Self-Care Corner: No Wrong Reasons to Live

Content indicator: This Self-Care Corner post contains content about thoughts of suicide.

For much of my life, I have experienced persistent thoughts of death and wanting to die. My first serious thoughts of death happened around seven years old, and my first suicide attempt was at nine. From then on, I felt caught in a years-long cycle of near constant thoughts of death and fighting off this compulsion to kill myself. I felt this desperation to find purpose, meaning or reason, and it didn’t seem to work.

But why am I telling you this? What is the purpose of this kind of disclosure? Because “wanting to live” isn’t simply as easy as effort or “finding a reason” to live, and I am a testament of that. There are continuous efforts and persuasion that must occur to get on board with the idea of living, long-term or otherwise. This is where psychoeducation becomes key.

During a hospitalization (and subsequent intensive outpatient program) in 2017, I came to a much deeper self-understanding of my mental health and overall neurodivergence. I learned more about what it meant to live as an autistic person who experienced dissociation on a consistent basis. Before this period, I didn’t realize how much sensory-seeking and sensory-avoidant tendencies impacted the way I navigated the world. In talking to other people with similar experiences, I found that they had similar struggles; life did not feel worthwhile, and it was difficult to live in a world that was tough to describe.

Psychoeducation genuinely and truly saved my life. Finally learning why my body developed the safety resource of dissociation was a revelation. Experiences that were previously beyond words became a self-knowing. Coming to know what autism can look like in a traumatized person, I could finally give myself permission to experience joy in my body.

Pre-2017, I was very harsh on myself; what is so wrong with you that you cannot find reason to live? Psychoeducation gave me the necessary compassion for myself that I never had before. Of course I could not find reason to live when I never felt joy! So now you may be asking, well, ok, Zelig … What do I do about right now? How do I persuade someone I care about or even myself to live?

When we are navigating a crisis, we must stick around long enough to learn about ourselves, and in every moment of life we can find opportunities to learn. Anything, and I mean anything, that buys time to learn is a good reason for now. A reason for now buys us time to find a reason for the rest of our lives.

So, if that In-N-Out burger motivates us to stick around for the rest of this evening, that is a huge success; if seeing that movie that has been endlessly advertised to you keeps us around through tomorrow morning, great work; if a dance recital your kid has been practicing for all summer does the trick, be proud of yourself; if seeing certain politicians potentially making their next comical and embarrassing tweet motivates you to stay, spite can work for now! Perfect or “correct” can be the enemy of good enough for now, and the stakes are too high when it comes to our lives to search for that perfection.

For the folks who read all this way, thank you for taking the time. For the folks that are looking for a TL/DR, I’ve got you: Through my life experiences I have learned to use psychoeducation as a tool to develop deeper understanding of oneself and the long-term reasons to live will eventually follow, if that is not accessible right now, feel fine buying time until those deeper reasons do come along.

Above all else, please remember you are somebody’s somebody. You would be missed if you were not here and your contribution to the world is invaluable, even if you do not feel it right now. Stick around for some gummy bears or the next episode of Master Chef, and that reason for a future can be found in understanding yourself.