Cheslie Kryst, Suicide & Me

My heart is crushed at the news of former Miss USA (2019), Cheslie Kryst. Thinking that this young, beautiful, compassionate woman was so unhappy that she leapt to her death is both unreal and jarring and numbing and…words fail to express how I truly feel. 

I lived in the Crown City (Charlotte, NC) Cheslie hailed from when she was crowned queen. It was historic! A black Miss Universe (Zozibini Tuni), a black Miss World (Toni-Ann Singh), a black Miss America (Nia Franklin), a black Miss USA, AND a black Miss Teen USA (Kaliegh Garris) all in the same year! Never before had this happened in pageant history. Talk about #BlackGirlMagic! 

While I never met Cheslie and always desired to be a pageant girl although I never had the opportunity, her death hits home in so many uncomfortable ways. 

Cheslie looked like me. 

As a mixed, curly-haired girl, she gave us a queen that looked like us. There are only a few pageant queens we can think of who placed that are black. Vanessa Williams (Miss America 1984), Halle Berry (1st Runner Up, Miss USA, 6th in Miss World 1986), Kenya Moore (Miss USA 1993), and Marshawn Evans Daniels (3rd Runner Up, Miss America 2002) are the only ones that come to mind. So when I saw Cheslie’s bright face and bouncy curls on my T.V. screen, she made me proud to be a mixed girl and deepened the meaning of the phrase “representation matters.” 

Cheslie was younger than me.

Cheslie was only 30. I’m 36. While I know I had my pre-40 freak out just before turning 30 (SMH), I don’t know if she was at her own anxious crossroads wondering what the next 30 years would bring her. She had made pageant history, had been part of a killer law firm, and was an EXTRA correspondent. Her future was so bright and teeming with hope! She could have done so much with her life! The other pageant queens listed went on to become singers, actresses, reality T.V. stars, entrepreneurs, and more. They became mothers and wives. Their post-pageant careers drastically eclipsed their pageant careers. Cheslie’s future was so bright! I’m so sorry she couldn’t see that like we did.

For me, I don’t know what to call it because it wasn’t envy or jealousy, but if there were a kinder, non-sinful version of it, that’s what I felt. I looked at her so young, 6 years younger than me, having accomplished so much. As I get older, I realise that I am surprisingly older than many in the limelight. And I am now currently the age of Princess Di when she left this world. I’m just two years younger than JFK Jr. was. They had done so much and were known for so much before their lives were cut short. But what had I done? In many ways, I still feel like I’ve been waiting for my life to begin. So Cheslie represented all of the things I wanted to do or could have done, but had not done. I felt like I lacked accomplishment next to her. (And yes, I realise how futile it is to compare my life to that of legitimate royalty, American royalty, and pageant royalty.) Yet I admired her and actively followed her just the same.

Cheslie was pretty. 

As arrogant as this will sound despite the fact that it’s not intended to be arrogant, only pretty people will understand the burden of being pretty. Isabella from Encanto understood this although her burden was split between being pretty, and being the oldest among her siblings which I am not. This often equates to false and even subconscious expectations of perfection. 

Pretty people aren’t allowed to have problems. 

People don’t often think of pretty people when they think of those with major battles, hidden or otherwise. 

In fact, people often despise the very idea of pretty people having problems as if being pretty solves a multitude of woes. 

Now, I won’t lie to you and say that being what many consider beautiful is all thistles and thorns. It certainly is not. It comes often when popularity, preference, and possibilities. Yet it also comes with its own issues. Especially when you factor in ethnic makeup and complexion. And I can say honestly for myself that when you look a certain way, people find it shocking that you could conceivably have certain struggles. 

How can you be pretty and deal with rejection? 

How can you be pretty and feel insecure/insignificant?

How can you be pretty and struggle with anxiety? 

How dare you be pretty and struggle with depression?

And yet, this was my whole life.

And don’t let you be a prophet on top of all of that! The audacity!! I’m supposed to pray for you, not the other way around!! 

How dare you be pretty and unhappy? 

And yet, 2021 was full of unimaginable pain and suffering for me. Most really never understood when I expressed that it was THE WORST year of my life.

2021 was full of unimaginable pain with almost no discernible breakthrough. 

The one thing I had hoped and prayed for, the thing that was prophesied to me, did not happen when it was supposed to. I had no other real plans for the year, so my year ended in devastation. And that devastation made me fearful to hope again. I had been heartsick for so long, and coming closer to the promise than ever only to have it ripped out of my hands, was almost too much.

Whether you think that was allowable or acceptable for me to feel, that was my reality. 

Fear is fear.

Anxiety is anxiety.

Depression is depression. 

Mental oppression is real and demonic, and is no respecter of persons. 

Cheslie was suicidal. 

How can you be pretty and struggle with suicidal thoughts? 

I don’t know how long this was the case for Cheslie. I don’t know if anyone in her life knew this spirit plagued her. But I know the world is shocked. I can’t imagine the utter devastation required to launch one’s self off of a 60-story condo complex to their death. But I do know unimaginable pain and suffering. 

I know that despite the fact that I was not a history-making pageant girl with a career in law, a gorgeous NYC apartment, or budding correspondence career, suicide courted me as well.

I was never so shocked to make it to my birthday as I was in November 2021. 

I was never so shocked to make it to Christmas as I was in 2021. 

I was never so shocked to cross over into a new year as I was when I entered 2022. 

I KNEW the plan of the enemy was to take me out in 2021. 

I KNEW the plan of the enemy was to take my mind in 2021. 

Even in my first deliverance session of 2021, the minister said, “You will NOT lose your mind!” I was SHOOK because it wasn’t until he said it that I realised how on the edge I had been. It’s like when the movie keeps you on the edge of your seat and the adrenaline is high, but once it’s over you just cry from the sheer intensity of it all. That was how I felt. 

2021 came with some STRONG waves of mental oppression that oftentimes affected my sleep. At times, I struggled to fall asleep. Other times, I was plagued by evil and unwanted dreams as I slept. Depression, discouragement, second-guessing, worst-case scenarios, and evil projections all bombarded me. 

For me, the cause was literal witchcraft, although I am aware that is not always the cause. I dealt with the enemy trying to re-establish what has been accomplished through deliverance from anxiety. Sooo very many of my hairs turned grey from the stress of it all. I lost approximately 20 pounds by mid-summer that I have not been able to gain back. 

The enemy wanted my life. 

BUT HE FAILED. 

Yet what most don’t know is when the enemy failed to kill me and failed to take my mind, he came to me in December and suggested for me to kill myself. 

Looking at Cheslie’s very last Instagram story congratulating new pageant queens, and her very last post wishing that others would find rest and peace on the same day she killed herself—hit uncomfortably close to home. 

The enemy didn’t so much suggest ways for me to kill myself as he suggested ways to make it “easier” if I did. After all, “wouldn’t it be easier on everyone if you just left the earth?” Leave that door unlocked. Post this on your social media profiles. Email that to your parents. 

Suicide comes softly…

I don’t believe suicide ever shows up as a screaming fiend. It shows up as a so-called friend making what seems like a common-sensical suggestion. Just as simply as a friend could say, “Desiree, you should cook chicken tonight,” it says, “Desiree, you should just jump off this cliff.” Or “Desiree, you should walk in front of a car.” (Both true examples.) Suicide is a demonic counselor. “You tried that and it failed, so why don’t you try this?” 

It’s actually interesting that the thought of jumping off of a building came to me. And I pondered, “Would there be time to repent and ask the Lord to take my spirit to heaven while I fell?” I wonder if Cheslie thought the same. I wonder if that’s what went through her mind yesterday morning as she fell from the terrace. 

While suicide may scream at you or overwhelm you in the end or at least as you attempt, it never shows up that way. It’s most often a subtle rain. Rain seems harmless and beautiful, yet over the ages, it beats down the mountains and creates ravines. That’s suicide to me. A friendly suggestion…FROM A DEVIL. A beautiful melancholy tune that you follow…TO YOUR DEATH. It’s the most dangerous Pied Piper of them all. 

If you succeed, your life is gone. 

If you fail, no one ever looks at you the same. 

And if you admit you had the thoughts, your sanity and spiritual maturity is questioned. 

FOR ME, I can say that suicide has only ever presented itself at what was or felt like critical junctures of my life. That time I got such a bad report card I was academically suspended from college for a semester. 

That time I was under Jezebelic attack including, but not limited to my then boyfriend dumping me and my so-called best friend turning out to be a Jezebel. (They married the next year, the same week he spoke of marrying me.) 

That time…2021 happened… 

FOR ME, I can truly say that God kept me. He walked with me. And He gave me the presence of mind each time to know those weren’t my thoughts. No matter how much fear I was under, no matter the panic/anxiety attacks, no matter the mental oppression, no matter the specific suggestions, I always knew “These aren’t my thoughts,” and was able to rebuke them in the name of Jesus.

And now, I am alive. And Cheslie is not. 

She will never live to find out what her life could have been. She will never be married; never have children. Never be able to carve out a future for herself. She didn’t recognize or receive the help God extended to her. While I know she attended church on occasion, I don’t know what her true relationship with God was or if it was. 

I watched men drool over her. I watched women and young girls adore and celebrate her. But now she’s gone; and I’m still here. And as devastating as it is to say the first half of that sentence, the second half speaks to hope. 

If you’re alive, then there’s still hope. 

If you’re alive, then you can see God work.

If you’re alive then you can experience His goodness in the land of the living. 

If you are seriously considering ending your life, seek help!! 

If, like me, you don’t desire to take your life, yet recognize the thoughts are being presented to you, tell someone!! 

I got help. 

It was in the middle of the night and I reached out to a dear woman of God that I was acquainted with. It was the middle of the night, so I didn’t want to wake any of my friends up. She was on another continent, so her time zone was 6 hours ahead of me. Thankfully, she made herself available to me, prayed with me, and encouraged me. It was exactly what the Divine Doctor ordered. 

And let me say that as bad as it looks, as bad as it feels, it’s never bad enough to kill yourself. 

What I can say is that when I made it through my dark nights of the soul, it was always brighter, lighter afterward. I could feel the oppression LIFT from me. I felt it after my birthday passed because it was a targeted attack. I felt it after I crossed over into 2022 because it was a targeted attack.

The enemy magnifies things to overwhelm you and weary you. But if you can outlast the attack, then you can regain your hope of victory AND live long enough to see it! 

I pray that in her last moments, Cheslie found peace. I pray that she was able to repent and is in the arms of the Father now. Yet I have no assurance of that. 

It’s time for YOU to be sure. If you aren’t saved but you want to be, pray this prayer (or heck, all of them if you’re truly ready), and allow the Lord to become your Father and transform your life. Allow Him to be your righteous defender and glorious protector. Everything will NOT be easy afterward, yet it is HIS job to see you through whatever you come to. Trust Him. There’s no other Power in the universe than Him. 

Be encouraged.