This topic feels so taboo that my draft title looks like a foreign language because I couldn’t write bare to write out the words “depression” and “suicide”. I don’t know where to begin but because I’m an outspoken person with a history on this stuff, I feel like I need to say something. It seems as though the number of celebrities ending their own lives has risen so the spotlight is on and I’ve read that sometimes, this increases the instance of suicide among society.

The case of my lifetime favorite celebrity, Robin Williams, is different due to a plaguing disease that was only due to worsen. But I can tell you from personal experience that when you’re dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts, it similarly feels like everything is just going to get worse. Scenarios play in your mind and you’re absolutely convinced that nothing will ever get better. I just really want to say, even if this reaches just one person out there… It does get better. It really and honestly does, in so many ways you would never expect.

Let me rewind to back when I saw no future for myself. As early as kindergarten, I was the punchline to jokes and the kid no one liked. I usually had one friend that I would cling to for dear life. I was convinced, even by people I cared about, that I was scum. Big head, four eyes, gap teeth, those were just the basics to pick at me for. With my frizzy hair, everyone liked to joke that I didn’t brush my hair. In high school, my biggest bully actually sat in the front of the class brushing her hair and loudly declaring that not everyone knows how to brush their hair. Even while the whole class laughed, the teacher thought I was crazy for getting upset because she didn’t understand what was going on. It sounds like something straight out of Mean Girls except this was pre-Mean Girls.

From the age of twelve, I was a cutter. “Self-harm” or “self-mutilation” as the doctors called it. My parents tried to ground me for it but that just made the feeling of loneliness worse and encouraged me to hide my emotions and actions. Feeling at a loss, they began to involve care facilities and doctors. I stayed in-patient in a troubled teens ward at a hospital for a bit and then went to outpatient programs for a while. They tried so many things to “fix” me that it just kept feeling like I would be broken forever. It felt like I would never actually feel what happiness was, like I would live the rest of my life in a dark, cold cave all by myself.

I’d like to say that I finally found the magical remedy. I’d like to say that there is a drug or the perfect coping mechanism that I can share with you to help pull you out of the cave you’re in… but there wasn’t. I lived in that cloud of anger and depression for over a decade. Over a decade of feeling like the rest of my life would be grey and lonely, like the world at the end of the Silent Hill movie. Then, something happened. Another movie analogy that is completely insane but it’s like when Eddie tells Clark in Christmas Vacation, that Ruby Sue’s eyes got crossed when she fell in a well but uncrossed when she was kicked by a mule. I had several terrible things happen to me in a row and instead of absolutely losing it like I would expect, it was like I climbed out of my body and had a pep talk with the soul that was left. I was done being sad and hating the world. I didn’t have the energy to do it anymore. The world was going to have to figure out how to let me in because I was coming back and stronger than ever.

I’m not trying to write some self-help inspirational novel because I know I wouldn’t have cared one bit about that. I’m also not trying to say that you can always just up and choose to be happy either. Clinical mental health is often more than waking up on the right side of the bed with a balanced breakfast every morning. What I am saying is that there is an answer out there for you and it’s going to be different for everyone. Looking at the way my life has come together, people are shocked to know I was a cutter, kleptomaniac with a massive promiscuity problem, hellbent on setting the world on fire. Life isn’t all perfect all the time either. I have a bad case of outgoing social anxiety where I nervously blurt out my life story and then regrettably freak out about it later (here’s hoping this isn’t one of those times!).

Ever since I got figuratively kicked by that mule, I’ve had a favorite saying: “I just want to help people get from where I was to where I am”. I mean every word of that. I want to help the people who feel like they will be the outcast for the rest of their lives see that they do belong somewhere. Even if you have a few more years in your cave, I want to relentlessly shout into it the reminder that it WILL come to an end. I want to put the “hang in there” inspirational cat poster in the wall of your cave. Don’t cut your days short because now sucks. Now is only temporary and someday, you’ll have the coolest now stories to tell. Someday, you’re going to be on the other end, helping others over the hot coals of their lives with your testimony.

I hope that if you are feeling down or burdened, you won’t be afraid to reach out to someone and say something. Nobody deserves to suffer in silence. You are valuable, you are awesome.