(I may publish this comment to my profile and email it to my subscribers--or maybe turn it into a story itself as I find emailing comments to subscribers not very effective--I hope they read your vulnerably written and beautiful and goosebump raising story of your encounter with divine intervention and earth angels who completed the job).
You have nothing to feel ashamed or guilty about. If there's one thing I wish anyone reading your wonderful essay and this comment will takeaway, is it's ok to have suicidal thoughts. I say that as someone who lost a dear friend to suicide and who writes from time to time my thoughts on suicide with the goal of attempt prevention.
I had a fight with a close friend recently. She thinks suicide is everyone's right. I said yes, but not every right should be exercised.
Yet, there is absolutely no shame in thinking about it. This is a realization I had sometime early this year through synchronicity.
I never listen to NPR. But I found myself being driven by a friend from PA to NYC and NPR was on the radio. My ears caught something and I shushed my friend and turned up the volume. The person being interviewed was Clancy Martin, a philosopher and surviver of multiple suicide attempts. He had just written a book, How Not To kill Yourself, A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind. Given my interest in this topic, which beyond my friend's suicide and the conversation through my psychic that I had with his soul years later that contributed greatly to me not attempting suicide when I became depressed, I had then recently come to the realization that advocating toward suicide attempt prevention may be part of my soul plan for this incarnation, perhaps due to something in a past life.
Martin said something in the interview that I found very profound. When talking to someone who is having or may start having suicidal thoughts, he advises to tell them it's ok. You can kill yourself if you want but you don't have to do it today. Don't tell someone it's wrong nor wrong to think about. Shame makes it more likely they won't talk about it and more likely they will attempt it to stop feeling the shame of thinking about it by trying to kill themselves.
I ordered the book that day. I still haven't read it. I did just go retrieve it and will leave it in a prominent spot--maybe I'll even crack it today and write about it when I finish it, which was my intention when I bought it.
If you or anyone else feels pulled to read my story of my friend Andrew and my conversation with his soul, which essay's suicide prevention messages also relies on Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, here is the link: https://medium.com/illumination/dizain-of-suicide-72bcde4dc8d8 Despite the 17-minute estimated read time, it is far and away my most read and engaged with piece (3800 claps from 116 people and 86 comments).
It starts out with this poem that I wrote for the essay:
We Are Only As Sick As Our Secrets
Suicide provides no relief at all
On ledge imagining end to my pain
Pavement streaming toward me will not end fall
Just before break solution becomes plain
My penance to help others to refrain
Thought my loved ones better off without me
Truth’s too likely they’ll header into sea
Had I known that death cannot be cheated
Baring deep secrets would cure malady
Death would not have left loved ones defeated
