So That You May Live: Choosing Life with Chronic Suicidal Ideation

by Mat Wilson

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life - so that you and your descendants may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

This verse from Parashat Nitzavim is so often quoted as a triumphant affirmation of agency and hope. In moments of collective uncertainty, communal mourning, even personal decision-making, we are urged to choose life. It’s chanted during services, quoted in sermons, whispered at bedsides.

But for those of us who live with chronic suicidal ideation, this verse can strike a different chord.

I have lived with chronic suicidal thoughts since I was in elementary school. They’ve been a mostly quiet (though at times very loud) presence throughout my life. Like an internal rhythm I’ve learned to live with. I used to feel ashamed to say that I had them, like they were something I needed to either overcome or hide. But now I understand them as part of my mental illness and part of my life’s story, certainly not the whole story, but a throughline. Not a flaw in my faith or willpower, or a spiritual failure, but a reality of how I navigate the world.

Even so, when I read, “Choose life,” it doesn’t feel like an easy command. It feels impossibly vast and heavy.

For much of my adolescence and early adulthood, I was caught in the deep undertow of serious and persistent mental illness. My life during that time wasn’t marked by the typical milestones or markers of growth, but instead it was marked by hospitalizations, medication changes, safety rooms, restraints, long nights and longer days, and desperate prayers. There were years I couldn’t work or go to school - when I had previously been able to - and I couldn’t envision a future, despite my prayers for things to be different. I was left wondering if I would ever be able to or allowed to live outside the confines of an institution.

But in 2013, things began to change. Following a suicide attempt on my 23rd birthday, I was committed to a state-run psychiatric facility, a place that was unpleasant and coercive in many ways, and also (eventually) transformative. There, for the first time, I had consistent access to the kind of care I needed. I met a treatment team who understood the complexities of my reality. I began intensive, life-changing therapies. I began, quietly and carefully, to choose to live.

When I was discharged in August 2015, my life blossomed. I re-enrolled in school. I eventually got a part-time job. I lived on my own. I achieved things I had once only dreamed of. In 2019, I graduated from undergrad, a moment I had long held onto as my "life worth living" goal. I had finally done the thing I wasn’t sure I ever could.

And then I found myself in new, unexpected territory: I didn’t know what would come next.

In mental health care, particularly with people who experience chronic suicidality, there can be a concept called a "life worth living" goal. It’s meant to help someone visualize a future based on their goals and values, something to work towards, a reason to stay. For me, that was college graduation. I had built years of survival around that single hope.

But once I reached it, I didn’t know how to replace it.

I’ve continued living, and many things have been good. I take my car on road trips. I laugh with friends. I eat good food. I experience joy and curiosity. Satisfaction and delight. But I no longer wake up with a clear sense of direction. I often feel like I’ve already lived a full life. I’m 35. I’ve done what I came to do. I’d be okay, I sometimes think, with letting go.

And yet, I stay.

Part of why I stay is for people who didn’t. Five people I care about died by suicide: Jeri, Milan, Mike, Emory, and Jeff. I say their names often. They no longer get to feel the sun on their faces, or laugh at a joke, or hang out with people they care about, who care about them. And so I try to do some of these things for them.

Not in a grand way. But in an everyday kind of way. The kind of way that affirms life in its smallest, most human forms.

“Choose life.” Not because it’s easy. Not because it’s a clear choice. But because someone has to witness the beauty still available in the ordinary.

Pirkei Avot offers a teaching that always shakes me. It reads:

"Let not your evil inclination assure you that the grave is a refuge, for against your will you were formed, against your will you were born, against your will you live, against your will you will die, and against your will you will give an account..." (Avot 4:22)

I do not believe this is meant as a threat. For me, it’s more of a recognition that there are forces larger than me at play. The pull of despair can be strong. The grave can look like a place of rest. But even when I long for that kind of control and escape, life is still something I continue to do, even against my will. And there is something holy in that.

Living with intention is beautiful. But surviving without intention is also enough. Living because someone has to. Living because I can. Living because it’s still an option.

I try to hold that choosing life is not a one-time decision. It’s a hundred tiny choices every day. It’s brushing my teeth. It’s answering a text. It’s sitting outside. It’s letting people care for me. It’s loving my communities.

And some days, it’s just breathing and waiting for the next day to come.

For those of us with chronic illness (mental or physical) life does not always feel like a “blessing” in the traditional sense. It does not always feel vibrant or full. It’s certainly not always painless. But it can still be holy. We might redefine what blessing means. A blessing can be a quiet day. A functioning medication. A moment of laughter. A friend who texts back. A meal eaten.

To “choose life” when life is hard is not an act of naive optimism. It’s resistance. It’s survival. It’s protest against the erasure of disabled people and our stories.

Deuteronomy tells us that choosing life allows us, and not just us but our descendants too, to live. Perhaps what we leave behind is not just our genes, but our Torah. Our testimony. Our memory. Our survival. Maybe when I keep living, even when it’s hard, I plant something in the world that might bloom later.

There are days I don’t want to be here. That’s okay. There are days I feel proud to be alive. That’s okay too. I no longer measure the success of my life by the absence of suicidal thoughts. I measure it by the presence of people, of enjoyment or contentment, of freedom, of a cold Diet Coke. 

The commandment to choose life doesn’t demand perfection. It doesn’t even demand happiness. It simply asks us to lean into living, even when it’s hard, even when it’s against our will.

And so I try.

Not always with clarity, and almost never without pain. But with tenderness. Sometimes with hope. With community. With Torah. With the belief that living, even with suicidal thoughts and urges, even with mental illness, even without a next big goal, is still living.

I choose life. So that I may live.

Mat Wilson (they/them) enjoys board and video games, road trips big and small, and any opportunity to be in water. They discovered a love for Torah study through the art of source sheet creation, and are now using writing as a way to explore their lived experiences with disability. Outside of their free time, Mat is a student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and is pursuing a Master’s in Nonprofit Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania.