Val Kleinhans

June 4th, 2018 was not a day that started out with me feeling depressed. In fact, it was a pretty good day until about 2pm.

You see, that day, the radio station that I worked for was invited to take place in “Twins Day” at Target Field, because the team wanted to thank us for airing their games. This meant we got to hit, play outfield, and hang with Bert Blyleven. It was an awesome day! And, yeah, if you’re curious, Bert is a nice guy! When I got back to work after our outing though, things changed.

My boss called me into his office and gave me a written reprimand stating that I’d been “too controversial” and not “brand appropriate” online and broke a few copyright rules which were not laid out to me in the way I learn best. No one sat with me beforehand and walked me through those new rules one on one, and that’s the way I learn best as someone with Nonverbal Learning Disability. I only got that one on one instruction on copyright after this letter. I followed those rules just fine after getting that help. Instead of getting the training before the reprimand, I was punished with monitoring, weekly meetings on my “progress”, and constant observation. By the way, this “monitoring” really is a punishment for someone who doesn’t understand how they ended up in that position in the first place and is already stressed. It’d help if we were more sensitive to that. I took that letter home to my husband and sobbed for an hour.

Eventually, this letter shook me so badly that I decided I “wasn’t fit for this world anymore” if corporate America hated me – and the way I worked. Friends, let me tell you – when you start thinking that way, it’s a slippery slope. This line of thinking caused a spiral so downward for me that I just didn’t see the point of living anymore. I thought, “If I can’t do my job the way they want me to do it, and I could be fired any second, I’m failing my family too – so what’s the point of me living?” I proceeded to reach for any pill I could find in my apartment. I wanted to take as many of those pills as I could find, go to sleep, and never wake up. My husband and cat could provide for themselves just fine, couldn’t they?

After my husband caught on to what I was doing, he stopped me from going through with my plan and sat with me for the rest of the night until we went to bed.

After an ER visit and intense therapy, months later I reflect on that day in an entirely new way. While it’s sad to go over the details of it, I realized that I needed to – because if I did, I could find the reasons why I really didn’t go through with suicide.

Ironically, if you take a look at the skirt I’m wearing, that’s one of the reasons that I realized I ultimately didn’t want to “go through with it.” Here are some other reasons why I realized I didn’t commit suicide, even though I wanted to.

• My cat: Who was going to love her, and feed her, and clean up after her? Sure, my husband could and would, but I’d miss her and she would miss me.
• My husband: We’re a team. I didn’t really want to leave my teammate. We’re together so that we can get through hard moments like that together. Me abandoning him would leave him behind with more financial trouble than my being fired would, and his life up in the air.
• My friends and family out of state: They might not physically be with me everyday, but I’m a fool if I think they don’t still care about me.
• Shows: C’mon – you know I wanted to see more live music.
• Travel: There’s still a whole world I want to see! Including parts of my own country that I haven’t been to yet!
• My thoughts that led me to suicidal ideation were not rational: Fun fact – I never did get fired. I ended up quitting. You can too if you need to leave an environment that upsets you.

It’s my hope in writing this that anyone else who has suicidal thoughts knows that while it’s not uncommon to have them, there is more to life than what’s going on in your head. Reflect on why you’re really feeling the way you’re feeling, and you might find some key answers you need.