I was going to commit suicide
How many young people today think exactly like I used to think 15 years ago? Maybe you know someone or heard about people who committed suicide because this burden and so many thoughts inside them were heavier than what they could bear and they had no where and/or no one to run to. Unfortunately!
In order for you to understand why I did not commit suicide I would need to share with you a wee bit of my life. I will tell you how I started to think about this, how this became a normal thing to me, how I used to see death and how I overcame it all with the grace of God.
To start with, if you haven't read yet I recommend you reading the other text I wrote where I explain I was going to be aborted (click here to go to the text). For those who say the child inside the womb of their mothers has no clue of what is happening outside, I am the real proof that we understand yes! Not only understand, feel and hear but also keep everything in our brains - conscious or unconscious.
WHY DO I SAY I AM A REAL PROOF OF THAT? BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH MY MOM GAVE UP ON KILLING ME WHEN I WAS INSIDE HER WOMB, I KEPT THIS FEELING OF REJECTION AND HATE INSIDE OF ME - AND THAT CAME TO MY MIND AND CONSCIENCE WHEN I WAS 13.
From this fact we could also learn a wee bit about homosexuality for it is proven that around 70% to 80% that people who are attracted to same sex suffered some sort of sexual abuse and/or were treated in the wombs of their mother like being of other sex.
For example, parents were waiting a girl for the whole pregnancy and the baby turns out to be a boy. This thought of being a girl is kept in the mind of the baby and comes out at some stage of their lives and they feel they are only gonna be loved if they are a girl. The same happens with girls who are expected or treated like boys (we are going to reflect deeper on this subject in another time).
Anyway, at the age of 12 to 13, like many teenagers and young people, I started to feel the pain of growing up (that is the meaning of the word adolescent - for the bones are growing and everything is changing in our bodies) and if the problems inside and out were not enough I always had inside of me a sort of hate against my mom. I did not understand at the time where this would come from - but you know now better than I did then.
I was very shy and never liked being the centre of attentions. I always had a problem with meeting new people until the age of 13, more or less, and my mom did not know what to do. So instead of seeking help and maybe try to learn how to help she did her way (or never thought about her sensible son) - she would bring people to meet me by surprise in home.
So what I would do, instead of greeting the person I didn't know, I would turn away to the person and full of anger and wrath, walk back to my bedroom stepping like I could break the floor beneath me, close the door with all my strength, lock it, run beside my bed and start to cry. This happened so many times that I cannot even think of how many.
If I was like that to get to meet new people, imagine how difficult and problematic it was for me to socialize. I was not a social person at all. I was a person closed in myself with nearly no friends. Until the age of 11 years old I lived in one very narrow street and everyone knew everyone and the families of all who lived there. My friends were the ones from the street.
My mom used to work in a full time basis in the same hospital my grandma worked her entire life. As you know I did not have the presence of my dad (who did not even know I existed - I got to meet my dad for the first time when I was 6 yo), so my mom needed to put me in a school from my early age - from 3 or 4, like many children. I used to cry and hated being away from home. My mom used to keep me somewhere with her on the start of every school for I did not accept being by myself until 8 yo. It was tough for a child like me to adapt.
Well, before the year 2000s it was not so dangerous for children to play in the streets (at least in Brazil where I used to live - that is not truth nowadays) and I grow up there being educated and learning stupid things and ended up being influenced by older boys - from swearing to playing with my sexuality and of others around me.
For that reason, one of our neighbours (who used to look after me and my cousin) put us one day in a car and brought us to a place to "help us" where some people would pray for us because we were terrible children. In this place there were loads of women with white clothes and many necklaces. That was a centre of a false religion called candomblé (a religion dedicated to the devil and the demons).
I still remember that day -- a mother of saint (it is their name to the religious person who is the contact between the devils and us) put her hands over me and started to kick the floor and prayed over me -- offering my life to the demons. It was a disgraceful day!!
"Now compare the natural people of Israel: is it not true that those who eat the sacrifices share the altar? What does this mean? That the dedication of food to false gods amounts to anything? Or that false gods themselves amount to anything? No, it does not; simply that when pagans sacrifice, what is sacrificed by them is sacrificed to demons who are not God. I DO NOT WANT YOU TO SHARE WITH DEMONS". (1 Corinthians 10:18-20)
PEOPLE TODAY DON'T MIND USING CLOTHES, OBJECTS, KEEPING IN THEIR HOMES SYMBOLS AND BRING SYMBOLS WITH THEM, EAT FOOD AND PLAY WITH DARK RELIGIONS, ETC FOR THEY THINK IT IS FUNNY OR COOL. IT IS A TERRIBLE SPIRITUAL CONTAMINATION AND SOMETHING THAT HOLD BACK THE LIVES OF MANY CATHOLICS AND CHRISTIANS WHO THINK IT IS NORMAL TO SHARE WITH DEMONS. WE NEED TO GET RID OF EVERYTHING AT ALL RELATED TO THE DEMONS!!
After that episode my life went downhills (as we say in Brazilian). I was already an angry child and became a perturbed adolescent. I kept playing with my sexuality and trying to discover it. I kept being very shy and when I was 12 my grandma bought a house in another neighbourhood where I did not know anyone - resulted in me being completely alone - for I started to go in a school in the centre of the city as well.
At that time I met a guy who was a wee bit weird like me and started to hang out with him. We used to walk back home walking and he told me he had a wish of committing suicide, for he told me he was very poor, ugly, shy with girls and had no will to live. He would say his life was worthless. And I started to identify very much with him. I started to have the same sort of thoughts too.
At the age of 13 I started to study the subject of philosophy in School and to look at people around me and see how other people seemed to be happier than me: they had parents who would bring them to school instead of getting the bus or walking (from far away), who would receive money from their parents to go out and live... I started to hate people who had a normal life. And to hate myself too!
I used to call unknown people from public phones to prank them since I did not have friendship inside my house nor outside (which I learned from these false friends) and one day I called someone who was being threatened of death. Moral of the story: I ended up going to court to respond to the police for that... My name stayed there until the age of 18 as a penalty for doing such prank.
If that was not enough I started to have many fights with my mom in home. We could not understand each other and we would shout and swear so much. My problem of anger at this stage was at a super high level. All that feeling of rejection (from the abortion she thought of doing to kill me) and the hatred against her came to my conscience at these times.
I started to hate being in my own home and decided I needed to do something. I thought about killing her or doing something to cause her death but since I was afraid of doing so, the solution I found was to commit suicide. Killing myself would put an end to all suffering, anger, hatred, wrath and bad feelings I used to have.
My idea was: I would go the kitchen, pull a knife and cut my own throat. Then I used to think what would happen afterwards... My mom would find my body there and would start to cry; and thinking about it, this had put me off many times. Another thing that put me off was writing. I will tell how I started to write!
One of these days of fight with my mom I remember like it was yesterday. After shouting and discussing with her, the usual thing inside my house, I went outside after punching the wall and kicking the gate. I was very angry and did not know what to do anymore. My life was a hell. My house was a hell. My family was a hell. I did not want to live.
After a while I got back inside and was shaking with anger. By providence there was a paper and a pen over a table in our front-yard and I sat down in the chair. Then I took the pen and started to write down with wrath and anger, feeling like I could transfer to the paper what was inside of me. And I started writing one line down and another, 10 lines and 20, another page and when I finished I was miraculously feeling calm.
That day I wrote the first out of 200+ poems that I have written so far - God opened a path of grace in the middle of a terrible situation to help me not to commit suicide; not because I am good or I deserve anything but purely because I needed.
We find a similar situation in the Bible when Saul was the King: he had an anxiety, a pressure, a depression and an oppression inside him. The only thing that would calm him down was music - and played by someone who knew how to play well. For that sake, he would call David - the musician, who used to look after sheep and who became King David - who would play the harp to calm Saul down...
"And whenever the spirit from God came over Saul, David would take a harp and play; Saul would then be SOOTHED; it would do him good, and the evil spirit would leave him." (1Samuel 16:23)
THAT IS WHAT YOU TOO, WHO IS THINKING ABOUT COMMITTING SUICIDE, NEED: FIND SOMETHING YOU ARE GOOD AT, SOMETHING THAT CAUGHT YOUR EYES AND YOUR HEART, OR SOMETHING THAT CALMS YOU DOWN...
After that episode studying philosophy made me look with even more negativity to people. I kept looking around me and seeing people with mom and dad, people being brought to school by their parents, people with money to do normal things like hang out or buy food in school, or people who had their parents in the school reunions. Since I did not have all of that, I thought I was the loneliest and the poorest person on Earth. And I started to hate them even more.
My life at the age of 14 was only about swearing, complaining and hating everyone all the time, shouting and arguing with my mom while I was in home and developing the idea that my life was worthless. Helped by the rebellion of musicians like Eminem, Guns and Roses, Legiao Urbana, Cazuza (last 2 from Brazil),etc I locked myself even more inside of me.
I wrote some romantic poems to girls I liked also at this stage, but I was too shy to talk to them and never had courage to reveal my feelings. Maybe that was a reflex of the difficulty of relationship with my mom. I was destined to remain alone and would ended up killing myself. Maybe you heard something about psychosomatic - that is the sort of illness that is generated or aggravated by your mind.
So there was a day I felt I was going to die. I could not sleep. There was a pain in my back, in my body, in my stomach, inside and out -- everything was sore. It was already 3am and I was agonizing in pain. From the midst of my suffering I could not find any solution, then I recurred to God and made a promise: if I survived I would go to the Church every day for one whole week - and if I didn't do that, the number would be multiplied always by 2 - until doing it (2 weeks, and 4 weeks, etc).
And that was a big shot since, very like my mom, I used to hate the Church, since I had the idea that only perfect people would be there, people who were happy and had a good life. I had no idea what the Church was all about.
Anyway, I finished "praying" and kept on with my agony. After half an hour my grandma woke up and asked me what was happening. I told her that I could not sleep and was feeling very unwell. She gave me sodium bicarbonate to have with water and after 6am I eventually felt asleep.
Approximately 1 year past that fact I was living, but not the life in full that Jesus said he brought to us, but a life of death, for Padre Pio used to say "The life without love is worse than death itself". It was then when my aunt Rosangela (my mom's sister) subscribed me, without asking me, to attend catechism classes. I was firstly reluctant, but realized my life was worthless and I did not have anything to lose.
In one of these classes he said something that needs to be repeated here and everywhere in the Church nowadays, because it seems that people have forgotten it: CATHOLICS NEED TO GO TO MASS! I was never told that before, and because of him, I started to go. I was then 15.
I need to confess that it was so weird at first place. I did not know the prayers, I did not know how it worked, I did not know what was happening but this habit of going to Mass was initiated in my life. After a while he said we could go more than once per week to Mass. Then I started doing that. And by doing so, I was invited to participate in a young person's prayer group. By the first time I was there my cousin told me these people were "charismatics" and they would dance and sing and praise inside the Church.
I could not believe when he said that but I was very surprised when I actually saw that happening. By the end of the gathering they invited new participants to go to the front of the Church to present themselves. I did not want to but ended up going there. My cousin received a small rosary beads and they raised their hands and said they would pray a Hail Mary for us. WHAT THEY DID THAT FOR? I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND AT ALL.
What do I know is that on the following week after that gathering I felt so happy like I have never felt before. Something had happened inside of me. Something crazy has made my whole week different and the only "different" thing I have done was going to that group. For that reason I went again and again. On the third time I was there, there was a special night with Mary - I cried very much for the first time in years.
After a while I was invited to participate in a sort of retreat, called Prayer Experience. I still remember the day for it was the first time in 15 years that I felt loved - by people (strangers, people of the Church) and by God. In the very first talk I was asked to close my eyes and imagine Jesus coming to meet me in a beautiful garden - and I did see him!
AT 3 PM SOMEONE SPOKE ABOUT A GOD WHO SENT HIS SON TO BE INCARNATED IN THE WOMB OF THE VIRGIN MARY AND BECAME MAN AND CAME TO SAVE THE WORLD, FROM SIN, FROM HELL - AND THAT HE DIED ON THE CROSS FOR ME. THAT WAS THE BIGGEST LOVE DECLARATION I HAVE EVER HEARD IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! HE DIED BECAUSE HE LOVED ME!
He is love, life, grace, light, reason, the everything I was in need of. He is the start and the end, the explanation, the truth, the way, the savior, the door which was opened at this critic moment of my life, to save me - and to give me life. I found out that even though he is everything we need, men had rejected him - including myself.
"In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things came into being, not one thing came into being except through him. What has come into being in him was life, life that was the light of men; and light shines in darkness, and darkness could not overpower it. The Word was the real light that gives light to everyone; he was coming into the world. He was in the world that had come into being through him, and the world did not recognize him. He came to his own and HIS OWN PEOPLE DID NOT ACCEPT HIM. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believed in his name who were born not from human stock or human desire or human will but from God himself. The Word became flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that he has from the Father as only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:1-5.9-14)
Just before dinner on that day, Mari, another very important person in my life, preached about Our Lady and I cried very much for I never have heard anyone talking about Mary like her -- maybe I haven't heard about Our Lady before -- but she said so many beautiful things about her and my heart was deeply touched by grace.
At night time she said that there was a woman who was bleeding for 10 years and she heard about Jesus. And when Jesus was passing by she only touched the edge of his mantle, and she was healed. Then she invited us to a chapel with an object like a sun with a piece of bread inside which was on the altar and she invited everyone who was present to touch the edge of the towel of the altar, and by doing that with faith, we would also be healed. So by turn, 3 by 3 people would go there and touch the edge of the towel. There was people playing guitar and singing, people crying, people praying and I was in this midst.
In the silence of my heart I was praying, looking at the Eucharist (that I hadn't got a clue that was Jesus) and asking forgiveness for the sins I have committed until there. I said I would repair the damage I have made by asking forgiveness to the people I had done bad things with; and my turn to go ahead, towards the altar, arrived.
I touched the edge of the towel and when I did, Mari asked everyone to stop praying, singing and make some silence. She said, "When this person touched the towel, something have shaken here, there was an explosion. God said to me he is forgiving you for all the sins you are asking forgiveness for and Jesus Christ is pouring down his blood on you." At this time I was praying for this person not to be myself, but she said, "You who is wearing this red jumper". And that was me indeed.
If you remember, I was brought when I was 7 yo to a centre of a false religion and had my life offered to the devil. From this present moment forward that offering was broken by the blood of Christ. The power of God was shown to me. The grace and glory of Christ was revealed and my life was transformed. The biblical text that caused an impact in my life was 1 John 1:7 - "But if we live in light, as he is in light, we have a share in one another's life, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin."
It is truth what Saint Paul wrote:
"Thus, condemnation will never come to those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit which gives life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. What the Law could not do because of the weakness of human nature, God did, sending his own Son in the same human nature as any sinner to be a sacrifice for sin, and condemning sin in that human nature." (Romans 8:1-3)
After that moment everyone received a present from their families back home. Some people received teddy bears, others received chocolate boxes, others received beautiful flowers, and poor ones, like me, received something that money cannot buy and it is not on sale: a letter from their families and parents stating how they were important. For the first time I read my grandma saying "you are the grandson every grandma would like to have"; for the first time I read my mom saying "You should not feel alone for I am with you", that I was the son every mom would like to have, etc. And this has touched the bottom of my heart, deeply inside!
I CRIED, WAS HEALED INTENSELY BY THOSE WORDS AND REALIZED HOW IMPORTANT ARE THEY. PARENTS, RELATIVES, FAMILIES, FRIENDS, PEOPLE THINK ABOUT COMMITTING SUICIDE BECAUSE THEY DO NOT FEEL LOVED. YOU NEED TO START TELLING PEOPLE AROUND YOU THAT THEY ARE IMPORTANT, THAT YOU LOVE THEM, THAT THEY ARE NOT ALONE, THAT THEY CAN COUNT ON YOU... AND BE THERE FOR THEM!
If only have I heard that before a couple of times and received some hugs occasionally, my life would have been so different. If only have I felt the care and attention from my family before. If only have I felt important one time. As Saint Augustine would say "Better late than never". It took 15 years of life to feel that love. And how that changed everything.
The love and graces I received from God, the friends I gained and the love from my family made me giving up on the idea of committing suicide. Life started to feel incredible and from this day forward I have gone through some difficulties, that is normal because of our faith, but I would like to say something that really intrigues me.
IF YOUNG PEOPLE WANT TO USE DRUGS, DRINK, GO TO PARTIES, HAVE SEX, BE CRAZY AND REBEL AGAINST THEIR PARENTS AND SOCIETY IT IS POSSIBLE THAT THEY RECEIVE A BIG CLAP OF HANDS, BUT IF THEY WANT TO BE HOLY, DO GOD'S WILL, READ THE BIBLE AND GO TO MASS EVERYDAY THEY ARE TREATED LIKE THEY ARE INSANE.
The society live on appearances and do not care about people actually, and that is because we need our family, our friends and our great Catholic religion to help us to go over life. Fr Leo, SHJ (in memorian) used to say, "In the big project of New Era, family and religion are the biggest obstacles because the family is the affection's root and the religion is the spiritual root".
Coming from the background I came, it was not easy to remain in the Church, but I was baptized after all of this, received my first communion, confirmation, confession and daily Mass and adoration became my strength - the Sacraments of the Church are wonderful and a source of supernatural grace that guide and lead us through the trials and disappointments of the this world. We should remember the words of Jesus:
"I have told you all this so that you may find peace in me. In the world you will have hardship, but be courageous: I have conquered the world." (John 16:33)
I had the help of great friends who prayed for me many times, helped me in difficult moments and so many people who are extremely important in my life, that only God can give them the recompense they deserve: the Paradise! Jesus in the Eucharist gave me great graces and experiences that I cannot enumerate (I will share some of them with you in another time).
Before ending this text I would like to share another 2 facts that happened in my life and are too important to be left apart: the first one is related to my mom and the relationship I had with her.
If you have read the whole text above you know I did not have a good relationship with her at all. After my first Prayer Experience I could not even hug or thank her for what she wrote to me - there was still a big problem between us. I did not have courage to step ahead and say that I loved her and all. Unfortunately after some time I felt down in sin but since sin does not fulfill our hearts I got back to the grace of God after a second Prayer Experience.
I then assumed a goal: I would get back home, give her a big hug and say the words that changed our relationship: I love you! This is not magic but is possible. This happened only after God showed me the life through her eyes - I saw what she lived, what she have gone through and how life did not treat her very well.
The first time I did this I approached her one night and tried giving her a hug; what was my surprise when she kind of pushed me away. I said then "I love you mom". That was very weird and I did not have where to take strength from to do this unless from the presence of God, from prayer, from the Bible, from Holy Mass. And doing that everyday, after some time, stopped being weird and became natural - to the point that in the days I did not say I love her, she would come to me and say it.
WE TOO, SONS AND DAUGHTERS, WHO HAD GOT TROUBLES AND PROBLEMS IN THE RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR PARENTS, WE COULD TEACH AND REMIND THEM ABOUT LOVE, FOR THE LOVE WE RECEIVE FROM GOD THAT TRANSFORM OUR LIVES ALSO CAN TRANSFORM THEIRS. OUR GOD IS THE GOD OF LOVE!
It took me about 5 years in order to do this, but with the grace of God I did. And this has led me to the second fact I would like to tell you about: God healed me from the loneliness I used to feel. Again, the same way it took time to engage truly in the Church, it took time to forgive and love my mom with all my heart, it took time to ask forgiveness for the people I have hurt and who did hurt me, it took time for me to read the whole Bible (7 years), it also took time for me to open my heart entirely to God in order to be healed from loneliness.
It is right and truth what Saint Peter wrote something on his letter that does make sense on both ways that we look at it. God does the right thing in his time but sometimes we think it is too much.
"But there is one thing, my dear friends, that you must never forget: that with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day". (2 Peter 3:8)
I did not commit suicide after all because I found my place - and that place is the heart of Jesus, with him, in him and per him - like it is prayed in each Holy Mass. Maybe you too, need to find your place or even allow to be found by him. Allow Jesus to conquer your heart. Allow him to make part of your life and allow him to do things the way he wants to.
At the age of 24 I went to a retreat called AGAPETHERAPY that is an interior healing retreat that takes 7 days. On these 7 days I was brought to relive spiritually my whole life and to be healed from every trauma and negative experiences I had since I was in the womb of my mom.
I relived the scene in 28/11/90 when I was born: I saw a very holy nurse taking me in her arms and offering my life to OUR LADY! Acknowledging that, I realize the Virgin Mary is the one who granted me the grace not to commit suicide. She is the one who did put the pen and paper on that table that day. She is the one who inspired my aunt to subscribe me to catechism. She is the one who did put joy in my heart when they prayed a Hail Mary for me in the young people's prayer group.
She is the one who gave me the grace of be reborn when I was 24 after all the struggles I had to live inside and outside the Church. That is why I offered her my entire life, my past, present and future becoming a slave of Jesus through her holy and immaculate hands. I used the method on the book True devotion to our Blessed Virgin Mary by Saint Louis of Montfort.
BECOMING A SLAVE OF MARY IS THE MOST INCREDIBLE AND FANTASTIC THING THAT COULD EVER HAPPEN IN MY LIFE. WORDS AND ALL PRAYERS ARE NOT ENOUGH TO THANK HER FOR ALL THE GRACES AND BENEFITS SHE REACHED FROM THE HEART OF JESUS TO ME. IF I AM ALIVE AND HAPPY, AND MARRIED, PART OF THE LEGION OF MARY AND WRITING ALL OF THIS TODAY, IT IS BECAUSE SHE IS WITH ME. AND I KNOW SHE IS WITH YOU AS WELL BUT YOU NEED TO ALLOW HER TO BE MORE PRESENT IN YOUR LIFE...
I would like to end up today with a song that I had the grace of the Holy Spirit to write, his inspiration and power led me to express the healing of loneliness that he has made in me. If he has made this in me, that am nothing and coming from where I came, he can do even more in your life. Have hope!!
When you feel the loneliness
In the dark time of your life
And despair knocks at your door
Just trust, for your cause, there is a God
YOU CAN FEEL, NEAR YOU
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
YOU CAN SEE WITH YOUR OWN EYES
HE IS WITH YOU
There is no more reason to cry
To be closed down in yourself
Open up your soul to receive his love
This will sustain you
YOU CAN FEEL, NEAR YOU
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
YOU CAN SEE WITH YOUR OWN EYES
HE IS WITH YOU
Hold his hand and do not care
He is standing with you, wherever you are
Look around and feel his presence
The Holy Spirit will bring help
YOU CAN FEEL, NEAR YOU
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
YOU CAN SEE WITH YOUR OWN EYES
HE IS WITH YOU
He heals your soul
And give you another heart
You don't need to understand nor think - just live
Live a new life
YOU CAN FEEL, NEAR YOU
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
YOU CAN SEE WITH YOUR OWN EYES
HE IS WITH YOU
God is with you!
The Lord is with us!
There is much more that I would like to write here but this text is already too long. If you could do something regarding this, it would be sharing this text with someone, sharing in your social media, sharing with people who need to read this, share it with vulnerable young people, with everyone you know and you don't know. I am gonna print a shorter version of this to be distributed here in Belfast, if you want to, feel free to do the same. You have permission to do so and the blessings of God!
May God bless us and make us free from every spirit of suicide!!
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