My last post here was about my emotional capacity, my inability to know what was driving the decisions I was and wasn’t making. Turns out, it was depression. Like, daily medication to put my brain in its place depression. Before the dose was right, though, it got dark.

It was the end of May, when I dragged my heavy sad body off the couch and to Target for some retail therapy. I got snacks and a new journal and a few books to try and distract my brain. My brain that was still cycling through my dad dying, my relationship ending, resigning from my job, a new relationship fading, a crazy dog I adopted, weight I gained through all of it. I got home and showered and did all the self-care things I would tell a client or friend to do; use the good soap, put on lotion, wear the comfiest clothes, make a good snack and relax. This is probably gonna be over soon and everything will be all right.

I woke up the next morning, hopeless. I put my phone on do not disturb, I cried my way through the morning and eventually sat out in the yard reading one of the books. If I was outside I’d feel better, I wouldn’t be alone, people would be coming and going. A neighbor sitting at the table with me, then one trying his best to get the umbrella to stay up for me.. just enough interaction to keep myself going.

I didn’t want to.
I absolutely wanted to die that day.

Typing that out now makes me so emotional. It was for sure the absolute worst I’d ever felt in my life.

I also felt like a fraud – talking to people every day about their own struggles and concerns like I had the answers and then crying myself to sleep at night.

And while there were a dozen reasons I could be “sad”, nothing seemed to be the cause for the deep ache and heaviness I was dragging around. I was trying to assign it to something; I journaled until my hand cramped. I talked until my jaw hurt. I slept mornings away and went to bed early. That day I furiously texted a friend about how I was feeling … she asked if it was about the ex who still showed up at my door telling me stories and making promises he was never going to keep, sharing tequila right out of the bottle and a hit of this or that. Plausible, I thought, but nothing has ever made me feel like this, so while I didn’t know what it was – I was pretty sure it wasn’t that. If anything, I felt alive in those moments, which is why I probably kept letting them happen. I told her that outside of the good days, where I was with a friend or on the phone with my mom or brothers, chatting with a neighbor … I couldn’t make sense of anything . Everyone dies, everyone leaves. What was the point? What was any of this for? Honestly, why bother?

When I stopped responding to her texts she showed up at my house. Took me out, made sure I ate, let me cry (constantly and in public) and spent the night at my apartment so I wasn’t by myself.

I’d like to say I woke up the next day feeling like myself again and ready to take on the world, but I didn’t. I still cried and still scrawled incomplete thoughts in a journal. Still wondered what the point of anything really was. Felt relieved to know that some day it would just all be over. The feelings, the heaviness, the living.

I’m not sharing this for sympathy, for kind words, for shock, or any other thing that could potentially be assigned to it. I’m sharing it because if you weren’t there when I was going through it, you wouldn’t have known and you’d likely never have expected it. That’s the scariest thing, I think, about depression and suicidal ideations and thoughts. We never know who is having them. I’m sure, with my trendy styled apartment, my good salaried job, my close core group, my positive Facebook posting and how smart or funny or pretty and whatever else someone could say I am, plenty of people would never think it could happen to me, too.

There were a few bumpy weeks after that, but ultimately, I got my medication squared away, implemented some behavior changes and leaned on the people strong enough to hold me up. Everyone isn’t me though. Not everyone is as supported, or strong, or loved or open about themselves.

We don’t think people close or related to us, people that we care about will experience that; it’s a thing for television and movies, a thing you hear about someone else. But it isn’t. It’s a very real thing, for a lot of people. People you know, maybe even someone you love.

Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the United States. Asking someone if they are suicidal will not cause them to be, or give them the idea, it can actually help. Knowing the warning signs; talking about feeling hopeless or trapped, talking about unbearable pain, increased drug and alcohol use, withdrawing, isolating, sleeping too much or too little, giving away possessions, anger, fatigue. Changes in mood like sudden improvement or relief, depression, anxiety, loss of interest, shame … by learning the warning signs, we can save a life.

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