Missing Christopher

“Most suicidal people are undecided about whether they really want to live or die. Sometimes when they attempt suicide they are gambling with death, and leave it to others to save them.” – David Lester.

I am currently in the process of reading a book that was fittingly recommended to me by my Mum titled “Missing Christopher”. It’s about a mother’s true story of losing one of her sons to suicide and her battle to save her two other sons from the encompassing darkness of mental illness. I have unknowingly and ignorantly ignored some significant repercussions from my personal struggle with suicide last year, but this book is forcing me to confront them. For the past year after shaking Death’s hand, I have selfishly been absorbed with my survival and empowerment to overcome such darkness that I have neglected to consider, let alone ask, those dearest to me how my experiences affected them. A large part of this neglect stems from a failure on my behalf to ask, but also a neglect from others to communicate their own struggle. I suspect their neglect though, was an attempt to prevent me from feeling guilty for my suffering and to avoid making this struggle about them. Instead, many individuals close to me have undoubtedly been suffering in silence.

The individuals I speak of are predominately those who lived with me through this struggle. The individuals who truly grasped how close I was to taking my own life. And not everyone who knew me during this time really comprehended that. My friend Ida and my girlfriend at the time Rachel, both who found my suicide note, definitely grasped the severity of the situation. As did my friend Stephanie, whose house I showed up to that night completely and utterly lifeless. Helpless. Distraught. Both my friend Mel who has been such a significant member of my recovery and my professor of whom I still frequently rock climb with, also grasped the unsettling and confronting reality of my near-suicide. All of these individuals knew how close they came to losing me. Although I was unaware at the time and for a long time after, I have occasionally witnessed how severely my experiences have affected them on a few independent occasions. And then of course, there are my parents. And my brother.

Over the past year, I have frustratingly been unsuccessful at having “that” talk with anyone in my family. I say frustrating because I wanted to talk about it. I felt ready to talk about it and pretty soon after it had happened too. But I was observing the situation with blinders on. I could only see a narrow field of vision. My field of vision. I had glimpses of images from their perspective, but it hasn’t been until reading this book that I have truly been sensitive to the delicacy of my experiences. Ironically then, I haven't actually been ready to talk about it.

The first night that I arrived back in Australia after being in America for two years, we had a family dinner to celebrate the occasion. Given the nature of my family’s passionate and intense personalities, it wasn’t long before discussions became heated. The discussion turned to depression. And then to suicide. I felt attacked by my brothers, misunderstood. I defended myself, my situations, my experiences. All the while upsetting my Oma and parents. Everything was still raw. I was institutionalised only five months prior and had intent to end my life just three months prior. The wounds hadn’t even begun to heal. And I suspect, the wounds had not even begun to feel again. Instead, shock and numbness dominated their realities.

On the 28th of December 2014, my parents received a call (I suspect). Their daughter, their only daughter, who was living in a country entirely by herself, was in the hospital: suicide attempt. That’s all they were told. That’s all anyone knew. That’s what the doctors recorded it as. That’s what I would go in the books under a statistic as. But, with complete clarity I can confirm that it was not a suicide attempt. I had no intentions to end my life that night. It was a cry for help. A severe cry because my former attempts had gone unnoticed. Communicating my struggles weren’t heard. Intentionally and visibly harming myself was ignored. And so I took it to the next step. And it was received. But it undoubtedly traumatised my parents and those closest to me at the time. Imagine receiving that call and knowing that it would be at least 36 hours before you could even reach your child, assuming one could leave immediately? Despite pleading with my Mum not to worry and not to send anyone over, my Dad arrived the next day. He wouldn’t be able to see me for another two days though, given that I was an in-patient at Ridgeview and visiting hours were restricted to Wednesday nights.

On the night I returned home back in Australia, things escalated quickly. My Dad shouted “Enough!” and Robert left feeling blamed. My Mum then stated that she didn’t want to talk about feelings, she just wanted to talk about our favourite colour or something superficial. I got up, teary eyed, and feeling personally attacked with my sense of identity victimised, “That’s one of our problems Mum. You never want to talk about feelings.” I defined my very essence, my very being, by my ability to hold deep, heavy conversations. That’s who I was. At least, that’s who I thought I was. I was, and still am, a sensitive soul. I crave depth. I need feelings. I can’t function on superficiality. And that is something that has isolated me throughout the duration of my life. Fortunately now, I am able to maintain a more balanced conversation, though my soul still yearns for that depth. For that connection.

I felt misunderstood. Hurt. I felt like the black sheep of the family. I felt rejected. I felt like I couldn’t be loved for who I was. I wanted to go “home” – back to America. I hated Australia. Reflecting back now, these reactions by all in my family were completely understandable. My parents almost lost one of their children. My brothers almost lost their only sister. My parents were grieving a life they were so close to enduring. And that was something they did not want to be reminded of, not then, and probably not now either. But they still were. They still are.

Over the years, my Mum has wanted me to come back to Australia. But particularly within the last year. To which I have frequently defied her and felt frustrated because of an overwhelming sense of being misunderstood. I felt like she was not respecting my decision to stay in America, my desire to remain independent. But it wasn’t until today that I finally understood why. Her desire for me to come home has nothing to do with respecting my decision. It has everything to do with her wanting to protect me. My Mum feels responsible. She feels guilty. She has never admitted that though, but I suspect that is why she recommended this book to me. To offer a glimpse into her struggle with what I went through. Albeit she never “lost” me, no, but she almost did. And to me, that guilt is probably just as poignant.

Jayne Newling, the author of Missing Christopher, also discusses her fear of losing Nic, the youngest son. That fear was present before Christopher’s death and intensified after. Jayne was so consumed at the thought of losing her youngest due to the demons in his head and ability to articulate his desire to die, that Jayne overlooked Christopher’s own struggle. The struggle he endured in silence. The struggle that would become so evident in hindsight. Christopher was the middle child. And I see many parallels between Jayne’s family and that of my own. I am the youngest and I struggled with suicide and depression, much like Nic. I doubt my parents ever foresaw my illness escalating as rapidly as it did, but a large part of that was due to me living in a completely different country half way around the world. Before I took a turn for the worse, my parents were worried about Robert, technically the middle child, but as he’s a twin I’m not sure that still applies. After my experience, my parents, especially my Mum, has heightened sensitivity to depression and suicide. It wasn’t until today that I finally understood her concern with Robert. It wasn’t until I read a comparable personal account, articulating the thoughts my Mum has silently endured, that I finally understood.

I suspect Robert took my near-suicide extremely personally too. He alluded to it in a conversation one day, but brushed it aside as though he didn’t feel responsible. Before I was institutionalised, I had reached out to my brother numerous times asking to please skype with him, but he was busy as he himself was going through a few things. When I was at the hospital on the 27th of December, I recall texting him, furious with the world, stating, “If people just listened to me, if people just answered my calls, I wouldn’t fucking be here right now. This is fucking bullshit.” That was a dagger to his heart. He felt responsible. He felt guilty. He knew I had reached out to him and he wasn’t there. Although I didn’t blame him in the text and still don’t to this day, he felt like he failed at protecting his younger sister. And I suspect he still feels that way.

My Mum is worried about my brother. And I am too. But I insensitively keep brushing it off because I know that you can’t help anyone who doesn’t want to help themselves. But now I know that my Mum is really worried. Much like Jayne was worried she too might lose her youngest Nic after losing Christopher, I suspect my Mum worries she might lose my brother. Perhaps she feels like she was given a second chance with me and is using that second chance to prevent a similar outcome coming to fruition with my brother. Perhaps it is through this book that she is articulating her own personal struggle with grief, with guilt, with an almost tragic ending.

My Dad almost lost his little girl. And I know he struggles, too. But much like Phil, the husband of Jayne, he is much better at hiding his struggle and at conveying normalcy within his life. He uses humour, with me and with others, to mask his pain. I see through that though, particularly when he looks at me. His once proud and glowing sparkle in his eyes is now filled with heaviness, sadness, and fortune. He is thankful I am still here. His words may fall silent, but his eyes vocalise his truth.

So to my Mum of whom I know will read this post given her endless support in my openness and willingness to express myself, I owe you an apology. I apologise for my insensitivity and frustration with your inability and seeming reluctance to discuss what happened to me. I ignorantly thought you never grasped the severity of my situation, but I realise now it is quite the opposite. You are fully aware of what I endured and have struggled to accept that potential reality. Struggled to comprehend losing a child to suicide; a death that cruelly appears to be preventable. A death that occupies the residence in one’s soul and disguises itself in the form of guilt. The guilt that consequently kills you. I apologise too, for my nonchalance towards my brother’s situation. I understand, now, why you have been so adamant on helping him and so reluctant to take my emotionally detached advice.

To my brother, if you ever read this, you were never responsible for what happened to me. The only way I was going to be saved was if I saved myself. I gambled with death that day, and I won. I was gifted a second chance and perhaps that second chance is to ensure you never need one.

The invulnerability in vulnerability

As I was writing the post “The Power in Vulnerability,” I started to question why we perceive certain things as making ourselves vulnerable. I recall writing this, Sometimes I question myself as to why I find it difficult to be vulnerable, to show a little emotion, to tell people I’m not doing okay and I’ve concluded it’s because of this terrible thing named pride. And by pride I mean our ego. We’re so afraid of rejection and of getting hurt (which is really just our ego anyway), that we deny ourselves opportunities to make connections with others, or perhaps we’ve made a connection but now we’re preventing the connection from strengthening out of fear of getting “too close”. Why do we have to perceive being vulnerable as a risk? If someone doesn’t respond to what we’ve said, we perceive it as rejection. But what if being vulnerable was the norm; if we merely wore our externalized emotions with no attachment to the outcome?

So I ask again, why do we feel obligated to associate vulnerability with risk, pain, and suffering? Why do we need to guard our heart? I have always struggled with this quote from Proverbs 4:23, “Above all else, guard you heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Again, what is there to guard? Why do we perceive our life story, our history, our experiences, our feelings as something so private that sharing them might end up hurting us? How can those things actually hurt us? And the answer, they can’t. It’s not our story or our experiences or our feelings that hurt us. Nor is it the sharing that hurts us. It’s our expectations of the response that hurts us. Often when we open up to someone, we consider it to be a significant event – we are choosing to share some of the most intimately painful events of our lives with this potential stranger. But why do we have to consider that a risk? Since when was being honest about things that are facts a risk? This thing happened in your past. This thing hurt you. Okay. Can you change it? Can you rewrite history? No. It is what it is. The key here is that it is in the past. It happened. It is not still happening. Reluctance to discuss what happened though, allows that pain to keep happening. It makes the past present.

These thoughts were inspired by the following quote from The Power of Now, “Only through the letting go of resistance, through becoming “vulnerable,” can you discover your true and essential invulnerability.” Resistance means a reluctance to accept what is. All situations are what they are. Does that mean you can’t change them? No. Does that mean you need to be passive in your life? Not at all. You can still be proactive and instigate change, but it’s about accepting the situation for what it is and letting go of your expectations of what you thought it might be or what you wanted it to be.

I have often been told that I make myself too vulnerable. But I’ve frequently questioned how? I live with my heart on my sleeve, yes. And I also frequently communicate how I feel. But how does that make me susceptible to getting hurt? If I get hurt, doesn’t that have more to do with my expectations of the response than it does with my actual actions? Take my post, “A love letter of sorts,” I made myself extremely “vulnerable” in that post. I openly communicated how much this individual means to me. Now I didn’t really get a response from this individual, which is more than okay, but others would perceive that as rejection. Here I am presenting my feelings and they weren’t necessarily validated. But why did they need to be? Isn’t it validation enough that I merely felt what I was feeling? Why do I need external validation? And the truth is, I don’t. You don’t, either. The only reason I might perceive this as rejection is if I took the lack of response personally. If I was attached to a certain response. If I wanted a certain response. All of that though, is the ego. That’s the ego needing validation. Without the validation, the ego is hurt. Bruised. The ego takes it personally. The ego suffers. When in reality, the ego thrives off of pain and suffering because that’s what strengthens it. But the ego is not you. The ego is unconscious. You, though, are conscious.

I had a conversation the other day with someone whom I have hurt in the past when I cut off ties in attempt to move on and heal. I was asking questions about how she was doing, about her family, if she was okay, and she reciprocated by asking me the same. I recall openly discussing the struggles I was presently facing with staying in America, returning to soccer, and of missing an individual. When I asked her the same questions though, I was answered with a somewhat superficial response. To which I responded, do you feel as though you can’t talk to me about this because I have burnt the bridge of open communication? And her answer was yes. Because I had hurt this individual, she no longer entrusted me with her feelings. We were no longer close and so I was seemingly not deserving of open responses. To which I entirely understand and accept. This individual has evident fear of getting hurt again, fear of opening up and having me leave again, and the thought of that pain is unbearable. And to overcome that fear would be a risk. A risk she was not willing to take. A risk that was self-perpetuating. But I started to question, what is it about one’s life, one’s feelings, one’s experiences that holds so much power? The answer? The power we unconsciously give them. They don’t actually hold any power. I have struggled to understand how being open about my past and my experiences could potentially hurt me, how honesty is considered vulnerable and how being vulnerable means that you could get hurt. The only thing that could potentially hurt me is, as I’ve said, my expectations. One of the primary teachings in Buddhism is that, “Expectations are the root of all suffering.” Perhaps because I am entirely open with everyone in my life, I do not fear one individual leaving, because I have confidence in knowing I will just open up to the next person who enters my life. But I acknowledge many people don’t operate like this. Many people have trust issues. Who doesn’t have trust issues though? Who hasn’t been hurt by someone they cared about? We all have. That’s a fact. Are you going to continue living your life in fear that you might be hurt again? That fear is merely your ego. It feeds off of it. Your ego can’t survive without fear. Your ego also can’t survive without pain. Once you realise that your past really doesn’t hold any power over you and that the only power it holds is because of your self-created ego, you will be free of that pain. Once you accept the past for what it was and reflect in a conscious, aware manner, the past will not cause you to suffer in the present.

I made myself “vulnerable” to two other people recently. These were two individuals who have been exceptional role models in my life. Mentors. People I highly respected. But for reasons I cannot quite understand, and have accepted that I won’t understand, communication ceased. I reached out to them. I wrote one of them a letter communicating my struggle to understand what happened, my acceptance of not being able to understand, and communicated how much this individual has shaped the way in which I live my life. I communicated that I missed her and I missed our interactions and that I would love to reconnect. I also communicated that my feelings towards her were independent of her response to this letter. A response that I never received. A response I also received from the other individual I reached out to. Now, many would perceive this as a clear rejection. I made myself “vulnerable” by communicating how I felt, how much this individual means to me, and by asking to catch up, and none of this was acknowledged nor validated. I could take this personally and internalise and question whether it’s a reflection of my worth. But it’s not. Their response is completely independent of me as a person. I am not hurt nor am I disappointed – I spoke openly about how I was feeling and was not attached or expecting any kind of response. I didn’t need validation. I don’t need validation. I received it within myself because I was feeling it. If I died tomorrow, I would be at peace knowing I communicated all that was on my heart. I communicated without fear. Without expectation. And in a way that made me feel invulnerable. My feelings are what they are. My past is what it is. I accept them wholeheartedly. The only power they hold is the power I give them. And that power comes from unconsciousness. From my ego. But I don’t want to suffer. I don’t want to be distrusting of others. I don’t want to confine my life to the narrow boundaries of “comfort”. I want to pledge fully into the world of “vulnerability.” Into a world where I can and will speak openly about my past and my present. A world where I am entirely my authentic self without fear of self-perceived rejection. A world where vulnerability is merely true invulnerability.

So I challenge you to speak openly. To discuss your past. To communicate your feelings. To do so in a way that makes you feel invulnerable. To realise that these are all just things, facts almost, and the only power they have is the power you give them. Communicate in a way that is independent of external responses, void of attachment from external validation. Validate yourself. And let go of the resistance to what is. I hope you find the invulnerability that exists just below the surface of vulnerability, below the surface of the ego, and within the realms of consciousness.

Confronting fears

I’m sitting here currently crying. Earlier today I found out that the women’s premier soccer league (WPSL) in America will be back in action this year. Try outs are approaching rapidly, May 6th and May 7th for the Atlanta Silverbacks. This is the team that my former assistant coach and role model played for and captained for numerous years. I’m ecstatic. Especially given that I read earlier in the year that there wouldn’t be a W-league because there wasn’t enough funding for it. A little perspective, since I was about 13 or 14, I have dreamed of playing W-league. In Australia or in America, I didn’t really care. I also had dreams to play for my country, and I had a glimpse of that when I was 16 and 17, but after some strokes of misfortune and doing both my knees as well as moving to America, I made my goals a little more realistic by aiming to simply play W-league.

So why am I crying? Perhaps it is partially due to me about to start my period, but I think it’s more than that. I’m reliving fears that I have ignorantly put aside because I haven’t needed to confront them. But with the prospect of playing WPSL and my first individual session after doing my second knee in the morning, I now need to confront them. It’s not so much the fear of re-tearing my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) that debilitates me, but the fear of what I lost and what I went through as a result of doing my second ACL that debilitates me. Frightens me. Paralyses me. Tearing an ACL is traumatic. Particularly if you lose something that was a central part of who you are. And soccer was for me. It still is, but I’ve had to learn to put that part of me aside in order to salvage my emotional sanity.

I remember when I was institutionalised and the psychiatrist I saw diagnosed me as suffering from “grief” – the loss of soccer. Granted to me, that was a very basic and misunderstood interpretation of what I was experiencing because it was more than just grief of a sport that I loved. It was a grief of myself. It was a grief of all my hopes, dreams, and expectations. All of that was shattered the moment I heard that dreaded pop. Every athlete’s worst nightmare. Especially if it makes you feel like you’re experiencing déjà vu.

I lost everything that day. September 7th 2014, at 1:19p.m. to be exact. I was coming back from a mild right ankle sprain in which I was cleared and felt okay to play. I had played about 20 minutes during the Friday night game and felt great. That morning though, I started my period. I intend to talk about this experience in more depth in a future post, but for now, I’ll just state that emotionally, I was not there. Something had happened a week prior that pushed me over the edge emotionally. I was not in a good head space. And given that I started my period that morning, I was at a higher risk of tearing my ACL. As I was getting my ankle taped for the game, I recall my trainer stating, “Now please, no more injuries today.” For whatever reason, my mind immediately thought: ACL. Was it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Was it because of my emotional instability? Was it because of my period? Was it simply just a matter of time before I did my second one? My doctor apparently says yes to that last question. The truth is, none of those questions matter. Because it happened. I tore it. All of my hopes, dreams, and expectations for my senior year vanished in a split second. And not just my hopes, dreams, and expectations either, everyone else’s hopes, dreams, and expectations for me vanished in that moment too. Imagine investing your entire life; emotional, physical, and psychological wellbeing into a team and sport only to have it stripped away from you because of one mere motion with your body. A motion you have performed thousands of times before with no repercussion, yet on this day, your ACL decided to tear completely in two. On this day, your heart broke. Actually, I feel like that’s an understatement. It shattered. Into tiny, unrecognisable fragments. And then it froze. Became numb. And that’s what you called living for the next six months until you considered taking your own life. Until you had to physically inflict harm on yourself just to feel again. Yeah, that’s what it was like to tear my ACL for the second time.

So where does that leave me now? For the past 19.5 months since tearing my ACL, I have lived a naive, ignorant dream. For a period, I believed that I would never play soccer again. And, given what I just shared, could you blame me? I was 21 years old and I had now done both of my knees. Would I even be able to play again? Would I ever recover from this physically? Mentally? Emotionally? I didn’t know. I still don’t know. But I’m starting to challenge those fears because I’m having to. To complicate things a little more, my recovery wasn’t smooth. Still isn’t smooth. You see, I had a quad graft on both of my knees. On my first one, I suffered excruciating tendinitis for about 7 months, but it was isolated to the two inches of my scar. I pushed through the pain and eventually made my comeback game 11 months post-surgery. For my second one however, I am suffering from tendonopathy (apparently that’s an interchangeable word for tendinitis) except this time, it’s not isolated to just my scar. It’s my entire quad. And it’s persisted for the past year. I gave up running last August because it was too painful. Any time I try to demonstrate something to my kids that I coach, I clench at my quad in agony. It feels like an acute burn. It’s as though my leg is being ripped open. The pain eventually subsides, and then I’m just left with a feeling of a bruised quad for the next day or so. No big deal, right? Pain is temporary, right? Albeit true, this pain has prohibited me from participating in activities I enjoy; running, lifting, tennis, soccer, and coaching. I again, for numerous months, questioned whether or not I would ever be able to run again without pain. And according to my physical therapist over here in the US, she suspected not. Not a very comforting thought, especially given the nature and degree of the pain.

Fortunately, there is a silver lining. And I found that a few weeks ago at my coaching course. True to tendons, once my quad tendon is warmed up, the pain subsides. It’s the warming up, however, that is excruciating. At this coaching course, I had the first real glimpse of playing soccer again. I was playing with some very talented individuals and one who used to play for Kennesaw State University’s in-state rival, Mercer. We got talking and she is part of a rec team that was looking for a few extra players. I was dancing internally. YES! Please! Sign me up! I have been yearning to play the sport I so desperately love ever since doing my knee, but I have lacked the motivation to truly recover and pursue it. And I also wasn’t aware of any leagues here in America and that was a strong motivating force behind me considering moving back to Adelaide. Now, with the prospect of WPSL, that changes things a little bit.

So I have a goal. And I have the motivation. What is stopping me? Why am I so upset? Because I’m scared. I’m not scared of not being good enough. I realise and accept that there’s a big abyss between where I finished playing and where I’m at now. I can’t trick physiology. I can’t make up for the 17.5 months I’ve lost since surgery. I learnt that the hard way after receiving a stress fracture (that completely separated after playing on it) after my first ACL. So my performance and ability doesn’t scare me, okay, great. So what is it then that I am so afraid of? Ultimately, yeah, I am afraid of doing my knees again. Okay, that's an understatement. I'm fucking petrified. I not only have to worry about one knee now, but two. I haven’t just lost one year of my soccer playing career, but almost three due to just two injuries. I lost more than just time though. I lost a part of me. I lost a part of my game that will take years to rebuild. A part of my game that made me, me. A part of my game that you can’t teach. A part of my game that got me my starting 11 position. And that part of me was fearlessness. Because when I return, I will be afraid. I will be scared. And I will have fear. I can convince myself consciously that I’m not afraid. But I’m lying. Subconsciously or consciously, I’m scared that I’m going to do my knees again. I think what contributes to this fear is also the lack of organised preparation to return to activity. I haven’t done a lot of plyometrics in controlled conditions. I haven’t done the cutting or practices in a controlled environment, either. And that lack of preparation plays on me unconsciously. My egoic mind convinces me that enough time has surpassed and I have done significant strength training and rehab with my physical therapist, but again, my mind cannot trick physiology or preparation and my subconscious knows that. This can be fixed though, and I can work on plyometrics, cutting, and practices in a controlled environment and I have every intention to do so. But my fear still persists. Why?

We’re often told to not be governed by fear and that fear inhibits us from taking risks and that is true. I am not denying that. But I also know this fear is warranted. Much like you can’t trick physiology, you also can’t trick learning and behaviour, particularly classical conditioning. I have been conditioned to fear tearing my ACL. Particularly because the event was so traumatic. And not just the event, but the aftermath too. Naturally then, the fear response is intense. The only way to eradicate this fear? Through the process of extinction. Through confronting them. Through training. Through practicing. Through playing again. Through successfully making my first tackle and surviving. Through landing on my left leg with my body still intact. Through time. And through patience. I have to be gentle with myself in this process, and I am aware of that. I also know that it is okay to have fear. And to have doubt. All of that is a necessary component of recovery. Without them, I’d probably be a sociopath. This post doesn’t have a resolution, nor was it intended to. This is just me communicating in real-time, what I am experiencing. So with my first individual session in the morning, I ask that you wish me good luck. In the meantime, I vouch to be gentle with myself and accept my fears to be a necessary component of my recovery. As necessary as surgery itself.