Living With the Words That Told Me I Shouldn’t Exist

Rebecca Hilliard

Guest Blogger

TW: Suicide & Abuse

I was abused as a child, and my abuser would tell me that I deserved to die, that I shouldn’t exist, and that God made a mistake in creating me. He told me that God sent him to punish me.

And I fully believed him.

I was a child, he was an adult, and I didn’t understand that adults could lie. What he said explained why he was hurting me, and nothing else made sense. I didn’t understand that an adult would choose to hurt a child simply because he was a bad person.

I thought I was the bad person.

Carrying Those Messages Into Adulthood

Fast forward to adulthood, and those messages still live within me. I wake up every single day thinking I shouldn’t exist and that I deserve to die.

A part of me still believes that if I don’t hurt myself and punish myself, then God will send someone else to do it. And if you’ve ever experienced child abuse, you know how hard it is to shake the messages your abuser planted in you.

The Suicidal Years

In my early twenties, these internalized messages became so intense that I was actively suicidal.

I had a therapist at the time, but he wasn’t well-trained and didn’t know how to help me. Neither of us understood where my suicidal thoughts were coming from.

All day, every day, I heard voices in my head telling me to kill myself—that I shouldn’t exist, that I deserved to die. It felt like I was being mentally tortured, and I wanted to end my life just to make the agony stop.

The Pills and a Friend Who Saved Me

I saved up my prescription medicine and planned to overdose. I had bottles and bottles of pills, and on the hardest nights I would hold them in my hand, sobbing—wanting to do it but also afraid.

I had one friend. One friend I could text and talk to about what was going on. And she wasn’t afraid of me or my darkness.

I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for her.

She helped me flush all the pills down the toilet. It was terrifying because it felt like my only escape was being flushed away too. But even after that, the suicidal thoughts didn’t stop.

The Night on the Bridge

One night, it got so bad that I drove to the nearest bridge and walked to the very top, planning to jump.

My therapist had an emergency line, and I called it, but he didn’t answer. So I stood there by myself, in the dark, looking down at the murky water below—wanting to jump but still terrified.

And no one came to help me.

There was no stranger walking by to ask if I was okay, no response from my therapist, no call from a friend.

I walked back down devastated, feeling like I was too weak to go through with it.

The next day, my therapist told me he thought I was saying I was suicidal just to get extra attention. That’s why he hadn’t responded, even though he had received my message.

That was devastating too, because it felt like my pain wasn’t being believed or validated. I was in agony, and he thought I was making it up.

Living in Hell

This went on for years. I finally started seeing a well-trained therapist who could actually help, but still the suicidal thoughts remained.

I made plans and gathered the “tools.” I saved them for a night when I thought I would use them.

I went to five different treatment centers, tried all sorts of medications, increased therapy to twice a week with multiple check-ins—and nothing helped.

It felt like I was living in hell. Staying alive was torture.

Beginning to Heal

But finally, my therapist and I started talking about my trauma. I began telling her what had happened and what my abuser used to say to me.

She taught me truths, and even though I didn’t believe them at first, I would say them out loud with her.

Slowly, the suicidal thoughts started to ease—because my child abuse was what had been fueling them. Addressing the source was finally what helped them begin to shift.

No Longer Suicidal

I still carry the core beliefs that I shouldn’t exist and don’t deserve to be alive. When you’re taught that at such a young age, it’s hard to believe otherwise.

But I’m no longer actively suicidal. I no longer want to take my own life. I no longer feel dark and hopeless.

That change is incredible.

If you had told me ten years ago that one day I wouldn’t be suicidal, I wouldn’t have believed you.

It felt so permanent, like there was no way out. And I know that’s how so many people who are suicidal feel—that there’s no way things could ever get better.

But I’m proof that things can change.

That you can heal. That you can climb out of the darkness, no matter how deep it feels.

A Message for Anyone Struggling

If you’re feeling suicidal, please know that things can change. Things can get better. Healing is possible—not just for others, but for you too.

Still Fighting

I still go to therapy twice a week. I still struggle with my trauma symptoms, PTSD, and healing from what was done to me.

But I want my core beliefs to change. I want to believe that it’s good that I’m alive, and that I do deserve to exist. This work is so hard and it would be so much easier to numb out but I want to heal and I want my future to be better.

So I’m going to keep working at it.

I’m going to keep fighting.

And I hope that you do too.

Because you also deserve to exist and be here, even if you don’t feel like you do. 

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