Trigger warning: depression & suicide.
You’re having a great day.
You’ve drunk coffee, laughed, taken a shower, gotten frustrated, worked, and eaten and somewhere in there it dawns on you that you haven’t been too depressed to get out of bed in a couple months. You mentally high five yourself, put the memory of 15 years of depression on the back burner, and go back to work.
Six minutes later, however, a song comes on and you are immediately and helplessly transported to another place and time.
It’s February 2nd, you’re lying face down on your bed - a couch in the common area of a hostel - under a fan running full blast in an attempt to assuage the heat and humidity of the rainy summer season in the Brazilian Amazon. It’s been exactly two weeks and four days since you sat huddled on the shower floor wondering how you would ever think life was worth living again. You’d somehow made it through that day, but the next few days - 18 to be exact - had not been a walk in the park.
They’d been more like a walk through hell.
You had once again chosen to live, but things hadn’t gotten much brighter since then, and you really just don’t have much energy left.
The song comes on, saying the words you are barely brave enough to wish. And that tiny glimmer of hope gives you the strength to open your eyes and see the angels life has sent, bringing you smiles and strength without even knowing that you needed them.
A small step into the light.
But that was the last time you heard the song.
This time is different.
It’s May 5th, this time it’s a cold rainy afternoon while you’re in the middle of painting a night sky on the ceiling of your new hostel’s reading room. And this time it’s been several months since you laid on your bed too depressed to even open your eyes.
Encouraging? Absolutely!
Relieving? Without a doubt.
But all of a sudden those 15 years of depression you thought you’d put on the back burner begin to boil over and spill into your consciousness.
You remember the unexpected hug you just received from a friend and the late night ice cream and movie you loved so much last night, and immediately think, “What if I’d missed those? What if I’d done it…??”
You think about the discoveries you’ve made and successes you’ve had since then, and immediately wonder, “Why did I ever think it wasn’t worth it?”
Your mind wanders to the amazing people you’ve met since then, the 3-hour phone conversations, the 4am texts, and immediately ask yourself, “How did I ever get there, on the shower floor, convinced that the best option was taking my life?”
The memories come thick and fast and you nearly cry at the realization that you came so close to missing all of the love, the laughter, and the lessons of the last few months.
But then the fear breaks through like a hurricane, smashing through the flimsy walls of encouragement the last few months erected. Demolishing the false sense of relief you’d begun to indulge in…
“How long until it happens again?”
“How long??”
“HOW FUCKING LONG??!?!!”
“I had years and years and years of good times before that day. And it still happened. It’s going to happen again.”
“I know how I got there. I know the paths my mind takes to get that low, and no matter how long I walk other paths, THEY’RE STILL THERE.”
“What if I don’t make it next time?”
“What if this time I don’t get that random text message from an old friend who somehow knows something is wrong even though we haven’t talked in months?”
“What if it happens again and I don’t have enough strength, and I never get another unexpected hug?”
“I’m so happy today. I’m so so glad I’m alive! How the hell do I know I’ll make it next time, tho?”
There are no easy answers. There are no quick fixes. And yes, it is terrifying to realize that there is no way to know when it’ll happen or how I’ll respond.
But let’s keep talking.
Because there is a small chance that just opening the conversation will increase the likelihood that next time, I make the same decision as last time.
Life.
And there’s a small chance that keeping this conversation open will will increase the likelihood of someone else choosing life too.
It’s a scary, uncomfortable topic. But avoiding it has proven fatal; let’s not make that mistake again.
