's the point of arguing when I can't win, right?

And with that second ticket, any hope I’d had for things to turn around, disappeared. I'd become convinced that life sucked, that I sucked, and there was no point in trying anymore.

You see, that confluence of events, plus several I didn't mention here, led me to being certain that death was the answer. Why stay in a place that was constantly trying to break you? Why stay where it felt like the rug just kept getting pulled out from under your feet? I'd finally given up. I'd given up on the world, on people, and on myself. I just had a few things to do first: try to get my finances in order so as not to leave my family in a complete mess, and to ensure my ex-husband would be there for my daughters going forward.

If it hadn't been for my ex-husband continuing to skirt his responsibilities and canceling on our children when they needed his help the most(?), and if it hadn't been for my children very clearly needing at least one parent - mentally healthy or not - to stay alive and be available for them, I wouldn't be here today.

Back to April 1, 2025:

That's where I stopped writing in September 2023, getting my thoughts out of my head and onto "paper" sometimes helps. (Not always.)

Maybe someday I'll write about the path I took to survive, the path I took that led me from "suicidal in 2016" to where (and whatever it is) I am today in 2025, but that won't be today. I can tell you that the path included a promise made to both my daughters - one they had to agree to in reciprocation - a promise that I would never take my own life, no matter what.

Since then, there have been moments of time when I've regretted the promise, but it's kept me alive, and it's kept me coming back and trying again, and again. I think that's a good thing.

And, I will say this, as well: I'm grateful that I didn't die in 2016. (I'm also grateful that I didn't die in 2008 or any of the years in between the two, or before.)

I'm grateful that I chose to wait, chose to stay, chose to be here, chose to live, and chose to try again. Never surrender. (Yes, I did hear Corey Hart's voice singing that in my head when I wrote it. Maybe you will, too, now that I've mentioned it! Your welcome.)