Without Me

 This post is dedicated to my husband... God's gift to me.  His value to my soul totally unappreciated until the last 5 years.  He has been through more than anyone will ever know because he suffers as my real-life savior, my Jesus in the flesh, my new mercy every morning.  

This post is dedicated to the 5 beautiful children who would never understand the depths of mothers brokenhearted despair, wishing she could have been more.  

This post is dedicated to all the people who don't understand mental illness, to all the people who live with someone who struggles with mental illness and all the people who say I will never understand why people commit suicide.

This post is dedicated to all the people who have thought about it and all the people who have followed through... to all the hopeless and heartbroken.  To all the people who said...  "Everyone would be better off without me."

This may be too much for some and that's ok.  It won't be for everyone and I'm fine with that, but it will be for a lot of people, and I do believe it will help someone in some way.  

Tonight, my husband and I were talking about the young Cowboy's player, Marshawn Kneeland, who committed suicide recently.  He was living his dream, had a baby on the way and seemingly everything to live for...  and my husband asked the question that millions of people asked every single day...  what made someone who had so much to live for take their own lives?

There was a time that I would not have been able to answer that question and even the follow-up question "how does someone get to that place?"  But I no longer have the luxury of asking those questions because I know the answer too well now.  I know the thoughts that plague the soul who takes that irreversible step.  I know the hopelessness that consumes you until you think there is no other way.  

I have the most beautiful life.  I have a husband who adores me, who would do anything in the world for me.  I have 5 beautiful children who make me smile and laugh every single day.  "I have a life that most would love to have" Tim McGraw...  And literally everything to live for...  But a few years ago, I started to struggle with the niggling thought that the only thing wrong with my picture-perfect life... was Me.

It started out as a weak little whisper...  What is you're the problem?  What IF you are the ONLY problem?  What if you just went away?  Would everyone be better off without you?  Would they be happier without you?  Would their lives be BETTER without you.  What if your husband could be happier without you?  What if your children could fly higher without you?  What IF YOU are the one thing holding everyone back? 

What is you were gone?  Eventually the voice gained traction and volume.  In time the voice in my head said, "You KNOW they would be better off without you.  You should do this for them."  

And I found myself sitting at a red light on a busy street, where many wrecks had taken many lives and I seriously thought for many long seconds, about pulling out in front of the semi-truck that was barreling down that highway.  And I genuinely believed that I would be doing everyone a favor if I just had enough courage to pull out in front of that truck.  

In the months that have followed the worst days of my mental health I have discovered a couple of truths that I feel compelled to share...

With the family left behind and especially to the children who should have been enough...

Suicide is the most unnatural decision for a person to make; you cannot make sense of a mind who has given themselves over to lies.  there was nothing you could do that would have changed things... it's never your fault.

But to the soul contemplating just giving into the pain, letting go and being done with this life...  

NO ONE IS EVER BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOU.  

NO ONE IS EVER BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOU.

NO ONE IS EVER BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOU.

NO ONE IS BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOU.

There is no reality where the people who love you would rather just be done with you no matter how much hell you put them through.

There is not better without me... or you.

There is NEVER better off without you.  I still struggle.  I still have my moments but it's getting better, fewer and farther between.  The more love I accept from others, the more truth 
I allow to in to combat the lies, the more grace I give myself...  The quieter the destructive voices become.

I feel like it's an unfinished conversation...  but let me leave it at this...

You were created in the image of God and there is no reality or universe that would be better off without YOU.