I am about to admit something very personal, and very difficult:
In the past six months, I have been struggling with severe depression and thoughts of suicide.
And while I am not ready to announce that to the public at large, per se, I need to start the process of talking about it. Depression is not the killer; silence about depression is.
A few close friends-family, really- know about the things I've gone through in life. I do believe there can be a depression that comes via brain chemistry, and one via life events(usually as a subset of PTSD). Then again, I think those events might change your brain chemistry, but I'm not a neuroscientist so don't expect me to know too much here. The point is, many, many difficult things have happened to me. And many of those were beyond my control, things I probably didn't deserve. The weight of those things became crushing.
Let me explain something that perhaps not everyone has had explained to them about being suicidal; I did not want to die.
There was an amount of pain/apathy/self-hatred/miserability(all of those things at once, sometimes, or occasionally none) that I felt I almost could not bear it any more. I felt like a dead weight to all those around me, even though I knew I wasn't. That's the funny thing, you see, it's that you know your feelings aren't sensical but you can't do anything to stop feeling them.
But that's not what I want to talk about here.
There are two things, actually, that I want to tell you about. The first involves Chris Cornell, lead singer of Soundgarden, Audioslave, and sometimes Temple Of The Dog, and Chester Bennington, lead singer of Linkin Park. (And that, my friends, is why the Oxford comma is a fucking necessity.) These are two close friends and talented musicians that, only two months apart, killed themselves. I was devastated, both times. Here, I thought, were two men who made their lives out of telling us we weren't alone and to keep going, only to leave use behind. If they, who knew how important it was to seek help and had all the resources to do so, didn't... well, what hope is there for the rest of us?
When you're in that kind of hole, you look for your heroes. It's not easy when those heroes fall. It's like a small beacon has been snuffed out. I tell you this because watching my heroes fall has been very hard on me, and hope was in short supply.
The second thing I want to tell you about is my evening.
It started out reasonably simply, and then we all ended up at a bar. Not gonna lie, that's just how the gang rolls. Over the course of the night, I got to see and chat with quite a few people I'd been missing. At one point we ended up heading to a different bar to hear a band. I ended up on a couch with one friend beside me, a sweet boy with a heart of gold and his arm around me* on the other side. The music was playing at just the right volume to be infectious but not loud enough to drown out your words. For the first time in twenty-seven years, I was asked to dance. I had all the rhythm of a recently neutered coyote, but we danced as long as I would let us. As we sat back down on the couch all I could do was turn to him and say,
"This is a good life. I'm so glad I didn't miss it."
It is a good life. There are so many things to see(lightening over the bay, the middle-aged couple that still dances) and so many things to hear(your friend's cover band, a voice so overcome with emotion that it barely rises out of their throat) and so many things to do(dancing, having an arm around you, being kissed, having your friends text you that they've gotten home safe). I'm grateful to myself for not giving up, and not missing these beautiful things.
When my beacons are snuffed, when I feel hope is lost, tonight has memories that I can hold onto. A moment where I can remember saying, "This is a good life. I'm so glad I didn't miss it."
The war isn't won. I've made many great strides but there are more to make. I can see in front of me a lot of uphill hiking to get back to myself, but that's alright. I'm strong. I always have been. I'll make it.
This is a good life. I don't want to miss it.
*this is gonna be in the letter I'm writing I PROMISE
