Why I Kept Living-- An Open Letter

This letter is written to be personal. It is written to you, my reader, my friend. As you read what I have written ahead I will warn you that I did not write this as a fluff piece, it is not filler or a story about butterflies and rainbows. I'm going to deal with the nitty gritty, the tough stuff. Read ahead with an open mind, and understanding. 

Dear Friend,

We have entered into September and I, like you, am excited for cooler weather, pumpkin spice, and everything nice.

September is also Suicide prevention and awareness month. In the past I have written and shared an open letter I wrote in response to an article written after Robin Williams death, if you haven't read it then here's a link. It will open in a new window so I encourage you to click and read now if you haven't before.

Today, though, I think it is time for me to share a more personal side of the story.

I'm not entirely sure when it began. I could say sometime in middle school, somewhere between 5th and 8th grade. There was no defining moment, no horrible tragedy or painful memory that marks when I began to struggle with depression. I know it was around that time that my grades dropped and I started compulsively lying. I know that's when I started becoming angry and when I started pretending to be sick to stay home from school. I know that's when I started actually being sick for what seemed like no reason.

I could enumerate the tragedies that manifested during this time. The death of friends close to my own age, the destroying of long-held friendships, etc. But that's not the story I have to tell.

The story I have to tell is about emotion. This goes beyond typical teen angst (which I also had plenty of). The "typical teen posts" like crying myself to sleep every night and being the girl who looked happy on the outside but was falling apart weren't just cliche quotes for me, they were my life.

If you have never experienced clinical depression or been suicidal I cannot explain to you how I felt. I cannot make you feel like an elephant is sitting on your chest. I cannot make you feel that you are about to cry even when you're laughing. There is no way to show you the difficulty of pressing through a school day when you can barely force yourself to get out of bed. I was often so tired I could barely stay awake at school, but insomnia kept me up most of the night.

All I can give you is a picture of a 15 year old girl crying to her doctor because she can't stop shaking. A 16 year old girl almost getting fired for crying at work because she couldn't take the pressure anymore. An 18 year old girl barely leaving her dorm room because she couldn't bring herself to do anything.

Imagine the feeling of losing your best friend, or perhaps the feeling you have after pulling an all-nighter to finish a paper... 24/7 for years on end.

I was sad, angry, frustrated, exhausted, in physical and emotional pain.

Imagine wanting to die at 14. Or 15. Or 18. Because you cannot imagine a world that has color, or where you don't feel sick and exhausted all the time, or where you have a steady hand.

Imagine feeling like you can't tell anyone, because it's shameful to feel this way. Because it will be blown of as PMS. Imagine considering driving your car into the ditch every day on the way to or from school.

I honestly can't remember a time between 13 and 18 that I didn't feel like dying.

I want to tell you something important: Suicide is not selfish. I didn't feel like dying because I didn't think about the people around me, I thought that they would be better off without me. This was obviously not the case, which brings me to this.

The hashtag for this month of awareness and prevention is #whyIkeptLiving. So I'll tell you why I did.

I kept living for pets that needed me to care for them. I kept living because I saw families of those who didn't ripped apart by the tradgedy. I kept living because I felt too ashamed for anyone to know what I was going through even if I wouldn't be there when they found out. I kept living because I had to.

I didn't keep living because people helped me. My doctor watched me cry and shake and did nothing. A counselor asked me how I felt and accepted my lies about being fine.

My parents did get me a mentor and she was an amazing influence in my life.

But the main reason I DID keep living and why I'm getting better:

A support system. An unknowing one. A group of people who reminded me that they loved and cared for me on a consistent basis without knowing that they were constantly saving my life. It's why I cried at my senior homecoming and graduation. It's why going so far away for college, even though it was my dream school, was so difficult for the first semester.

I won't say that I don't still have occasionally battles with depression. I still have days and sometimes weeks that are hard to get through. But since I started being open with people about my struggle I have more reason to keep living. I haven't been suicidal in a couple of years.

Paraphrased to fit my own story from one of many quotes that has kept me going through all of it:

When I was 16 I was a depressed teenager who wondered just how painful it could be to end my own life. 

Today I am sitting on my couch 4 months from marrying the love of my life with 4 of my best friends standing up beside me, most of which are traveling a great distance to do so.

Life gets better. Make sure you're there to see it.