I want to share a story I haven’t shared yet.
first person POV on the power of submission and surrender

This day five years ago, September 4th, 2013, I was discharged from my second stint in at Zucker Hillside Hospital at the North Shore Long Island Jewish (NSLIJ) Medical Center. Something like 22 days total. Time neither flies nor freezes when you’re imprisoned physically, and worst, mentally.
If you’re wondering why it was my second stint, I had already been discharged a week prior, but you see, I cheeked every dose of the antipsychotic medication they put me on, and attempted the morning of my discharge by swallowing all of the Seroquel I stowed away. They never check under pillows.
Funny. I found this strange, because in college and grad school, I was a resident assistant. Every RA worth their salt checks under pillows. Not every herp wears capes though. Some of us wear hospital gowns. I decided to go back because the side effects of what I’m still certain to this day is, was, and always should be a lethal overdose were suffocating and overwhelming.
It was a way for me to deal with this shitstorm I had dived headfirst into, a way to sift through my clusterfuck, a way to make sense of the basketcase I’d never thought myself to be. It’s always the leaders, the fixers, the cleaners, the people who seem the most put-together with the biggest messes underneath. Nobody checks up on their wellbeing, and the worst part is, neither do they.
That’s not the point here.
There was nothing they could do. I didn’t tell anybody about the overdose until the day after, and by then, it was too late for intubation, gastric lavage, activated charcoal, and anything else, invasive or otherwise, to really do anything. So they did what they could. Nothing. A few days after “monitoring” me, which basically meant charging my insurance over $200,000 for a fancy bed and breakfast experience except your fellow travelers are depressives, schizophrenics, insomniacs, and the hotel is a psych ward, they discharged me again. No overdose this time.
I had nothing to do but sit and think. I willed myself to get better. The mental part was down, but I still couldn’t sleep. Oh, and there were physical symptoms. The worst pain I had ever felt. Tardive dyskinesia also. Involuntary muscle contractions, which for some twisted reason, perhaps divine punishment, I could feel. Not just the usual stomach gurgling when you’re hungry. I mean every muscle on fire, even my heart. I had felt palpitations the whole summer, but this was different. Imagine believing you’re going to die for 120 straight hours. The worst part? Death doesn’t even visit you once.
The first thing I did when I got home was collapse into my bed. I couldn’t sleep. Later that afternoon, I mustered the strength to roll out of bed, and crawled into prostration. I remembered thinking God won’t listen to me, even then. It was never a matter of weak faith, then or now. This is what most people don’t understand about mental illness. It’s never about normal thinking. It’s never normal. You’re necessarily, definitionally, literally, technically, absolutely not yourself. But I’m a smart cat. I know this.
I don’t care if it sounds arrogant or ignorant. It’s not even confidence. It’s just self-awareness. I majored in neuroscience, and I had been volunteering, shadowing, and interning in some form of healthcare or another since I was a preteen. I knew not to trust my intrusive thoughts, but to tap into something deeper, more fundamental, the basic emotions — again, my opinion — anybody who’s being honest, without filter, coercion, persuasion, influence, and corruption, will admit when thinking about the word God.
Light.
I remembered this one prayer.
I forget who taught me this, but however and wherever and whomever you are, I love you more than life itself, and I hope you are rewarded on my behalf for this with nothing less than paradise in this life and the next. Amen.
It’s called the Prayer of Light.
It goes something like this:
“God, place light in my heart, and on my tongue light, and in my ears light and in my sight light, and above me light, and below me light, and to my right light, and to my left light, and before me light and behind me light. Place in my soul light. Magnify for me light, and amplify for me light. Make for me light, and make me light. O God, grant me light, and place light in my nerves, and in my body light and in my blood light and in my hair light and in my skin light”. Amen.
I then added a few more lines of my own, specifically asking God to enter His Healing Light into the entirety of the particulate chaos constituting every single subatomic particle constituting every single atom constituting every single molecule constituting every single cell constituting every single tissue constituting every single organ constituting my entire single body, as well as my self, soul, and spirit, and my consciousness and being in all dimensions. Amen.
This isn’t meant to proselytize. I’m no preacher, and I have less than zero interest in converting anybody to anything. I’ve been agnostic at times, and if I’m being honest, I’ve flirted with atheist suspicions in my weakest, angriest moments. If you thought me to be the model Muslim, you’re only half right.
This is just to say I believe in the power of prayer to be much more than the power of placebo, and I believe in God. I believe in willpower, and I believe in surrendering to something beyond yourself. That’s how I got better. That’s why I’m here today. And it’s why I haven’t had a panic attack, relapse, serious ideation, suicide attempt, or another hospitalization in the past five years.
September is National Suicide Prevention Month.
I’m happy to be the poster boy for it if it saves a life.
There’s no call to action here. That’ll come way later.
For now, just know if you have the power to save a life,
you should do everything you can to do so. Call, text,
stop by. Hug, kiss, laugh, smile, cry, listen, speak, dance.
This gift we call the present, our lives, is a fragile thing.
Cherish it with the love and sacred respect it deserves.
In case nobody told you today, I love you. I love you.
I love you.
