I confess. Part of me is afraid to put this out there. Yet another part is strongly compelled to. This post is real. This post is raw. Why? Because it’s time to throw back the curtain and expose an ugly hidden “shame” to the light of day. I’ve struggled on and off, all my life, with depression and suicidal thoughts. There have been many times when the voice of darkness has whispered into both ears, drowning out any and all other sounds. “They’re better off without you,” it says, “You’re better off dead.” And so ensues a spiral that sends me down into the pit of despair. I always know something is wrong when I can’t find the words in me and when that part of me from which writing comes feels numb. In my mind, I know what’s going on, yet I am shackled by my emotions. They imprison me. They bind me and prevent me from acting to help myself. When I feel this way, I am numb from the pain, and this pain is a tricky thing to explain. If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I sometimes use it as a type of therapy…a catharsis, if you will. So, be advised, this is not a feel-good, fun, and humorous post. I will hedge a bet, though, that it’ll hit home for some of you in a scary-ass way. I will speak my truth here and hope it allows someone somewhere to understand a loved one…or, perhaps, themselves.

I’ve been trying to kill myself, in one way or another, ever since I was a child. Haha. I can feel you wincing already. Why can’t I just say, “end my life” or “commit suicide?” My dad liked to call it “committing sideways” or “going chop suey (crazy).” Nice, huh? Saying, “kill myself” embodies the reality of the feeling – you hate yourself so much that you feel compelled to murder yourself. Or maybe it’s that the pain is so deeply embedded within you that the only way to end it is to end you. I know, I know. It sounds brutal…and that’s exactly how it feels.

My attempts at self-destruction have taken a myriad of forms and have persisted throughout my life. I realize that reading something like this stated so frankly will make many of you uncomfortable, and, to you, I apologize. What can I say? On behalf of my fellow sufferers, I feel compelled to paint a crystal clear picture of what it is like to feel this way – to wish for…pray for…hope for…a day when you can just escape the pain. Yes, as hard as it is to understand, some people wake up many days feeling like they simply shouldn’t be here. I don’t know what brain chemical is responsible for that bullshit, but trust me when I say that it exists.

I was sexually molested when I was five. I was molested, again, from the ages of nine to eleven. I tell you this because I believe these events shaped my brain – physically and chemically. Yes. Really. Neuroscience has proven that trauma does, in fact, influence the development of the brain. With that being said, both the perpetrators of these crimes are now deceased, so there’s really no point in making an issue of the “who, what, and where” of it all. And, again, I’m simply mentioning these events because they – combined with the emotional, psychological, and (to a degree) physical abuse of my upbringing – were major contributing factors to my lifelong mental health issues. Depression is not always the result of trauma, of course. There are plenty of people that suffer from depression who had an uneventful childhood and grew up in a loving, supportive environment. That’s an important point. Depression is an illness, and like other illnesses, it’s indiscriminate.

Gentle readers, I’m writing this post in an effort to help you understand…those of you that love of us. I want you to know. I passionately want you to see that it’s us, not you. It’s not your fault that we feel this way. Hell, technically it’s not even our fault. It’s just the messed up chemistry of our brain and the raging battle deep within us. I know you feel like, “I should’ve seen it. I should’ve known.” Nope. No. Believe me. Some of us are really, really good at hiding it…and I mean REALLY good. In fact, some of us could get an Academy Award for how convincing a performance we give…and some of us actually have.

With all that being said, please don’t be mad at yourself. You love/loved us, and that should be/should’ve been enough. Know that there were times when you and the fear of hurting you were the only things that kept us here. Please don’t be mad at us though, either. Please don’t be angry that we got so lost in the maze of our confusion that we couldn’t find our way out…even though we heard your voice calling. It’s what we fear the most – you being mad at us and hating us as much as we hate ourselves for not being able to get it together. Please, just keep loving us – whether we are still here or not. That’s the other thing we fear – losing your love. Please know that we love you, too, even if you doubt that love in light of what we’ve done/contemplated doing to you.

If you had asked me thirty years ago if I thought I would still be here today, I could not, with any certainty, have answered in the affirmative. And yet here I am. As I’ve gotten older my battles have been fewer, with more time elapsing between them. I know it’s still inside me, though. Maybe it’s sleeping. Maybe it’s waiting. Maybe it’s looking for me to trip over some bump in the road and go tumbling so it can swallow me up for good. I don’t know. What I do know is that the words are here right now. I can find them. I can feel them. They’re flowing, freely, into my fingertips and spilling out onto this page. So, for me, it’s how I know I’m okay.

One of my favorite “self-help” authors, if you want to call her that, is Glennon Doyle. Many of her books and articles discuss what it’s like to live with depression, addiction, and suicidal thoughts. She describes the feelings and experiences with an eloquence I can only dream of having. One of her articles likens attempting or contemplating suicide to trying to use an emergency exit. Afterward, the sight of the “exit” sign remains at the edge of your consciousness. You know it’s there, glowing just within the peripheral vision of your mind, even if you’re not thinking about using it right now. “If I need it, there it is. There it is, if I need it,” you think to yourself. I know loving someone with one eye on the “exit” sign sucks. What can you do? Just hold our hand when the lights go down in the theater. Squeeze it when you feel us tense up. The tension is us wanting to leave, but, if our hand is still in your hand, we probably aren’t planning on using that exit sign today.