Share Your Story

Write Your Story

If You Are Feeling Suicidal Or If You Need To Talk Please Call The National Helpline
1-800-273-8255

As time goes on, I think of this blog more and more, as a community blog.
It started out as my journal. I was walking in the park one early September morning, smiling until my face hurt. I was smiling because I had literally talked myself out of what felt like the onset of depression.
Learning that everything gains momentum by virtue of the attention we give to it, I resolved to reduce the momentum that negative thoughts would create, by choosing to focus upon pleasant thoughts. Within a miraculously short period of time I felt a miraculous change taking place within, and without me. It was then that I dared myself achieve a certain set of goals, by learning every thing I could about the Law of Attraction and keep a journal of the endeavour, this blog.
Three weeks into this the venture, my beloved twenty year-old son, Andrew, took his life. Even so, I never let go of this laptop, hanging on to this keyboard for dear life.
As long as I can write, I told myself as early as the first day OAD – Of Andrew’s Death, I’ll be alright, and if I am alright, I’ll be able to look after my husband and children..

I was right. Writing, making myself write every day, even if just to say “Today I can’t write,” made me keep on inhaling and exhaling, inhaling and exhaling, like a dolphin making a conscious effort to keep breathing so as not to drown.
And here I am, almost six months since that treacherous day, still writing and breathing and living.
And the blog has grown, and more people gather around it each day and we are creating a movement, and our lost ones are thus been honored and their lives and deaths recognized for the tremendous impact they had and have on us, and the world.

So, my friends, my fellow survivors, supporters, readers, do you have a story you want to share?
Who have you lost? What have you lost? Who do you know who has lost someone? In what way have you been touched by suicide? Have you thought of ending your life? Do you know someone who feels desperate, hopeless enough to want to end their life? Do you know how to help them?
And finally, what do you know about suicide?

Let us all tell our story. Let’s turn our individual stories into one big story.
The untold, unabridged story of suicide.
The story that too many do not understands, or even care to hear. Yet it is such a big story, a story that happens every minute of every day. Indeed, every minute someone attempts suicide!
Every sixteen minutes someone dies of suicide!
Yet, even when the news makes the news, like in the case of my son, for instance, it dies quickly. But together we can join our voices and raise the volume.
Suicide thrives in the silence of the night and will not survive with our noise and light.
Do you want to go first? Please email me at esmeraldawn@gmail.com
Okay then, I look forward to hearing from you.

Hugs,
Esmeralda

If You Are Feeling Suicidal Or If You Need To Talk Please Call The National Helpline
1-800- 273-8255

Addicted To Cutting
The following post is by a young woman called Annarose.

When I was a freshman in college, my childhood best friend was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for attempting suicide. I knew that she was having a hard time for a while before that, but didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. I had found cuts on her arm a few months before the admission, but again, I didn’t get it. Suicide didn’t make sense, self-injury didn’t make sense, being unhappy didn’t make sense, and depression was completely foreign to me. What made it worse for me was that because of my ignorance, I didn’t know how to help, what to say, or what to do. I submerged myself in my college life and distanced myself from my friends from home. In doing that, I slowly figured out what it meant to be depressed. I indulged in the college lifestyle – drinking every night of the week – simply because it was easier than focusing on what I missed. The first time I cut myself was at the end of my freshman year, I was 18. I think I was curious. I didn’t get how that was an outlet for my friend’s depression. I remember thinking that if she resorted to it, maybe it would help me release some of the pain I was feeling. It didn’t.

Over the next six years, I relied on numerous razor blades to provide comfort. I used it as a method of control. I couldn’t control how I was feeling – or at least I didn’t think I could at the time – but I could control exactly where I would cause physical pain, how much pain I would feel, and when I would feel it. It didn’t “help” like I had hoped it would, but it did become a staple in my life. I was addicted to the pain. I craved it. During this six years, seven friends of mine attempted suicide. They were all self-injurers of some sort, all battling their own demons. They confided in me knowing that I had dealt with one friend’s suicide attempt, none of them knowing that I was struggling with self-injury myself. No one knew. I was embarrassed. It’s hard to be the one people confide in and then admit that you aren’t actually as strong as they think you are. I realized that whenever someone came to me for help, my own depression was fueled. I hated the idea of someone I loved being in pain, so I made myself suffer for them. Thankfully, all seven of my friends did not take their own lives. Some have overcome depression completely, others are still struggling, but they are all alive and trying.

During those six years, I had bouts of trying to stop hurting myself. I worked out, I got a new job, I changed my diet, I moved to Colorado for a few years, I moved back to New York, I confided in friends, I spoke to therapists. I tried. I started to see the good in everyone. The overall need that people have to help others. It was really a beautiful thing. People, I learned, are stronger than they might be given credit for. They want to help, they want to take care of others. Today, I can confidently say that I have not hurt myself in 16 months. Still, I crave it. I miss it. It’s a daily struggle to just let whatever feelings I have run their course instead of trying to control them with pain, but I do it. I understand what it means to be sad for no reason. I understand thoughts of suicide. I get why self-injury seems to be an appealing outlet. I am no longer a stranger to depression. I don’t think that it is something I’ll necessarily conquer completely, but I know that I am stronger than my cravings, I know that happiness will follow a bad day, week, or month. I know that I can do it and I trust that you can too. My only advice would be: don’t keep it a secret. Tell someone what you are going through, once you stop hiding, you’ll realize that you’re not alone. We’re in this together.