This post was originally written in September of 2012. It deals with faith, and some dark personal history.

Before I dive into this topic, I must say that what I write is entirely my opinion and my belief; I do not expect you to believe what I do not think less of you for whatever your beliefs happen to be. I ask for the same consideration.

I have touched very briefly on spiritual matters in past articles; however, I have never taken the time to write about who I am in the spiritual sense. This is a very touchy thing to write about as most people are 100% convinced that their beliefs are entirely correct, and everyone else’s is completely wrong. In addition, people’s passions for their beliefs often run very high; many times, a war has been born between believers and unbelievers. Nevertheless, it is an essential part of humanity, and as such, my blog would lack substance if I did not write about mine.

I was raised in the Lutheran faith until my early teen years, one of the many arms of the Christian faith. I was taught similarly to most Christians that our beliefs were true because it said so in the bible, a book divinely inspired by God himself. I was taught all the stories, memorized all the commandments, and could rattle off the listing of the books of the bible faster than you could thump my knuckles with a ruler. From my early teen years until college, I attended a Catholic school and was thus corrected in all the “wrong” stuff that the Lutherans had filled my innocent little brain with.

But there was more to it, sure I had been educated in matters of Christian faith, but that did not define my sense of spiritual self. I was always blessed (or cursed, depending on who you ask) with a deep sense of curiosity. I could never take something at face value just because someone told me it was because they “said so. “I always needed to know why, know more, understand for myself. In reply to my curiosity, I was introduced to the concept of “faith.” “Faith” was the thing I needed to have to cure me of these curiosities and accept that what I was being told was simply the way it was. “Faith” was the thing I lacked if I had questions or wanted to know more than I was told.

But there was yet more to it than that. There was a direct relationship between my beliefs and how they applied to my everyday life. Not well, I assure you.

Anyone who has read my blog knows I have been given a few extra challenges in life, challenges that most religions pretty much want no part of. But these were not my only challenges; there were other events in my life that, as a young child of ten years, I would pray to God for help. I would ask for help from anyone who might listen, which was always dismissed and ignored.

Faith is a powerful tool, but it is also a powerful weapon. Take anyone who believes something and convince them that they do not “believe enough,” and you have that person trapped in a really bad spot. At this point, matters of faith become matters of religion, and matters of religion are often not good matters. I think of religion as being like a family that is interested in keeping up appearances more than anything else. The image of the family matters more than anything, including what the family itself stands for. To this end, the religion is certainly not above alienating its own members, starting wars, or otherwise working utterly opposite to the faith on which it was founded. I found this to be the complete and utter truth about Christianity and later of other religions that I was exposed to.

When I was young, as well as when I was older, for that matter, it was religion that helped instill the idea that my struggles marked me as a bad person. Sometimes, it was just that “the devil had a hold of me,” but most of the time, the problem was that I was fundamentally flawed as a person. The only way I would possibly be able to be “right” would be to adapt to the thinking of the church, dismissing any other stray thought as evil or unnatural.

By the time I reached college age, I was waving goodbye to the churches that had raised me, vowing never to revisit them. I was no longer interested in faith being imposed upon me; I rather liked the idea that I could believe what I wanted as long as I kept it to myself.

Over the following years, I learned about many faiths, other beliefs, and theories about what makes the universe go ’round. I thought about some ideas, deciding they had merit, and still others I dismissed as that familiar old religious dogma that I wanted no part of. Regardless, my faith was mine and was not shared with ANYONE.

For decades, my faith was something I carried within me but never really reflected upon in my everyday life. I knew what I believed and accepted it for what it was. Part of my soul still resonated with old words telling me that I was flawed, possessed, or otherwise evil, but for the most part, I had some semblance of peace.

As the years passed, my faith adapted to my own needs. Eventually, it became my rationalization that my life was irrevocably broken. If I could just be a semi-decent person for whatever years I had to suffer through that, maybe the next life might be better. It was not until much later that I discovered that I had put all my faith into death and none into the life that I was living.

If you wish for something enough, you might get it eventually, though it might not be what you bargained for. This is what I learned in “The Night”.

Previous to this event, I more or less believed in spirituality itself but ultimately dismissed any real-world manifestation related to it as sensationalism or downright lies weaved in the name of religion. I admit, I was afraid of things that went bump in the night, but I held no faith that they could be any worse than my own demon that forever screamed in my ear that my life was finished, that I had no worth, that nobody would miss me—that night changed all of this.

I have spoken briefly about this incident in other articles I have written, but never in much detail. I have described it as “divine intervention,” which is undoubtedly one of the most sensational terms I could have stuck it with. Nevertheless, I have no words that can describe it better. This is precisely what happened in detail.

The day was miserable. I was exhausted; I was depressed beyond my ability to cope. It was a day that I spent reflecting on my life, who I was, who I wasn’t, and what any “next life” might offer me. My warped sense of faith was coming to a climax, and it was unlikely to be pretty. As the day progressed, the shame of my past and the futility of my future weighed upon me like heavy chains, dragging me further and further into darkness and despair.

The entire day I spent with a large bottle of prescription painkillers sitting on the desk in front of me as I mulled over my dark thoughts. They were there to take away my pain, right?

As the sun set, so did my life, or so I had decided. It was time to say goodbye, to run away from the one thing I could never previously escape: myself. My memories echoed with the voices of everyone who had ever told me that I was not good enough, that my life was a fluke, that I was a mistake not meant to go on.

The night was upon me, but it wasn’t just any night; it was dark beyond dark; even with the lights on in my apartment, I could barely see across the room. The darkness was no longer an idea, a metaphor for my despair; it hung over me like a wave preparing to come crashing down. I wonder if I had a camera if I could have even photographed it. This probably would have scared the pants off most people, but I was too far gone already; the darkness was mine, and I belonged to it.

My bottle of painkillers was my salvation, the instrument to the mercy that I never had been granted. The time was very near; I had a small detail to work out before it was done. The judgment of my father when I was a child was always harsh; on the night of my demise, I could see him fuming about the further shame I had brought upon him by ending my life. I saw the poor person who would eventually find my body; how long would it take before I was missed? Was there anything I could do so that my body did not just sit for days or weeks before being discovered?

The darkness beckoned. I swear it was getting darker and darker in the room with each passing moment, but I had not even taken anything yet! I had to hurry; it was my time; after all, it would serve the old bastard right if he had to deal with the inconvenience of my death. But it wasn’t fair for the person who ultimately would find me; how could I let them know to find me sooner than later? Could I somehow summon the police? But how could I do that without the risk of them somehow saving me? Maybe I could learn from other people’s deaths!

At that, I typed in the fateful word into Google, “suicide,” and hit enter. The results were to be expected: many pages dedicated to preventing suicide or educating folks about warning signs, or eulogizing those who had gone before, but not what I needed, how to make sure that someone discovers your body.

The darkness was more crushing than ever, the bottle of death calling louder and louder as my frustration grew. Then, as I clicked the next button again, I saw a strange little picture of a video; it appeared to be some sort of clown in white and orange. I clicked on the link, momentarily distracted from my doom, the darkness overwhelming as the video loaded, my inner voice taunting me, “You are so pathetic; you can’t even get the job done without being distracted!”

The video loaded and began to play; it was not an orange clown but, ironically enough, a drag performer portraying a nun. The video I had stumbled upon was about suicide; it was different from other videos I had seen in the past about this topic. The video seemed to speak less to a camera and more to me personally; the video spoke of hope, acceptance, survival, and the strength to go on.

As the video played, something happened; my memories swam for a moment back to my childhood, to when the real nightmares that I endured were upon me, to when I still had enough faith to call into the night for help. It was decades later now, the night of my death, and a ten-year-old child that I locked away in the back of my mind so many years before called out into the crushing darkness, “Help me.”

There was no flash of light, no chorus of angels marching through my window. Jesus himself did not appear in my toast, leaping out heroically to banish the evil. It was suddenly just completely different. The darkness was not just lessened; it was gone; the light in the room felt less artificial than normal and felt more like sunlight. The whole attitude around me, both outwardly and inward, was utterly transformed.

I clicked on another video, then another, and another after that. The light remained.

Soon, I found myself utterly exhausted; I could barely drag myself to bed before falling asleep.

The following day, the light was still there, and so was I. I felt strangely refreshed and more dedicated to setting things right than I ever remember being before. I returned to my computer to look up the video I had seen the night before, amazed at the words that had turned things so impossibly around for me. Though I found many videos by the author I had found the night before, even one about suicide, I never found the video I had seen that night again.

In the days following, I got the help I needed. Strangely enough, things that previously had many obstacles or seemed impossible to reach and overcome started falling into place.

I have changed a lot since that night, but no change has been as profound as the one I cannot even name, which just seemed to happen when I truly needed help that nobody could give.

The events of my story can be interpreted in many different ways; perhaps to some, it may be a symbol of my inner strength overcoming my darkest hour; to others, maybe it was my guardian angel, charging to my rescue when nobody else could. I think the honest answer is a combination of the two. Something fundamental changed radically in me, yet at the same time, I did not embellish my descriptions of the darkness and then the light; they were as real as can be. And I believe utterly and completely that I have had help from above since that night.

So here I am, an unexpectedly spiritual person, an inner child who will always ask why, an adult who has been saved by a power she cannot explain but will never again deny.

I haven’t charged off to church, and I still dislike the idea of religion and the negative power it wields so irresponsibly. I am still scared of the things that go bump in the night, but I also know I am not alone in facing whatever they might be. I am a survivor of suicide, and not a day goes by that I am not thankful that my fate led me away from that path. May I never revisit it.

To God, whomever you might be, wherever you might be, thank you for watching out for me.