I grew up in poverty. I have eidetic, visceral memories of stomach pains from going to bed hungry night after night. I lived with my dad, stepmom, and combined seven siblings and stepsiblings in a military family, in a military community. Because there was a perception and expectation that the military community took care of its own, we struggled as children in silence, in shame. Years of additional family trauma compounded these internal emotional challenges and a family filled with mental health issues was cultivated.
At the age of 14, I attempted suicide. Over the years, four of my siblings would as well. And those are only the attempts I know of. There could be more. It’s not something we talked about at the dinner table.
In 2017, I received a call late one evening from a close friend telling me he had taken an entire bottle of painkillers. He was one of my first employers, CEO, and owner of several successful and lucrative businesses. He was extremely wealthy. He was born into wealth. He had three beautiful children and seemingly an amazing life. At least from the outside.
We were close in age and over the years of working together, we became very close friends. Even after I took another job we talked often. He called me that night in 2017 to tell me he cared about me and that I shouldn’t feel guilt over his decision to leave this world. He was 100 miles away and alone. I felt helpless and afraid. Fortunately, I thought at the time, I was not the only person he called that night, and he survived that attempt.
A year later, he was successful in ending his life. I didn’t receive a call from him that night but got a call from a mutual friend the next day.
Although I have had my own struggles, I’ll never understand what my friend was going through. Even though it seemed he had it all, he wasn’t able to live with his thoughts, emotions, and pain.
I’ll never understand my sister who slowly lost her sight to macular degeneration, who continues to struggle with suicide ideation even after countless attempts; whose last suicide attempt came after her 34-year-old son and father of her two grandchildren died of COVID-19 in 2021. And whose husband of 35 years and family finally abandoned her because they could no longer deal with the emotional roller coaster of her mental illness.
I’ll never understand my brother who lost three-quarters of one lung and half of another when he shot himself in the chest with a shotgun attempting suicide. He now lives with lung cancer in his remaining lungs.
Unlike many of the people I serve now through my work in public health, I’ll never understand what it means to struggle with the inequity of racial and cultural bias based on the color of my skin or the language I speak. And how that would affect my mental wellness.
But I do understand that mental illness is personal. It is intimate. It is a silent killer. It is a public health crisis and a community crisis. It is ours to own. And ours to change.
I am optimistic that collectively, a space will be created where everyone feels safe and heard when they say, “I’m not ok.”
This is heart wrenching, Kathy. I would never invalidate our minimize what you’ve been through, but I think you were trying to get across that this is probably more common than we know. I think everyone can relate to this essay in some form or fashion. Thank you for putting it out there for everyone and for shining a light and for being the light of the world.