As Salamu Alaikum again,

Back in 2018, I ran a successful crowdfunding campaign to support myself as I figured out life after having left my job after attempting suicide.

On top of coping with the impact of my mother's death by suicide five years ago, my chronic depression, generalized anxiety disorder (which is currently manifesting as agoraphobia that often keeps me house-bound)  and my Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), has resulted in a debilitating cognitive impairment that makes it very difficult for me to fulfill work obligations.

Being able to have the funds to support myself in 2018 from your generosity has helped me with my recovering journey in the following ways:

Continuing to Run MuslimLink.ca: I was able to continue running the website MuslimLink.ca, the online hub for Muslims in Canada and over 2018, my ability to improve and expand on my work on this site, which is a labour of love and fulfills my passion to celebrate members of our community and to keep people informed and connected to opportunities. I use the honorarium I earn from this position to support my elderly father in Nigeria after his stroke, so being able to continue this work gives me a reason to get up in the morning and supports my father. Thank you.

Spending Extended Time Outside My House: I have been able to work towards spending at least three hours a day outside of my house by working at a local co-working space. I am now able to go daily for about 5 hours alhamduillah. Due to my anxiety and PTSD, spending long periods of time outside of my house without the accompaniment of people I feel safe with has been very difficult and I would often go weeks without leaving my house at all. So now being able to be out of my house for a significant part of the day is a serious improvement. Thank you.

Public Speaking: I also was invited to speak on the subject of suicide and mental illness at the Third Annual Canadian Muslim Mental Health Conference in Toronto in December 2018, and also at a youth conference focused on mental health and well-being in February 2019 organized by the London Muslim Mosque. Traveling outside of the city when you have agoraphobia is difficult, but I was able to do it with the purpose of sharing my story and the support of friends. Thank you.

Educational Opportunities: In order to address my anxiety I was able to study improv and stand up which has help tremendously in helping me regain confidence in terms of public speaking and interacting with strangers. I was also trained through the Canadian Mental Health Association and Psychiatric Survivors of Ottawa and have begun to volunteer with Suicide Prevention Ottawa. Thank you.

Maintaining Relationships: In the time leading up to my last suicide attempt, I had become quite socially isolated. So, an important part of my recovery has been regularly connecting with close friends and supporters at least once a month. This has dramatically reduced my sense of isolation and social rejection, the feelings of which can be quite overwhelming sometimes and often amplify my agoraphobia and PTSD symptoms. Thank you.

Although this is all evidence that I am moving forward, particularly in terms of addressing two risk factors related to suicide - loneliness and feeling like a burden-there are still struggles, in terms of both my health and my finances, that I am reaching out to others to help me work though.

Because of the severity of my mental illness, I have been accepted on to the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), alhamduillah. This has been a great help so I now have funds to pay rent, utilities and medication. But there are many expenses related to my recovery that are not covered.

Expenses I Still Need Help With

A New Laptop: I run a website and my main connection to the outside world given that I often can't go out because of my agoraphobia is the internet, however, for the last year, I have been using an old bored laptop that is going to "blue-screen of death" me at any moment. So purchasing a new one is kind of essential.

Therapy: I am now able to receive weekly long-term therapy to address my agoraphobia at a sliding scale. Meeting the costs of this therapy has been difficult as I don't receive enough assistance to cover these costs. I also might need to seek out additional therapy to address my PTSD, so they will also mean additional expenses.

Moving Costs and Pest Proofing My New Apartment: A couple of months ago, moved from an Ottawa Community Housing townhouse where I lived since I was 5 years old, to a small apartment. There were a lot of costs involved in the move and setting up the new apartment. Thank you for helping me to cover most of them but some still remain.

Educational Opportunities: I would like to continue pursuing educational opportunities that help to address symptoms related to my mental illness such my cognitive impairment. These help to rebuild my confidence, give me a reason to leave home and so work on my agoraphobia, and improve my ability to work so I can eventually pursue gainful employment when my illness has significantly improved inshallah. 

Please Keep Reading Even If You Can't Offer Support

If you don't want to contribute please do still read my campaign ... although it's long ... because I've designed it to be educational as well, to help people think more deeply about the issue of suicide, and those who survive their suicide attempts, within Muslim communities and society in general.

So What Happened?

My name is Chelby Marie Daigle. I live in Ottawa, Canada, and my last suicide attempt was in July 2017.

I have repeatedly attempted suicide since my mother died by suicide in 2013. Notice how I didn't use the word "commit" suicide, like she committed a crime. Language is important and the changing language around how we speak about suicide is important to learn about. Here's a great article from the Australian Psychological Association about how to reframe the words we use when talking about suicide.

I've lived with chronic depression, a generalized anxiety disorder, and symptoms from PTSD since childhood but needless to say, my mother's death had a profound impact on me and made an already difficult situation even worse.

After my last suicide attempt, I decided to make some drastic changes in my life in order to help me recover. This included leaving my employment of seven years in September 2017 because my illness was making it impossible for me to fulfill work obligations and it really wasn't the best environment for me mental health-wise overall.

As this employment was the main source of my income it has created a huge financial strain. However, the relief after resigning, particularly the reduction in suicidal thoughts, pretty much tells me it was best to leave and that I really need to have time to figure out how to address my cognitive impairment issues so I don't get so triggered in a work situation again.

I'm still working running the Muslim Link website, but that's a very unique work environment as most of my work is more self-directed-I innovated a lot of tasks of this current position-so my deadlines are relatively flexible. My cognitive impairment still significantly impacts my work here though. However, my team is supportive and the joy I get from this work has been really beneficial for my mental well-being.

Despite still being seriously depressed and coping with my anxiety disorder, which has been manifesting itself since my mother's death into agoraphobia, I am at a point right now where I feel, inshallah, that I can start to seriously work on healing from the trauma of my mother's suicide and addressing the debilitating impact that my mental illness is having on my cognitive functioning.

Not worrying about how I will cover costs that go beyond the social assistance I received on disability will help me be able to focus on getting better.

Why Do People Die By Suicide?

My decision to become Muslim was very much wrapped up in my need to find a way to commit to life after repeated attempts at suicide during my teens and early 20s. I needed a way to find meaning.

But it was only after my mother's death that I fully realized that I was trying to hold on to life in order to take care of her more than anything else.

Since her death, which I was unable to prevent and so see myself as responsible for, I have been reevaluating a lot about my life and my choices...but I've also tried to figure out what is known about why people die by suicide in the first place.

The reality is that not everyone who lives with mental illness ever attempts suicide. The vast majority don't actually. But some of us do. In the book "Why People Die By Suicide", clinical psychologist Thomas Joiner outlines the Interpersonal Theory of Suicidal Behaviour. This theory posits that a lack of a sense of belonging, basically loneliness, and the perception that one is a burden on loved ones or society in general is what leads to the desire for suicide in many people. The majority of people who attempt suicide also have a mental illness, but not everyone who attempts suicide is mentally ill, and not everyone who is mentally ill ever attempts suicide.

Although it makes sense that we focus on youth suicide prevention, the reality is that suicide attempts actually INCREASE in middle age and there is very little programming addressing that.

According to Statistics Canada, people aged 40 to 59 have the highest suicide rates. Unemployment and divorce are often triggers, which makes sense according to Joiner's theory as we often will feel like a burden if we are unemployed and we may even lose a sense of belonging and community that we had from our workplaces. Divorce can also destroy our sense of belonging and can also cause major financial hardships that could lead to feeling like a burden.

The focus of my own recovery this year is going to be addressing my feelings of loneliness and perceived burdensomeness.

Perceived Burdensomeness

The reason I felt so relieved after leaving the employment that was my main source of income was that I felt like a burden there, always frustrating my co-workers with my inability to meet deadlines.

To address the feeling of being a burden, I need to address the serious cognitive impairment problems I am having. The impact that depression and anxiety has on our actual ability to think and do tasks has unfortunately been under-researched but I know for me that the impact has been profound. This academic article explains the type of cognitive dysfunction I live with daily pretty well.

I first learned that I was experiencing mental health issues when my elementary school was trying to figure out what learning disability I had. It ended up I didn't have one but my anxiety and depression, as I was a child they didn't officially want to label it that, was impacting my ability to focus and learn things like how to read! These issues have impacted my education and work my whole life. Unfortunately, because I am perceived to be relatively intelligent, it is often hard for employers or educators to understand why I sometimes can't do "simple" tasks. 
How will I address this? Back in 2018, I wanted to go back to school but in the end, I really am just too cognitively impaired to do so. But taking improv and stand up classes, where writing or memorizing is not required, has proven to be a real lifesaver as I have been able to improve certain cognitive skills and address some of my symptoms of anxiety and PTSD. It has been a real confidence boost and I hope to continue these studies if I am able to raise the funds. 

Loneliness

After my mother's death, I felt a crushing loneliness. I lived with my mother so there was someone I saw everyday and who asked after me. After her death, I realized just how isolated I was. I do have a father but he lives in Lagos, Nigeria. I'm blessed that I was able to find him and build a relationship with him starting in my 20s. He was deported from Canada when I was a baby so I never knew him until alhamdulillah, I found him through a series of fortunate events in my 20s. I was able to successfully crowdfund to meet him in Nigeria for the first time in 2012. You can learn more about that story here.

I am blessed to have friends, including friends I've kept since high school, but I don't see them that much as several live in other cities and are busy with their lives and families. Alhamdulillah, my friends have been amazing! But because of my worries about being a burden, I am also very wary about leaning on them too much. 
So, I have started to just ask people within my online social network if they want to spend time with me. Including just sitting around watching Netflix. This has actually been working out alhamdulillah. 

I'm an extrovert so I need to interact with people but I have to make sure to avoid situations where I feel like a burden or just can't relate to the people I am interacting with. I would also hate to think people are spending time with me to be "nice". I only want to spend time with people who feel they benefit from spending time with me. 

This is the tricky thing about developing a sense of belonging and overcoming loneliness. It isn't just about being around people. It's about feeling connected and that you are contributing to other's well-being. You want to give as much as you receive, otherwise you will just feel like a burden.

Talking About Suicide While Muslim

I launched this campaign because I do need to raise funds to cover these costs, but it is also because I know how important it is to just speak plainly about suicide.

I originally shared about my experiences with suicide on Muslim Link in 2016. Since then and through the various forums I have spoken at about living with mental illness, I have connected with many Muslims who have attempted or lost loved ones through suicide. You can view one of the talks I gave at the Islamic Foundation of Toronto on YouTube here.

It's just so hard to talk about suicide openly and candidly. 

Even in mainstream society, you often don't see many people who have attempted suicide speaking openly about it. But we are never really going to successfully fight the stigma around mental illness if people can't be safe in their families, friend circles, communities, schools, and workplaces about being open about their experiences with suicide.

So, yes, it is weird to see a woman crowdfunding to recover from a suicide attempt....and now I'm doing it AGAIN! Although this is not completely unheard of. GLAMOUR Magazine recently profiledwomen who were crowdfunding for support to help them cope with mental illness.

Depression and anxiety are serious medical issues, so maybe it shouldn't be seen as that weird for someone to crowdfund for help with their recovery. Also, we need to realize that recovering when you are seriously mentally ill takes time and A LOT OF EFFORT. It's WORK. And we need to support people as they do that work because it's hard and involves so many aspects of life, biochemical, cognitive, emotional, social, etc.

If my campaign helps other people coping with suicidal thoughts or trying to figure out how to move forward after a non-fatal suicide attempt, that's just awesome. So, whether my campaign is successful financially or not, it could still very well be a "success".

My biggest recommendation for Muslims trying to support other Muslims struggling with mental illness is to really work on how we can make ourselves as individuals and our community spaces more welcoming and cultivating of a sense of belonging for those we encounter. This starts with how we speak to each other and definitely what we write online!

It is also incredibly important that we don't make Muslims living with mental illness feel like burdens or just "objects" of our support, but as members of our communities whose contributions we really need and so we will do the best we can to work out how to accommodate them so they can make those contributions, so we can all benefit. 
Thank you for taking the time to read my very long campaign.