Background: I recently went to a Sunday meeting about suicide that I felt was unhelpful. In my mind, I thought back on the times I felt suicidal. I wanted this meeting to help me gain understanding and peace, and it didn’t. I would say about thirty seconds of the entire hour-long meeting had any significance to me. After the meeting, I gave it some thought.
I became suicidal when I felt intense emotional pain and I had no idea how it could ever be gone. It was extremely difficult to live when my emotions were out of my control. I had made so many mistakes, again and again, that I believed I was not going to improve, that it was pointless to keep trying. I felt no hope. I felt pain alone, stuck, heartbreak, inadequate, failure, unwanted. I knew suicide would bring sorrow to my family, but I was already bringing sorrow and wondered if they would just be better with me gone. My thought process was compromised, and I saw suicide as a choice to end pain.
I didn’t want to die, I just couldn’t see how to keep living anymore, how to feel joy, how to get out. When I was suicidal I wanted a quick way to end my emotional pain. I never attempted suicide, but I did contemplate it and even plan it out. Death was not a good answer, and I did recognize that. With more study, I think there is more hope to change and experience joy again within a physical body then there is at death. Suicide is not a choice that will just make all the pain go away.
So how did I get rid of that pain and feel joy again? I have the miracle of the Atonement. He was felt all my pains, and He can forgive me of all my sins. He knows the way out of the blackest abyss. I have learned that I do not need to be perfect. I do not even need to see the way out. I need to trust Him, follow Him. Death will not remove the pain I felt. Christ removes my pain, or at the very least makes it bearable.
It took a lot of prayer. It took a lot of work to reform my thoughts and retrain my brain. It took professional help and a supportive family. It took trying again and again and setting new habits in place. I had to become okay with hurting and learn how to experience emotional pain without it overwhelming me. I had to learn to rely on my Savior.
If there was any one thing that I would have changed through my experience, it would have been to get proffessional help sooner. I wasn’t in a good position to make rational decisions and I didn’t. I thought I could get over it through my own efforts. I really would have appreciated someone figuring out how to get help for me, and setting it all up. Eventually, I did get help, but it took longer than it needed.
After going through what I did, I’ve learned that it’s okay to be in pain: I can find strength to endure. It’s okay to admit my mistakes: I can find strength to change. I am wanted and loved, even as my imperfect self. And all that strength and love is rooted in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. My pain was great, but God’s love was greater. I learned to keep trying: I learned there was hope.
Liz Braithwaite 
I want something helpful to say here because I have had suicidal thoughts before. I don’t know if I have anything terribly helpful. I think at one point I decided I wasn’t going to hurt myself, even if I really wanted to. And so even when my thoughts and emotions were really twisted up, I knew I wasn’t going to hurt myself. I knew it really wouldn’t help. It seems so obvious when you are well that suicide is a bad option, but not so obvious when you are sick. But I think we need to face the issue when we are well, think through it a bit, decide what’s worth living for. I remember a quote that helped me–I had a friend whose mom committed suicide and she posted, “Suicide doesn’t take away the pain, it transfers it to someone else.” Getting professional help is so helpful and needed (I never saw a counselor, but I read books)–maybe even learning things like cognitive behavior therapy before you get depressed and suicidal, and not after. I feel it’s so much like an illness, like getting a cold or pneumonia. You’re sick and there are ways to get better.
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Thank you for putting your thoughts and emotions in writing. I know now that even words don’t quite express the sorrows and pains that someone with depression endures. I am your husband and should of helped you get help sooner. I too was struggling with strong thoughts and emotions as I watched you suffer. I didn’t know what do our who to turn to. I thought that the solution was to simply have a change of heart and mind so you could enjoy your life and family. This change, I’ve learned, doesn’t simply come because of desire. If it was a matter of choice then you would have eagerly taken it. Chemical imbalances often require medical help in addition to faith and priesthood blessings.
I also feel that I could have been more supportive instead of watching and waiting for you to figure this out. I prayed and fasted for you many times but, darn it, that’s not enough. I watched the kids and helped where I could with the house work, but darn it, that’s enough either. Faith without works is dead. When the love of my life suffers, I suffer. I should have put all my heart, might, mind and strength into helping you, quickly.
You are amazing, strong and beautiful. I’m sorry that I had to learn this lesson the hard way. Now though, we can help each other and others understand and live these truths.
I love you. I hope to always should you this through my words and actions.
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You’re husband is really awesome, Liz.
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