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 they could bear, and they had nowhere and no one to run to. How sad.
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 it became a normal thing for me, how I used to see death, and how I overcame it all by 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 (). For those who say the child inside the mother's womb has no clue what is happening outside, I am living proof that we do understand. Not only do we understand, feel and hear — we also keep everything in our brains, consciously or unconsciously.
Why do I say I am living proof of that? Because even though my mother gave up on killing me when I was inside her womb, I kept this feeling of rejection and hate inside of me — and it came to my mind and conscience when I was 13.
From this fact, we can also learn a wee bit about homosexuality, for it is widely reported that around 70% to 80% of people who are attracted to the same sex suffered some sort of sexual abuse, or were treated in their mother's womb as being of the 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 going to 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 (which 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 hatred towards my mother. 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 attention. I always had a problem with meeting new people, until the age of 13 or so, and my mother did not know what to do. So, instead of seeking help, or maybe trying to learn how to help, she did things her own way — or never thought about her sensitive son — and would bring people to meet me by surprise at home.
What I would do, instead of greeting the person I did not know, was turn my back on them and, full of anger and wrath, walk back to my bedroom, stepping as if I could break the floor beneath me; I would slam the door with all my strength, lock it, lie down beside my bed, and start to cry. This happened so many times that I cannot even count them.
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 on myself, with nearly no friends. Until the age of 11, I lived on one very narrow street, where everyone knew everyone else and the families of all who lived there. My friends were the ones from the street.
My mother used to work on a full-time basis at the same hospital where my grandmother worked her entire life. As you know, I did not have the presence of my father (who did not even know I existed — I met my father for the first time when I was six years old). So my mother had to put me in a school from an early age, from three or four, like many children. I used to cry and hated being away from home. My mother used to keep me somewhere with her at the start of every school year, for I could not bear being by myself until I was eight. It was tough for a child like me to adapt.
Well, before the year 2000, it was not so dangerous for children to play in the streets (at least in Brazil, where I used to live — that is not true nowadays); and I grew up there both educated and learning stupid things, and ended up being influenced by older boys — from swearing to playing with my own sexuality and that of others around me.
For that reason, one of our neighbours (who used to look after me and my cousin) one day put us in a car and brought us to a place to "help us" — where some people would pray for us because we were terrible children. There were loads of women in white clothes and many necklaces. That was the 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" (that is their name for the religious figure who is the contact between the devils and us) put her hands over me and started to kick the floor and pray 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 do not mind wearing clothes and objects, keeping symbols in their homes and carrying them with them, eating food, and playing with dark religions and the like — for they think it is funny or cool. It is a terrible spiritual contamination, and something that holds back the lives of many Catholics and Christians who think it is normal to share with demons. We need to get rid of every single thing related to the demons.
After that episode, my life went downhill (as we say in Brazil). I was already an angry child and became a troubled adolescent. I kept playing with my sexuality and trying to discover it. I kept being very shy; and when I was 12, my grandmother bought a house in another neighbourhood where I did not know anyone — which left me completely alone, for I had also started to go to a school in the centre of the city.
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 together, and he told me he had a wish of committing suicide; he said he was very poor, ugly, shy around girls and had no will to live. He would say his life was worthless. I started to identify very much with him, and started to have the same sort of thoughts myself.
At the age of 13, I started to study philosophy in school, and to look at people around me and see how others seemed to be happier than me: they had parents who would bring them to school instead of having to take the bus or walking from far away, who would receive money from their parents to go out and have a life... I started to hate people who had a normal life — and to hate myself, too.
I used to make prank calls to strangers from public phone boxes, since I had no friendship inside my house or outside (which I had learnt from those bad influences); and one day I called someone who was receiving death threats. Moral of the story: I ended up in court, having to answer to the police for it. My name stayed on file until the age of 18 as the penalty for such a prank.
As if that were not enough, I started to have many fights with my mother at home. We could not understand each other, and we would shout and swear constantly. My anger at this stage was at a super-high level. All that feeling of rejection (from the abortion she had once thought of, to kill me) and the hatred towards 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 the suffering, anger, hatred, wrath and bad feelings I used to have.
My idea was: I would go to the kitchen, pull a knife and cut my own throat. Then I used to think what would happen afterwards... My mother would find my body there and would start to cry — and thinking about that 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, shaking with anger. By providence, there was a paper and a pen on a table in our front yard, and I sat down on the chair. Then I took the pen and started to write down, with wrath and anger, feeling as if I could transfer onto the paper what was inside of me. I started writing one line, then another — ten lines, twenty, 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 king: he had anxiety, pressure, depression and oppression inside him. The only thing that would calm him down was music — played by someone who knew how to play well. For that reason, he would call on David — the musician who used to look after sheep, and who would later become King David — to play the harp and 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 are thinking about committing suicide, need: find something you are good at, something that has caught your eye 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 mother while I was at home, and developing the idea that my life was worthless. Helped by the rebelliousness of musicians like Eminem, Guns N' Roses, Legião Urbana and Cazuza (the last two from Brazil), I locked myself even further inside myself.
I also wrote some romantic poems, at this stage, to girls I liked; but I was too shy to talk to them, and never had the courage to reveal my feelings. Maybe that was a reflex of the difficulty in my relationship with my mother. I was destined to remain alone, and would have ended up killing myself. Maybe you have heard about psychosomatic illness — 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 realised 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 very strange at first. 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 had begun in my life. After a while, he said we could go to Mass more than once a week. So I started doing that. And by doing so, I was invited to take part in a young people's prayer group. The first time I was there, my cousin told me these people were "charismatics" — and that they would dance and sing and praise inside the church.
I could not believe it when he said that, but I was very surprised when I actually saw it happening. At the end of the gathering, they invited new participants to come to the front of the church to present themselves. I did not want to, but ended up going. My cousin received a small set of rosary beads, and they raised their hands and said they would pray a Hail Mary for us. What did they do that for? I could not understand at all.
What I do know is that during the week following that gathering, I felt happier than I had ever felt before. Something had happened inside of me. Something crazy had made my whole week different — and the only "different" thing I had done was to go to that group. For that reason, I went again and again. The third time I was there, there was a special night dedicated to Mary, and 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 3pm, someone spoke about a God who sent his Son to be incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and who became man and came to save the world from sin and from hell — and how he died on the cross for me. That was the greatest declaration of love 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 beginning and the end, the explanation, the truth, the way, the saviour, the door that was opened at this critical 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 me.
"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 recognise 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 that day, Mari, another very important person in my life, preached about Our Lady; and I cried a great deal, for I had never heard anyone speak about Mary as she did — perhaps I had not 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 where, on the altar, there was a sun-shaped object with a piece of bread inside; she invited everyone present to touch the edge of the altar cloth, and, by doing that with faith, we would be healed. So, in turn, three at a time, people would go up and touch the edge of the cloth. There were people playing the guitar and singing, people crying, people praying — and I was in their 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 the poor ones, like me, received something that money cannot buy and that is not on sale: a letter from their families and parents stating how important they were. 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 realised how important they are. Parents, relatives, families, friends — people think about committing suicide because they do not feel loved. You need to start telling the 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 the graces I received from God, the friends I gained, and the love from my family made me give up on the idea of committing suicide. Life started to feel incredible — and from that day forward, I have gone through some difficulties, which 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, they will likely receive a big round of applause; but if they want to be holy, do God's will, read the Bible and go to Mass every day, they are treated as if they were 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, scj (in memoriam) 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 from, it was not easy to remain in the Church; but I was baptised, after all of this, and received my first Communion, Confirmation and Confession — and daily Mass and adoration became my strength. The Sacraments of the Church are wonderful, and a source of supernatural grace, which guides and leads us through the trials and disappointments of 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, who helped me in difficult moments — and of so many people who are extremely important in my life, to whom only God can give the recompense they deserve: Paradise. Jesus in the Eucharist gave me great graces and experiences that I cannot enumerate (I will share some of them with you at 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 the courage to step forward and say that I loved her and all. Unfortunately, after some time I fell into sin; but since sin does not fulfil our hearts, I got back to the grace of God after a second Prayer Experience.
I then took on a goal: I would get back home, give her a big hug, and say the words that would change our relationship: "I love you!" This is not magic — but it is possible. This happened only after God showed me her life through her eyes; I saw what she had lived, what she had gone through, and how life did not treat her very well.
The first time I did this, I approached her one night and tried to give her a hug. What was my surprise when she sort of pushed me away! Then I said, "I love you, Mom." It was very strange, and I had nowhere to draw strength from to do this except from the presence of God, from prayer, from the Bible, from Holy Mass. And doing that every day, after some time, stopped being strange and became natural — to the point that on the days I did not say I loved her, she would come to me and say it first.
We too, sons and daughters who have had troubles and problems in the relationship with our parents, can teach and remind them about love — for the love we receive from God, which transforms our lives, can also transform theirs. Our God is the God of love!
It took me about five years 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, in the same way it took time to engage truly in the Church, it took time to forgive and love my mother with all my heart, it took time to ask forgiveness of the people I had hurt and who had hurt me, it took time for me to read the whole Bible (seven years), and it also took time for me to open my heart entirely to God in order to be healed from loneliness.
It is right and true what Saint Peter wrote in his letter — something that makes sense both ways 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 through him, as is prayed in every Holy Mass. Perhaps you too need to find your place — or even allow yourself to be found by him. Allow Jesus to conquer your heart. Allow him to be 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 — an interior-healing retreat that lasts seven days. On those seven days, I was led to spiritually relive my whole life, and to be healed from every trauma and negative experience I had had from my time in the womb of my mother.
I relived the scene of 28/11/1990, when I was born: I saw a very holy nurse take me in her arms and offer my life to Our Lady. Acknowledging that, I realised the Virgin Mary is the one who granted me the grace not to commit suicide. She is the one who put the pen and paper on that table that day. She is the one who inspired my aunt to enrol me in catechism. She is the one who 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 being reborn when I was 24, after all the struggles I had to live through 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 from 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 has ever happened in my life. Words and prayers are not enough to thank her for all the graces and benefits she has obtained for me from the heart of Jesus. 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 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 had wrought in me. If he has worked this in me, who am nothing and who come from where I come from, 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 I would like to write here, but this chapter is already too long. If you could do something with this, it would be sharing it with someone — sharing it on social media, sharing it with people who need to read it, sharing it with vulnerable young people, with everyone you know and everyone you do not know. I am going to 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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