I battled suicidality for many years. In retrospect, I know when I made attempts, my thinking was "selfish." I don't mean that in an insulting or demeaning way -- just in a definitive sort of way. When I was considering suicide, my only focus was on myself, my suffering, my need to escape. Lots of "my's." It is what it is.

I took suicide off the table six years ago when my sister died. My sister had battled cancer multiple times in her life, and that last time she didn't win. Even though we knew her death was probably coming, losing her was devastating. Even though she died from "natural" causes, her death left a hole and pain that never really has gone away. As I watched my parents and my husband and my children weep and mourn and suffer from grief, I realized my life DOES impact those around me. People care about me and love me, and there is no way I could leave this earth, naturally or at my own hand, that would be anything but devastating for the people I care about.

Within a few years time, I lost two more people to suicide. The devastating effects of that kind of death on those that remain is even worse. I won't do that to the people I love. I won't leave them with the legacy of suicide. I won't do that to my parents. I won't do that to my husband. I certainly won't do that to my children.

Suicide is not an option for me any longer. It was amazing how things changed for me when I pulled suicide off my menu. It forced me to change how I handle stressors in my life. It forced me to make changes in my life that were healthier for me psychologically. It forced me to use the healthy coping skills I had been taught but that I had not always used because somehow defaulting to suicide as an option had become, ironically, easier and habitual. It does take a determined change in thinking and habit, but it is possible to take suicide off the menu and find different ways to cope with depression and anxiety. After years of multiple hospitalizations, I've been stable for nearly three years now. I hope things stay that way for me, and I honestly don't foresee that I will ever be in a place again where I put suicide back on the table.