Raindrops hit the windshield of my car, not a gentle mist but a torrential downpour of a storm that reflected the emotional storm that raged within my mind.
The local classic rock station played on my car radio, blaring forth a song that also reflected perfectly the tumultuous thoughts that had been rolling in and out of my mind: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.
Mama, ooh
Didn’t mean to make you cry
If I’m not back again this time tomorrow
Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters
Too late, my time has come
Sends shivers down my spine
Body’s aching all the time
Goodbye, everybody, I’ve got to go
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth
Mama, ooh (Any way the wind blows)
I don’t want to die
I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all
It was that last line that brought me to tears…”Sometimes I wish I’d never been born at all.”
This day sits vividly in my mind like so many other days lived by my high school self. I can tell you exactly which road I was on and where I was going. I was still struggling to come to terms with the death of my friend Rob, struggling to fit in within my peers at school, struggling to ignore the harsh and demeaning names I had been called…names that may have seemed innocuous to my peers who said them but to me they were anything but that. Struggling in general to figure out my place in this world. And through it all, a time or two, the thought of ending my life had crossed my mind.
That day was twenty-four year ago and, while the thought of suicide is far behind me, it as an action is not. Over the past few weeks it has been on my mind. A lot. Recently there was a social media push from the group Not One More Vet (NOMV) to spread awareness about suicide amongst the my profession. Why? Because a veterinarian is 2.4 time more likely (women) and 1.9 times more likely (men) to commit suicide compared to the general population (source: Centers for Disease Control). Time and time again I have heard reports of my colleagues being overwhelmed by the stressed of our profession and choosing to end their lives . In just one week we lost three veterinarians. Three caring people who could no longer handle the pressure of it all. As a person who has been in that deep pit my heart weeps. As a person who has traveled a dark road with no end in sight I feel their desperation. As a person who has had to deal with the grueling client interactions that lead some to just give up I feel their sense of defeat and failure. This profession is tough. There’s a level of tough that no one prepared me for. I left veterinary school with the basics needed to perform surgery and work up a medical case but there were no tools in my toolbox for how to handle the rude, demanding, belligerent, manipulative, bully clients that I have faced over the past fifteen years. That tender teenager who was so deeply hurt by the words and actions of her high school classmates had graduated to being the tender, people-pleaser, veterinarian who struggled with boundaries and just wanted to make everyone happy. It is only by the grace of God that I have gained the tools over the years to defend myself against the demons that have plagued others to the point of ending their own lives.
At the same time as me and my colleagues were spreading awareness of the suicide epidemic in veterinary medicine my local community has been rocked by not one but two suicides within our ranks. One, an Army veteran barely a decade younger than myself and the other an athletically talented and charismatic high school senior from an influential family. My husband and I were discussing the devastation of these two incidents this weekend. While he was having trouble grasping how a youth with such a bright future could take his own life I knew exactly how. I once was that youth contemplating if life with its stresses, pressures, pain, and loneliness was really worth living. That youth who wondered if people really would miss me, who thought that their lives would be less stressful without me.
Now I know the truth–those words were from the Enemy, from the Prince of Darkness himself Satan. The Lord had a plan for me and my life from day one as He has for each and every one of us (Jeremiah 29:11, Psalm 139: 1-18). But Satan knew that I was just a weak human being and that my relationship with my Lord and Savior wasn’t a relationship at all but a religion…and a weak one at that. So many of us fail to recognize that evil thoughts are not our own, that the Enemy is fighting to steal us away from the Light, from God (John 10:10). My heart weeps for those who are in the grips of this struggle for I have been there. I have felt the despair and desperation first hand. How did I not succumb to the Enemy’s temptations? Purely by the grace of God. Though I really knew little about Him, God had a tighter grip on my life than the Enemy. I saw this slight glimmer of hope, a glimmer that has grown brighter over the past twenty four years as I have grown stronger and stronger in my faith and my relationship with Jesus.
We are all here for a purpose. Today my purpose is to call out to those who are weary, to those who feel they are at the end of their rope, to those who see no reason to continue living. Don’t give up. Reach out a hand and someone will be there to help pull you out of the pit. For me the struggle to see the light continued through my college years until my husband and my church family encouraged me to seek professional help. Depression and anxiety still had their fingers tightly interwoven around my neck. It was through the guidance of a counselor that those cold fingers have been pried away and I have found new life in Jesus. A new light shines in my life that is truly a gift from God. Yes, asking for help requires you to step out of your comfort zone, and that my friends was one of the hardest parts. It requires you to become vulnerable and share your deepest pains with others. It may mean that you will have to share some hard truths with the ones you love as to how they are negatively affecting your life. But the rewards you will reap from reaching out and seeking help will be many fold as I can testify. The freedom I feel now compared to a decade or two decades ago is unimaginable. It is a freedom I wish for everyone to know. So please, I will plead it one more time, if you are in the pit do not linger…help is just a phone call, text, or click of a button away.
If you feel like you are in crisis, please get help right away by calling the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
If you are a veterinary professional in need please don’t forget that veterinary professionals are able to access a free month of professional online counseling through BetterHelp at https://www.betterhelp.com/nomv/
The Gravel Road Diaries 