Throw back Thursday. 3 years ago I was having an okay, if emotional, day. I met with my bosses to let them know I couldn’t go back to work, browsed a few shops next door for cards and then went to the dog park with my boys. I remember what I was wearing that day and the last photo I took that last time I went to the park: I was backlit by the sun, my shadow on the pebbles in the water as my dogs splashed around. I was listening to Radiohead and was so grateful for the warmth that day, so grateful for the energy to do these things. Since that day I have been housebound. It crippled me. It knocked me down so far, I never quite got up again. I haven’t met friends again, browsed shops or gone to the dog park alone again…

Rereading this blog post below makes me so sad. I really couldn’t believe that something this life-altering could happen to a person without any explanation or good medical advice. I couldn’t fathom living one more day, let alone a lifetime, with the pain and sickness. I wanted to die and, even though I disguised it with anger in this post, I got a lot of concerned messages from my family and back-peddled quickly, so they wouldn’t worry: “I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m a fighter…”

But the truth is, as much as I wanted to live, I didn’t want to live like that. Every day over the next 16 months of relentless symptoms I thought I couldn’t go on and I’d rather die. The only thing that got me through was my mother and a few friends who were able to hear my desperation. Many people couldn’t hear it, it was too painful for them. But a few listened and didn’t say, “No, that’s not an option. Stop talking that way.” A few understood and reassured me that it was a totally rational response to my situation. And *for me* that made all the difference: To talk about it, to know I wouldn’t be alone with those thoughts or, if the time came, alone with that end game. “It’s an option, but not an option right now,” my friend Z. said. “Put it in your back pocket and keep it there. You need to try everything before you take it out and look at it again.” She saved me that day.

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Reach out. Whether you are suffering or you suspect someone is, please reach out.