No More Hiding Myself. How Hiding Behind Smiles Almost Kill Me

The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower.

Sylvia Plath

How many of you can imagine that a fifteen years old girl just wanted to die? How many of you can think of a person you know that have actually committed suicide? We don't talk much about it, do we? We hide behind perfect smiles all the shadows until there is too much to hide. "Leave your problems at home." "You have to move on." "Fake it until you make it." Or my favorite, the Vegas rule: "What happens at home stays there." My home was no Las Vegas, but we certainly know how to keep things in secret.

I have learned how to disguise myself even from me. That doesn't mean that I liked it. It means that I needed it as a survival skill at the time. The problem with hiding for so long is that you can easily forget where your true self is. The problem with forgetting your true self is that it means that you cease living at some point or another. Suddenly, death becomes an attractive concept, at least you wouldn't be a waste.

When I was seven, my life changed in many aspects. For the first time in my life, I suffered a loss. My grandpa died, then my whole world started to become upside down. I was supposed to be happy, a happy and sweet little girl, but I was not even close to that as the shadows started to appear in my mind. The voices that made me think twice about the next step because I was not worth it, I was a waste of resources. I had to be strong for my parents. I thought they were my responsibility in my mind. It was up to me. I have to be perfect: if I am perfect, nothing wrong can happen anymore.

When you are a child, it is cumbersome to understand what is your real role, what are the expectations people have about you, your position in the group. The brain is developing and with it our way to manage stress, to build our self-confidence and trust, our motivations and obsessions. I can say now that my place in the world was a dark one, and I never dare to show that part of me. Remember, I was supposed to be perfect. It was like that during the day. I was allowed to wear my superhero suit and from me was expected to shine. However, at night, I would go back to my regular self suit, where I was allowed to be sad and scared. No one was watching me cry. No one was watching me wandering about the whys. No one could know that I was a worthless little mouse looking from a corner.

The first time that I attempted suicide, I was fifteen years old. My other grandpa died after three months of living his hell. During those months, I watched how his life vanished. His mind was lost in a labyrinth while his body was still walking on Earth. I remember how he wrote in a wall: "Please let me die, please kill me." I spent several sleepless nights, feeling the vast emptiness in my body. I was nothing. I didn't deserve to be alive. The next morning, I get up to go to school, and shut up, and move on, and think you have to be strong for him, for us, for yourself.

The night that he died, I was alone at home, and I couldn't think about going on like that. I didn't want more sleepless nights and sadness. I took one of my father's revolver -my favorite one- and I put one bullet and spun the cylinder. I pointed the barrel to me right temple. My finger was on the trigger, ready to end it all.

I couldn't do it, so I pointed the gun at the wall. I pulled the trigger. The sound let me deaf for a couple of seconds. My dog started to cry. I never thought about him. He was trembling, and I was shaking and crying.

A hole in the wall was the only evidence.

I carried on with my life. What else was I supposed to do? I couldn't tell the truth to my parents. I was a coward, I didn't have the guts to disappear, so I started to pray. I asked God every day: "Take me, don't waste resources on me. Kill me, please." I graduated from university, one month after my father died. I had to be stronger than ever. There was no time for stopping by a therapist, after all, they don't work as good as they say. I started to work. I didn't understand that depression can put like in a sleep coma. I was the problem, my weakness. I was a waste.

I met my wife, and she made me feel safe. Unfortunately, we were in a world where we didn't exist somehow. A world where we needed to hide. Again, hide. All my life hiding. But this time, I was not alone, she was holding my hand. She taught me that it was ok to ask for help, she wanted me to not pretend. I thought I was cured! The voices went on vacation, and I was smiling for real.

Suicidal thoughts were my companion, but we made a deal. As I did not have the guts to kill myself, they needed to let me function, so I could keep my charade. But nothing lasts forever, right?

I came to Canada in 2014, I was away from the familiar views for the first time. My wife had to go back to Venezuela just 4 months after we arrived. She was sick. I was alone for the first time in my entire life. That's when my depression rented a room in my apartment and moved in full time. Suicide was again part of me. The truth is -and I understood that later- suicidal thoughts are part of my mental illness, so it is in my brain, it's real.

My strategy, at the time, was to bury myself in work to avoid thinking. However, in my free time, I was planning the best way to kill myself. I started to work on a short story about suicide in the Metro as an excuse for research. It seems that you may survive, and I didn't want to traumatize the driver. I had no guns here, and I didn't know how to get one either. Pills are not reliable...

In the meanwhile, I was promoted three times at work. I was a good worker, a good friend, a good wife. Well, sorry, I don't want to lie here. An "ok" wife. Faking it, that was my craft. I wasn't feeling anything else but pain, more pain every day. I was exhausted from smiling, from being a team player in a culture that I barely understood in a country that I barely knew. I couldn't bring my whole self to work. I didn't know-how. I didn't feel that there was a safe place for me. I was so ashamed, disgusted by my weakness.

I wanted to die, just that. No more pain.

Please, let me die, give my life to someone dying. At least, if it is an accident, my family and friends can recover somehow.

You should have guessed by now that I couldn't do it. My wife would be alone without me in a new country. After all, I committed to her in sickness and health. I decided to stop faking at least with her. It was the best decision I have taken in my life so far. Just to talk with someone that loves me about what I was feeling, just that tiny action changed my life. That is the reason why I am here today, sharing my secrets with you to show you that you don't have to fake it, that there are safe places, and that we are all responsible for creating them.

How many of you are now asking yourself if your missing something about a person sitting next to you? How many of you are going to think twice before assuming what a smile really means? How many of you think about empathy?

If you have interest on the subject please listen to this pocast!