Until a time, a lot of time, I learned to listen
And when I listened they became beautiful creatures
And they would hand me secrets
And point me towards the vulnerable bits of myself
That I had long forgotten, and they would help me integrate
The deepest feeling you have in the throws of an acute depression
Is that nobody could possibly understand what you're experiencing
That nobody could possibly make sеnse out of it
And that if you told other peoplе all you would do is to destroy the friendships around you
I hated them for a long time and I think today I do appreciate them
For caring enough about me to actually say something to somebody
The people who deny their experience
The ones who say I was depressed a long time ago
And I never want to think about it again
And I'm not going to look at it and I'm just going to get on with my life
Ironically, those are the people who are most enslaved by what they have
Shutting out the depression strengthens it
When you hide from it, it grows
I started going to recovery
The validation that you get when someone else went hrough the same thing, or is going through the same thing
That's what helps me alot
Everyone has some great difficulty that they're dealing with
And the struggle, that feels so isolating is in fact the most uniting thing there is
Once you acknowledge the struggle that you're going through
You give other people safety to acknowledge their struggle
And what comes of that is not the isolation that people imagine
"Oh, it's so stigmatized, everyone will laugh at me"
What comes out of acknowledging it is the greatest intimacy possible
But you're here, and you're doing something already
Because you're changing the way you think and that's what changes the world
So for those of you who might be thinking about suicide today
Good, keep thinking about it
And then start talking about it
And then start doing something about it too
And for those of you who might be contemplating suicide
I know that there's a hope somewhere deep inside you, I've felt it too
Keep that hope alive
We need you
We need you to be leaders in this conversation, whether we are ready to have it or not
And trust me, if you're anything like me it's this conversation that's gonna keep you alive
Every single day
As though you've got just one more day