Trying to Find the Right Words

I haven't been able to put into words how I feel lately. I've been busy tending to family, friends, and my own thoughts. As dark as they've been, I try to keep a positive outlook on life as a whole. I'm mourning this week, as the anniversary of a close friend's death is coming and I'm not eager to pursue it. The feelings of confusion, inadequacy, anger, and even deep sadness take over during this time of the year leaving my empty and cold.

It's not that I haven't mourned her before; I do every single year, but the pain isn't any less. I still feel so torn over this loss that sometimes I don't know what to do with it. It's like a black hole suffocating and sucking all feeling from my body.

I've only had one other significant loss in my life that I remember, my great grandmother. She was well into her eighties when she went, and I knew it was her time to go. I was more at peace with her loss than I was sad. Of course, I grieved and cried when I found out she had left this Earth, but I know she is looking down on me now. This kind of loss was peaceful and gentle, but this one was not.

She was barely twenty one years old and she had, had enough of this life. She was small, maybe only five feet tall and she always had her hair a different color. The energy she had could light an entire room, maybe two. I've been told it's the happiest people that end up taking their own lives, but it's never something I took to heart until recently. I mean, how could I? I had never experienced something so heart wrenching before. Now I know. Now I know what it means to smile without really smiling. I know how hard people with severe depression work to keep themselves moving, to keep themselves motivated to keep breathing.

I can only imagine the pain she was in, emotionally. If I am experiencing something like this, how hard was it for her? How long had she suffered trying to breathe over the suffocating darkness that had clouded her thoughts for so long? I find myself in despair, I find myself grateful, I find myself over joyed that someone as special as her was able to teach me one final lesson in compassion and empathy before she went.

You see, I've learned that people are only human. As humans, we feel things so deeply, so strongly, that we don't often want to over burden our friends and family. We turn away from help and try to get through those hard times when really, we need to reach out and say, "I need you." That's not a sign of weakness, but to me, a sign of the ultimate strength.

I've learned a lot more about suiciperfect thing to say. I don't think there is a perfect thing to say in this situation, so I won't try. I'll just let the words come to me and go from there.
de now than I knew before this event took place. I began donating to suicide foundations, to charities fighting depression and self harm, because all of these things can help beat that overwhelming desire to destroy something beautiful. I've tried writing about it, but can never seem to get my feelings right. I think it's about time I just write instead of trying to find the

Just know that if you're struggling there are people who care. There are people on this Earth who need your smile, your laugh, and your presence to get by. You make someone's life better, I promise. Even if you don't know it. So today, do yourself a favor and ask for help.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
1-800-273-8255

This world needs you.