Not Enough
I'm going to start 2024 by talking about suicide prevention, because that's what I've been thinking and writing and speaking about in the past two years.
What a downer, you say.
I agree. I wish I didn't have to talk about it because it's not fun for me either. I'd rather be talking about more sexy topics like entrepreneurship. But depression and suicidal thoughts are much more prevalent than you realize, and those who are thinking about ending their own lives don't stop thinking about it just because it's the holidays or the new year.
Just because they're not telling you doesn't mean they're not thinking about it, so let's start the new year talking about it.
In October 2022, a few months after I started speaking, I told my mentor I was worried I was not good enough to speak on suicide prevention, and I started to cry, because I heard a clear and gentle inner voice telling me,
"What more do you need to feel good enough? You were already suicidal, and you still don't feel you were 'suicidal' enough?"
That voice made me realize how deeply rooted my not-good-enoughness was. Old habits die hard.
One would think I should feel rather good about myself after overcoming suicidal depression, getting my dream music degree, and building a successful business, but it doesn't work that way for my brain.
In my mind, I need to either have become an addict or made an attempt "severe enough" by my definition, and stayed in a mental hospital for "long enough" to be considered "suicidal enough".
After being "suicidal enough", I would then need to get a Ph.D. in psychiatry, lose my accent and speak perfect English first in order to be "good enough" to speak on suicide prevention.
Now you're thinking I'm crazy and being too hard on myself.
Well, at least today I'm aware I'm crazy and being too hard on myself. But all those years when I was a little miss extreme perfectionist, I didn't know I was being too hard on myself.
I thought everyone was just like me.
I thought pain was the nature of life, and it was normal to be unhappy.
I thought it was normal to want to die.
I thought everyone was just pretending to be happy because I couldn't fathom the concept of joy in my reality.
Self-love is a skill that can take a very long time for chronic depression sufferers to learn. It took me decades of brutally honest inner work to get this far. I'm no longer depressed and haven't been suicidal since my mid-20s. These days I'm generally pretty positive and no longer controlled by my negative thoughts.
I just have to keep reminding myself -- if I was "suicidal" enough by my crazy definition, I probably wouldn't even be here today to speak on suicide prevention...
