A Moment of Courage

Over the past six months, I’ve been struggling to keep an all-consuming feeling of despair at bay. These feelings of hopelessness have resulted in some serious suicidal ideation, the feeling that I just don’t belong in a world that I just don’t understand and who obviously doesn’t understand me.

I wrote the poem below on the way into Burning Man last week based on the mantra that runs through my head when overcome with these feelings of despair. At its worst, I was angry with myself for not having the courage to die. On one hand, I couldn’t abandon my husband like that, but I was convinced that I was so much of a burden on him that he’d be better off. Still, I was too afraid of that “undiscovered country.” So I longed for just “a moment of courage” to swerve the wheel into a wall or a tree or the lake, or take that step off a balcony, stopped only with a rope.

To ease your minds, friends, I never attempted suicide, not even once. I did come close to attempting in my grief, but I didn’t actually attempt. That’s why it’s called Suicidal Ideation, and it’s a common symptom of both PTSD and Rape Trauma Syndrome.

Although, now after Burning Man, I feel considerably better. Remarkably better. The support from friends, community, and even the police at Burning Man have helped me heal more in a week than I have in the past two months.

All in all, I saw just how terribly insignificant it really is.

Now, alive and happy and free and safe, I look out my window at the glorious lake and sunrise, and I’m grateful I didn’t have that moment of courage.

Peace.

-_Q

A moment of courage
Is all it would take
All it would take is a
Moment of courage

Free from the despair
Free from the pain
No more betrayal
Never again

Free from the doubters
Free from the blame
Free from the shunning
Free from the shame

A moment of courage
Is all it would take
All it would take is a
Moment of courage

A quick single step
Tighten the noose
A flick of the wrist
Letting blood loose

Squeezing a trigger
Hang from the man )'(
Fall from an art car
Land in the sand

A swerve of the wheel
Taking a swim
Or over a cliff
Breaking a limb

A moment of courage
Is all it would take
All it would take is a
Moment of courage

But courage I’ve not
This I lament
No courage to die
Here now I vent

One moment of courage
Is all I would need
Without that sweet courage
My heart still does bleed

To die it would stop
The pain that I bear
To die it would stop
Unending despair

A moment of courage
Is all it would take
All it would take is a
Moment of courage

Free from the despair
Free from the pain
No more betrayal
Never again

~ by omgrey on September 5, 2012.