“As much as you are able, choose life.”

Most of my really close friends know this already, but a few months ago I made a very difficult decision. I decided that if I ever got as sick as I was from October 2016 to somewhere in the beginning of 2019, I would choose to no longer live anymore. After making it through that excruciating pain, devastation, hopelessness, helplessness, and the chronic depression, anxiety, psychotic episodes, visual and auditory hallucinations, the non-stop abusive chatter going on in my head, loss of friends, loss of memory, loss of partner, loss of community, rapid weight gain, disorientation, 6+ hour long crying spells with no relief at any point, that voice (I don’t know if it is an auditory hallucination, my own fatigue speaking, the devil, I don’t know and have stop trying to figure it out at this point) that so loudly and so persistently begged me to kill myself daily and the agony of staying alive anyway. Pretending to have joy when I was completely joyless, paralysis in my body to the point where I couldn’t even make it to the bathroom, flashbacks, physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma responses that weren’t seeming to get better and a diagnosis (schizoaffective disorder and depression and anxiety disorder) that I vehemently refused to accept… I decided that now that I made it through that hell, I am never going back. Ever. Now that I finally have relief and feel so good and healthy and so much more like myself again, the thought of going back to that hell seemed absolutely unbearable. So, according to my hospital records and my own research, I learned that my cycle of schizoaffective episodes or falling into psychotic depression usually comes about every nine months and last anywhere from a few days to 2 years. I sat with this information for a while. I sat quietly with it. I sat with it in the loud joy I am currently experiencing as well. And with a very sober mind, I decided that my next episode will be my last. I will not fight the desire to die. I will surrender. I will allow myself to die, to be free from the pain. I wouldn’t fight it. I would not push my way through it. I for damn sure wouldn’t experience it. So I decided that if that level of pain comes again (which according to my charts should be very soon) I would free myself from it and choose death. That’s what I felt able to endure. Death over the pain and suffering for sure.

But as I tend to do, I read a book recently that has completely changed my life, and possibly my death. It’s by Sarah Bessey and it’s called Miracles and Other Reasonable Things. In it she says..

“I am still sick and I am healed and I am always being born again over and over.”

I read those words and they knocked the air out of me. I paused and put the book down, the words still ringing in my ears. I began to cry. It felt like this truth was piercing through my fearful/stubborn heart and it felt like all the prayers I have prayed since I got sick and all the prayers you have prayed for me began to swirl around me and wrap me up in a cocoon. Inside that cocoon of prayers, and my own hard work to get/stay well, and all the therapy, and all the love, and all the incredible support from you, and all the love and compassion for myself, and all the medication, and all the meditation, and the vitamins, and all the essential oils , all the yoga, all the walks, all the beach trips, and all the care from my caregivers, and the drive to mother my children, and the naps, and the massages, and the workshops, and the tears, and the breaks from life in a safe place, and flashes of my family (those of you I chose and the family that I was born into) began to flash like a slideshow before my eyes. And then I exhaled, and I opened my eyes, and I was different. It was in no small way, a rebirth. “I am still sick and I am healed and I am always being born again over and over.”

I have so much love and support for anyone who chooses death, to not suffer anymore because you just are no longer able or even because you don’t want to. Trust me, I get it and I totally respect and support you. I am even willing to walk alongside you through the process if you need someone. I am here. I am in a really good and healthy place myself right now so I have so much space to hold for you and lots of support to offer. But after my… miracle? Dare I use that word? For me personally, for my own story, I feel I have been granted new life. Literally. Life again. “Always being born again over and over.” The miracle of hope and endurance and long-suffering and even the desire to live rose from the pages of this book and landed right in my soul. I now feel “able” to choose life. I don’t know what is coming in the future. I may be this healthy and happy forever. More likely though, another episode is coming. Soon probably. (If anyone dares to tell me that mushy gushy “think positive” or “Jesus wouldn’t allow that to happen to you again” or any other annoying bullshit that invalidates my experience or the reality of my life I will punch you in the face…in my mind. But as of today, I choose that no matter how bad or how good it gets, I choose life. At least that’s how I feel today. That’s the life I was born into today. But as I said, I don’t know the future because..

“I am still sick and I am healed and I am always being born again over and over.”

But for today,

“As much as [I am] able, I choose life.”