Nameless
This person has struggled with suicidal ideations since they were 15 years old. They describe depressive episodes in which they are “sad for no reason” and incapable of self-compassion. They describe being wracked with guilt for not wanting to be alive despite all the good things and people surrounding them.
Death has been present in their day to day life in this way. At this point, they recognize how far they’ve come, “There is always going to be beauty in life and there is always going to be pain. I am so happy with the life I have lived up until now, and I am going to continue to try and live my life in a way that allows me to look back and go ‘yes I am happy with the decisions I have made’.”
Having grown up in an athiest household, this person has worked to reclaim a relationship with spirituality in marriage with science, “It’s up to me…to create meaning, and create a meaning that makes me want to be here…I am eternally practicing this lesson of how to tell my narrative in a way that is authentic and true and honouring me and honouring the world around me that lets me integrate into the world.”
In the end, they describe the people they love as a big part of what keeps them here, “Our lives are so much more than just our own. Every connection you make with a person, you are giving a piece of yourself to them, and they’re giving you a piece of themselves, and so that’s been a big motivator to stay. It’s unfair for me to take all these parts of people with me and just leave them with fragments of myself…it never felt like an equitable trade…we are so interconnected…it can be really powerful to see yourself as a web.”