My experience with suicide ideation... on the Suicide Prevention Awareness Month

It is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. A month where we try to be more conscious about what is suicide and how we can prevent it. As part of it, I am sharing my personal encounter with suicidal thoughts and ideation. It is the first time,ever, I’m expressing myself about it...

I lived an abusing relationship for a long time. It was a very difficult relationship where I experienced verbal and emotional abuse. At some point in it, suicidal thoughts came to my

mind.  These thoughts came particularly when I was driving back from visiting my son who was in college. When you drive to the north side of Puerto Rico from the west coast, there is a high mountain that you will drive through. From this mountain, you can see a cliff with an amazing view of lower mountains and ending with the view of the ocean.
Every time I drove through there, for almost 2 years, the same thoughts came to my mind "What if I drive to the cliff  and end my  sadness."  The cliff had a way of hypnotizing me and, in my head, was calling me.

Those thoughts circle in my mind every time I was driving back home from visiting my son. I even stopped near the cliff once. Wanted to see how deep it was and what could happen to me if I decided to drive/jump in my car.

After getting home from visiting my son, days will follow full of questions in my head. I had one question that constantly came to my mind "What if I changed my mind while I’m going down the cliff?" This is the question that kept me from doing it. I am very grateful to have had it! I am still alive, happy, and looking forward to many adventures!

Life can give us, sometimes, difficult situations hard to handle. These situations are just situations, not our life. They are experiences you lived. I have learned that the path of one’s life could be full of stones, small and bigger ones; but between those stones, there are flowers that will accompany you while you walk your life’s path. We should pay more attention to those flowers; they will help us walk through all the stones.

Take care, Tere