When people don’t understand the depths of hell the brain can take someone to, I am relieved for them. And I am also grateful for the journey I’ve been on—I would never have understood how someone who appeared “successful” on paper could consider taking their own life and think they didn’t matter unless I had lived it.
When I developed intense and pervasive suicidal ideation, I was on top of the world with my professional life. I was in training for my dream job. I had checked all of society’s boxes like the “good girl” that I was. The conflict in my mind increased my own judgment.
I didn’t know that other people like me were struggling at the time—they are. Deeply. Moral injury. Disillusionment. Lack of time to eat, sleep, pee, and connect with loved ones. Sacrificing ourselves for others. Identities and self-worth contingent on showing up as perfectly as possible, day in and day out. It’s not sustainable. But we normalize it, so we judge ourselves when we are the ones struggling, not knowing how many others are struggling too.
When people think it’s “just them,” their inner critic often gets louder. Doubts about their worthiness and whether they matter may take hold tighter.
Talking about the realities of where our minds take us at times can help people to see that they are not alone—not broken. That they do matter. That they don’t have to work so damn hard, exhausting themselves into despair to prove it.
You always mattered. You always will matter.
May this be the time we start spreading kindness and love—to ourselves and others. May this be the time we support people in letting go of the belief that they need to sacrifice themselves to prove their worthiness and value. We are losing ourselves, and people are losing their lives.
I am grateful that this pain inside me exists because it helps me to overcome the fear of speaking up and out in a world full of such stigma.
If sharing my story and words can help others reduce suffering and truly live, they must be spoken.
If these words can save a life, they must be spoken.
Break the silence.
Break the stigma.
Save lives.
Jillian Rigert is an oral medicine specialist and radiation oncology research fellow.
