I would normally have something else to put here. Something about the research I’ve been doing or the books I’ve read or the podcasts or films I’ve been consuming.
You might get a funny anecdote about some of the projects I’ve been doing over the weekend. If you follow me on Instagram you’ve seen some of the pictures already.
So yeah normally you’d see something like that. Under the cut is mention of depression and suicide.
However with the bombshells dropped this past week, the political ones and the celebrity ones, it’s been hard to talk about the other stuff when all I can think about is the two latest suicides and how much they hurt, and a certain kind of understanding for why they did it.
See, I’ve been extraordinarily blessed in my family, both bio and extended. They’re supportive and wonderful. My tribe of creatives and colleagues is quite simply a group of the most fabulously talented and amazing people I know. I am so fortunate in them. My housemate is one of my best friends and seriously, I could not be luckier or happier with the support networks that I have. I have an amazing job and coworkers who are both family and colleagues. I know, without a shred of doubt, that I am loved, that I am valued, and that if I needed it, there are people who would go to bat for me in a heartbeat.
Knowing all of that, you might be surprised that there have been points in my life where I have honestly considered suicide.
I’ve had a chronic pain disease for 20 years, SPD for 31, life threatening allergies for 31. I also suffer from depression and anxiety. Managing all of that as well as just trying to keep living life is exhausting and that’s with everything going well. When life throws curveballs as it is known to do, it can get overwhelming fast. When that happens, the combination of medical issues with the depression and the anxiety, well on my lowest days, the only thing I truly want is for it all to stop.
I don’t want to die, I just want all the everything to stop temporarily. So I can take a breath, so I can have a moment away from real life where literally everything in my body is malfunctioning and my brain is full of fog and lies.
In recent years, I’ve gotten close to that dark place where I’ve started to think about what it might take. How I might do it. Too close, which is what prompted some of the life changes that I’ve made over the last three years. Job switching, therapy, cutting out toxic stuff and digging deep into things that make me happy as well as serving other people. I love being able to help people, it’s why I have the job I do. It’s why I’m good at the job I do.
Right now, I am not in danger. I have monthly therapy sessions in addition to medications which improve my quality of life. As stated above, I have a wonderful support system that is there whenever I need them to be. I’ve learned how to reach out mostly when I need it. It’s hard but I can do it. It was definitely a learning process.
The thing of it is, depression and anxiety will always be with me, it’s always a thing I’m battling. It’s a thing I know a lot of my friends are battling. The only way we can keep going is to keep talking about it, even when it’s hard to. So that other people can see it and know that they aren’t alone. So that those of us in good places can reach out to help those who aren’t.
Because you, yes YOU are loved. You are valued. You are worthy of love and acceptance, just as you are. You’re not alone in this fight.