TRIGGER WARNING FOR THOSE WHO STRUGGLE WITH DEPRESSION AND/OR SUICIDAL THOUGHTS.

I believe there comes a point in everyone’s life where the pain doesn’t seem to be subsiding. Whether that be physical or mental, it won’t seem to let up. Everything keeps replaying over and over in your mind. It is like an endless loop but then something new gets added before you even have time to breathe from the last thing. It is so easy to want to block it all out. To suppress it deep into every fiber of your being while you numb what’s left. You numb it with people, and pills to make you sleep, and alcohol to make you feel something. In reality… that is like pouring salt on a wound. It makes it hurt worse. It doesn’t bring healing. It brings pain. The pain almost feels like thick slabs of concrete that keep getting piled and piled on top of you. It gets piled up until you can’t bear the weight anymore. The only option you feel left is to stop breathing. The hard thing about depression is that no one knows that feeling in that moment except for you. You want someone to be there for you so badly but you hardly even know how to describe the pain. If you do know how to describe it, it may be terrifying to let that person in. Mental illnesses are not something you can wrap up or slap a bandaid on them. I believe that is why a lot of people don’t take them seriously. Take it from me and what I’ve been through and what I have seen people I care about been through… it makes you numb. It makes you not enjoy what you used to. It makes you isolate yourself and shut people out who actually care about you. From my experience, it’s the isolation that torments you in the late hours of the night, telling you that you are worthless. It makes you wonder what it would be like to put a gun to your head. It makes you wonder what it be like to not feel anything anymore.

I am not saying this for attention. I am not saying this as a cry for help. I am saying this to shine a light on that stigma. I understand it way more than a 22 year old should. Looking back on who I was in high school, I didn’t even think I would make it out of high school alive. I am here at 22 because I fought and I am still fighting. Yes, it is so fucking hard but there is something that a friend said to me after my last suicide attempt in the summer of 2018. She said to me, “Ashley, you are not stuck. You are not stuck in this place.” That right there has gotten me through some very hard times since then. I am not and will never be stuck in a state of misery and neither will you. I cannot promise you your situation will change, I cannot promise immense blessings, but I can and always will be able to promise you that you are not stuck here. You are not stuck in the muck and mire of what this world and what your brain is telling you. Telling you that you would be better off in the ground, telling you that you need that alcohol to numb it, or telling you that you are worthless by societies standards. I don’t think you’re ready to die. I know you have dreams. I know you have longings in this life. Let someone into those dark parts of you. If you don’t think anyone wants you here, I promise that I do. I believe that every single human being brings beauty to this world in some way, shape, or form. You may not see it, but I sure do. I see beauty in the mundane and in the things that society deems worthless and in human beings. There is beauty in you. Your life is not irrecoverable.

I think Jamie Tworkowski said it best… “Be loved. Be known. Love people and know people. Be so brave as to raise a hand for help when you need it. Make friends and make sure they know they matter. Be loyal to them and fight for them. Remind them what’s true and invite them to do the same when you forget. If you do some losing or you walk with someone else in their defeat, live with dignity and grace. It is a middle finger to the darkness.”

Keep fighting. I want you here.

God speed my friends…

I love you