The 3 teachers who helped me stay alive

It was a dark winter evening, 25 years ago, when I had my very first suicidal thought. I remember it well. It felt like I am the only person on Earth, or perhaps the only one on a desert island surrounded by a vast furious ocean. I was alone. And I could not escape.

Since then, I have had many similar gloomy thoughts, sometimes terrifying ones, but other times not so much. Now I know that the more I take for real what happens inside my head, the more personal and seriously I take situations and life, the more I disconnect from others, the more depressed I become, and the more my mind dances with suicidal thoughts. And if you think about it, it's a logical implication.

Through the years, I have developed an understanding of these thoughts, and along came tools that helped me remember what is important to me. So, today I would like to talk to you about three teachers - each one of them has taught me one lesson towards life that tackles adversities, especially when my own life is at stake.

Separate from thoughts

The first is Eckhart Tolle, a spiritual teacher who got enlightenment during his lowest point in life when he thought of killing himself. As he explains, one night, he was thinking of suicide along with the thought "I cannot live with myself any longer". And then it struck him. "Since I cannot live with myself, there must be I, and there must be myself - am I one or two?" And through that realisation, through that understanding, a new awareness arose inside him; we are separate from our thoughts. Yet, there are our thoughts, and there is us thinking about suicide.

Before I heard his story, I was taking my thoughts for real, as if they are the absolute reality. Now, I understand that my thoughts are just like a story in a play. When I embody the actors in that play, my thoughts become my reality, and a sense of dread showers me; I feel scared and alone. However, when I remain part of the audience, watching my thoughts having their go, I can rest untouched by them and enjoy the play, whether it's a comedy or a drama.

Life is absurd

The other teacher is Michael Neill, a coach, who during his adolescent years, he had what he called "suicidal ideation". He was thinking about suiciding the whole day every day, till that thinking became background noise in his head. I won't go through his entire story (actually, he has a TedTalk about that), but he called the suicidal helpline at his lowest point, and he got a busy line. He found that funny because the only people who could help him were unavailable. So, in a way, I also found it funny. I found that so amusing, that it made me realise that life is absurd, there is no intrinsic meaning, there is no predetermined outcome that we have to reach. Life just is. And it is as we take it.

I know that life has its adversities, but the more seriously we take them, the less we live our life (our single and precious life) to its fullest. So since I listened to Michal Neill's story, I pay attention to the funny side of things. ‍

Connect with people

Last but not least, what drags me into those suicidal thoughts the fastest is disconnection from the people around me. When I say disconnection, I mean a prolonged period that I don't express my own needs and don't feel like talking to anyone. For example, my wife may ask me, "how are you?", and I (if I respond) do that with no interest at all, as if there is no point. And you know what, when I lose connection, it feels like building a wall around me, so thick that no light can pass, not even my emotions, not even my voice - have you ever sensed that?

So, regarding my last teacher, I would like to share with you a personal story. One afternoon, I was sitting down at a corner of my room with my eyes closed, slouching all the way in, with the weight of my depressing thoughts on my shoulders. Why life is so unbearable; why this always happens to me; I cannot stand it anymore; I have let so many down; I am not worthy of living...

The desperate stories kept becoming darker and heavier within my head till the point I could explode inside. From the outside, though, I must have been still, so still that a baby could sleep in my arms. And actually, that's what had happened.

I heard a cooing sound and opened my eyes only to see that I was holding my baby in my arms, who was waking up. That cooing sound (as if it woke me up from my nightmare, from my desperate, old life) came to rescue me, to assist me to dig a tiny hole on the impenetrable wall that I had built around me.

That was the moment that a thought struck me like lightning and changed my life completely. "Although my son was there, dad was not. And the husband was not there either." I was not there. I was nowhere. I had withdrawn inside my mental fortress, once again. So close, and yet so far away.

The third teacher who is still helping me stay alive is my son. On that day, he helped me make a hole in the thick wall of my depression from which a ray of light came in and I started seeing the outside world. He helped me realise what I was neglecting in my life: the people more precious to me than my own life. For so long, I was not grateful for what I had. I had disconnected from life and people.

To destroy the rest of the wall and come back from the darkness, I knew what the solution was. I needed to talk, and I needed to express my thoughts, to externalise something. I needed to connect! The details are unimportant, but eventually, I walked downstairs to my wife, still holding my little son in my arms, and despite the usual resistance to open my mouth, I did. I spoke and said, "I'm not well". Those few words initiated a connection with a person I had found impossible to open up to in the previous months. That connection helped me to break loose towards the light once again.

My point is that, even if you don't have your own children, even if you don't have a partner at the moment, there are still people around you who care. It doesn't matter whether they are friends, colleagues, or people in helplines. Believe me, when I tell you, some people want and can deeply listen to you, connect with you, and help you demolish the high walls that may surround you.

These were the three teachers that helped me fade my suicidal thoughts. Well, not entirely or forever, because it's easy to jump back to the old thinking habits. It's human nature. Now I know how to navigate in the dark catacombs of my suicidal fantasies when I need to find my way out.

● Separate from thoughts - they are not real.

● Life is absurd - see the funny side.

● Connect with people - connect and connect again!

What are your ways out from your suicidal ideation?