When my studio collapsed in 2017, I was consumed with thoughts of suicide.

It took me too long to get help, mostly because I didn't know how to admit to what was in my head without sounding weak and failed and broken.

#nationalsuicidepreventionday

Anxiety, severe depression, planning ways to kill myself - none of these things fit into the personal narrative I'd constructed for myself. The narrative that success is happiness and that hard work in sufficient quantities will produce success.

#nationalsuicidepreventionday

There is an idea, I think, that suicide is for the lonely, living alone in dark rooms.

I had a new child, a partner that loved me with all of her , supportive friends & family & a future full of possibility.

But still I thought, again & again & again, about ending my life

One day, it all broke. The ramshackle defenses, the crumbling walls, the rube goldberg machines of blame and justification, they all fell apart.

It was the worst day of my life.

But I found, in quick succession, a therapist and a psychiatrist and medication that worked for me.

That isn't to say that there was a clean refresh. It's a daily practice for me to tend to my mental health.

It's easy sometimes. It's hard sometimes. COVID and *waves hands* all of this has complicated it all.

I take strength from those I & I try to give that strength out.

These threads are cathartic for me. In speaking these things aloud I squish some of the little defenses that are always trying to regrow. They're trying to reset the narrative back to something more comfortable, less complicated.

Squish.

Squish.

I hope these threads can also be ropes. Lifelines. For people who're having suicidal thoughts to hang on to.

If this is you, hang on. DM me. Hang on. Call a suicide prevention line (I did). Hang on. Try online therapy.

Hang on. We'll pull you in.
#nationalsuicidepreventionday

(yes, I know #nationalsuicidepreventionday was yesterday but actually it's everyday)