One Moment Can Change Your Life Forever

Hey, y'all--
I wanted to tell you what happened to me the other day, because it has changed my life, and altered my thinking forever. I was driving down the main road to my house, letting my mind drift, and was actually feeling sorry for myself (yeah, like that's a new thought!), when I saw what I perceived as a car with its hood exploding on the other side of the street. That's the only way I can describe it. What I didn't see was that the car had actually hit a motorcycle.

I can only tell you that from that second on--I didn't act, I reacted, as if I weren't even in my own body. I immediately pulled over and calmly walked across the street, kneeling down over the body of a young woman and, from the second of impact until the second they put her into the ambulance, I stayed with the girl, doing all the right things and keeping her alive. I don't know why I did what I did, or how I knew what to do what I did. As I said, it was as if I were someone else. And how I stayed so calm, I don't know. But she is alive because of me. Not because I am someone special, and please don't think I am patting myself on the back or anything, because I am certainly not doing that--in fact, just the opposite--I am as amazed as anyone else that this happened, and that it happened the way it did. I think maybe it was God's way of getting my attention. His way of showing me that my problems pale in comparison.

See, this girl just turned 23. She was on her first date with the young man driving the motorcycle that day. It was hit by a woman in a VW bug, who didn't see the motorcycle. This young girl, who just the second before was so full of life and promise, who was a waitress at a restaurant in the UT area of Knoxville...just one moment later had her life completely altered. Because, although she will live, they had to amputate her right leg from just below the knee down.

My dad is a smoker, and has emphysema. He doesn't go to the doctor, because he thinks as long as he doesn't go, he can keep denying he has it. He justifies it and says, "So, I'll die from something sooner or later anyway," and I tell him, "There are worse things than dying. And one of those things is suffering before you die." This accident reminded me of that. See, in my suicidal fantasies, in the one about the car accident, I always thought about dying instantly, problem solved. I never stopped to consider not dying instantly; in fact, living in a coma, or living with a brain injury, living as a vegetable, or living with the fact of knowing I killed someone else in the accident, or knowing I left a young girl with an amputed leg from the knee down.

Again, there are worse things than dying. And one of those things is suffering before you die. Even worse, being responsible for someone else's suffering. Since suicide is such a big issue in bipolar, this is such a revelation, and I want you all to think about it. My sister, as you know, was BP. She committed suicide this past April. She had been in a manic episode for 8 months, because she went off her meds. Yes, she was suffering. And yes, she is at peace now. But she left behind her loved ones, who are still suffering from her decision. My life will never be the same.

I have never felt pain that intense before, and most days I don't think I will ever survive it. She never thought of me. She never even considered how much suffering she would cause me. She only thought of her own pain, and relieving it. Since her death, even though I have still had suicidal thoughts (it's the nature of the BP beast, after all), I immediately stop them in their tracks, remembering how I felt when my sister killed herself. And I think about my sons. And I resolve again that I will never do to them what my sister did to me. NO ONE should feel what I felt. What I still feel. What I will probably always feel.

But the point of all this is this. When my sister killed herself, my life was altered forever. When the girl on the motorcycle was hit by the car, her life was altered forever. I have not been able to shake this thought: IN ONE MOMENT, YOUR LIFE CAN BE CHANGED FOREVER.

That's it. In one moment, your life can be changed forever. What if you postpone that decision to kill yourself just for one more moment? That moment could be the one in which your whole life changes! That could be the moment in which you meet your soulmate. Or that they discover a cure for BP. Or you become pregnant with the child you were unable to conceive before. Or your husband stops having that affair. Or your marital problems are resolved. Or your runaway child comes home. Or you get that raise at work. Or your dream job materializes. Or you achieve your hopes, dreams or wishes. Or you win the lottery. Or...or..or... the list is endless. What if the very next moment was when your miracle would have happened. And you would have missed it.

In AA we say, "DON'T GIVE UP BEFORE THE MIRACLE HAPPENS." Because that miracle may happen in the very next moment. Remember, the very next moment may be the one moment that may change your life forever. Don't give up hope. Even if you have to take that hope one moment at a time.

And always remember this: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. We are all just living one day at a time, one moment at a time.

Michele