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Not Afraid Of Death, But Not Allowed To Die

Details: Last Updated: 14 December 2017

by Michellenea Futrell

I’m almost forty now. In the last few years I’ve thought about these events every day. I constantly feel like someone who has partial amnesia—a part of me keeps nagging at me, but as hard as I try, I can’t remember everything. It’s time for me to come to a better understanding of what happened to me, why it happened, and what do I do with it. I was twelve years old when I attempted suicide. Life at home was anything but happy. It was Nov. 17th 1975. My father had shown me his high-blood-pressure medication just two days before. He kept the bottle on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet and had said to me that he needed to get it refilled the next day, and that by far it was the most dangerous thing in the house. If one of us were to take it accidentally, it could kill us.

Sure enough, the bottle was full. I remember it took me such a long time to swallow all the pills. I was never afraid, though; only sad that I believed at that time there was no other alternative.

I went to my room and climbed into bed, thinking I would just go to sleep and never wake up; my family would finally be happy. It didn’t end up being that simple. I woke to feeling that my chest and throat were being crushed. I couldn’t breathe or yell out for help. In a desperate attempt to get relief from what was happening to me, I ran to my mother’s bedside. She was a nurse, and I thought she would be able to stop it. I couldn’t tell her what I had done, or tell her what I needed. But I remember vividly fighting for her to breathe air into my mouth. It took her a moment to realize that I was in real trouble. I fought as long as I could, and by now everyone in the house was awake and I could hear them screaming. My mother and aunt were on top of me holding me down; my head started feeling dizzy and the pain started to ease. My body felt as though it was getting lighter, lifting off the floor. I remember thinking, “This must be how it feels when you are dying.” I stopped struggling, closed my eyes, and felt myself float away into unconsciousness.

It seemed like only a moment or two passed before I opened my eyes. It was pitch black. My first thought was of the absence of pain, and how relieved I was that it was gone. I couldn’t figure out where I was. I wondered if it were so dark in this place because no light existed, or if I was unable to see. So I brought my hand up in front of my face. I could see it there, completely intact, but without flesh. I quickly scanned my whole being and realized I was different, but very much whole, and I knew everything I had always known. Looking around me I realized I was not standing on anything; there was no

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around in circles. I was separate from them though. Then I saw the light I had seen as a child, behind and slightly higher from them. I knew he was there, watching and waiting. Like before, I was curious and would begin a thought, and suddenly know the answer.

The others could not enter; their existence was between these two separate planes. They knew all there was to know of each plane. How they wanted so much to change what they had done, and couldn’t. They were fully aware of all truths and the purpose of life, of the pain their choices had created while here on Earth, against themselves and others. They were aware of the great suffering they had caused. My heart ached for them. But why was I there?

I suddenly saw my sons before me, and instantly I felt this indescribable pain. My mind became acutely aware of the pain and suffering born out of my choice of self-destruction. For my sons, for those who knew me, and for those I would never meet. I knew then this would be my existence, this place of knowing my real worth, how my actions were like stones tossed into a pond. They rippled out, crossing over the entire surface of the earth, forever affecting and changing the face of it. I will see and feel everything I had ever done and could have been. In this place I will know the truth of all things, and be unable to change, or be a part of, any of it.

I don’t know if the Biblical hell exists, but I can tell you the suffering here was worse then any description I had ever been given. To me this was hell enough. Created out of our own selfish choices. God had no need to create a place to torture us for the waste and destruction we had committed. We had enough to torture ourselves with.

The pace of those there began to move more quickly. Like they knew I was there. I felt like I had stayed too long, and now was becoming a part of this place. I wanted to leave, and half expected just the thought would free me from it. In panic, I looked back towards the light and I knew I was being given a choice. I could stay, but I would have to exist knowing what I had created. If I chose to return to Earth, I was not to ever attempt my own destruction, that in doing so, I am committing the ultimate crime against self, against the purpose of this life, against the wisdom of God.

God was teaching me a lesson about my carelessness, about the impact I have on all of life, that he was the creator, but I above all else had the power of choice to govern my life, my final destiny. As soon as I believed through my entire self, my own worth, my responsibility to life, to all those I exist here with, and finally that I would never attempt such a selfish act as my own death, I was released from the place. I returned to find my counselor in a panic,

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Not Afraid Of Death, But Not Allowed To Die

by Michellenea Futrell

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