It is late, you know. Even by your standards. The world has been up and working for hours. But I know it doesn’t matter. It just makes you feel worse, right? The bite of guilt to start yet another morning in a long line of mornings that bear the same introduction. You don’t want to get up. It is all the same. Not a single thing comes to mind when you start making lists of what to do. In that haze of grey, you don’t find anything worth climbing out from under those blankets. You are as exhausted and you were when you closed your eyes last night. I know. Another day has coughed and sputtered into existence in a mind that wants no more days. It dawned to a person that wished nothing more than to not wake up from that deep and peaceful slumber. Those are the only painless moments in this existence. They are embraced and fostered into being by medications taken by the handful. It is without option. They are swallowed whole in desperation for a break. Each night looking again at the little pile in your palm, at once angry and horrified. They multiply as you feel worse, as if the dwindling mood somehow causes reproduction of these little round or oval objects. With each fist of pills a silent prayer to let in some light. yet knowing it won’t come. The sun is slanting in the windows but you do not stir. It heightens from pale blue into gold and still you sleep. nothing wakes you. The clock ticks past 11. The guilt finally expels you from the pile of blankets and pillows with force in to an unwanted morning. It is a harsh and bitter start. The day is like all the others. A routine etched hard within you. It is done on auto pilot with no hands to steer, no desire to change. Step by step, minute by minute. There is only suffering and wishing for the next handful of pills so sleep can once more tug at you. The farm huddles low on the hill looking shabby and in need. The broken boards scream at you. The unfinished tasks a mile long. But you don’t do them, you don’t do anything. I know. I know you can’t. Just walking is done by force. The desire and motivation are gone. In its wake an empty ragged shell of the person that did work and accomplished much. She’s gone dormant you see. Hunkered down somewhere deep within you. I know she is there. You do not. You’ve given up hope. You have ceased to resist the steady onslaught of suffering. You’ve bowed your proud head and fallen to your knees. There is nothing beyond the grey world you exist in. No vision beyond the immediate. No entertaining the notion there might be a better life with less suffering. You can’t see it and you have latched on to the belief your suffering is infinite. It isn’t. It will not last forever. Nothing does. You’ve gotten yourself out of bed and have settled in to the chair with your laptop. It is one of those days. Your only drive is to wander the internet in search of answers. Not a good answer. You have found your way back to lostallhope.com, the clearinghouse for all things suicide. It is your place of comfort, your haven. remarkably, the mind that can concentrate on nothing and rarely focus is suddenly riveted. Hours later you come up for air. Time has passed unnoticed. Your mind is lost amidst the images. The ropes, the razors, the ends. In an unending loop they weave their dark and dangerous designs. You don’t even notice. You’ve invited them in. You’ve engaged them and they are here to stay now. It can only get worse from here because once they are here you find solace in them. You no longer push them aside and fight to survive. You no longer wish the meds to work, or for a brighter tomorrow. That is gone. You cannot see it, but there is a change coming. It is going to shift. It will be different. I won’t say better because that will only push you farther away. I know you hate when people say that. You feel it somehow cheapens your tortured existence. You feel so strongly now you deserve the suffering. How dare someone question that. You wish only for the steady downward slide because you know with each awful day your resolve strengthens and your ambivalence crumbles. Just a few more days you say to yourself as your grey mind in suddenly alight with fiery images. There is no longer drab nothingness. It is all anxious anticipatory excitement for an end not far away. With each detail constructed you grow more peaceful. Your pain starts to wash away and you embrace this frenzied place in your mind. Life continues on around you. You are working on auto pilot desperate to keep up appearances. Nobody can know that it is now the endgame. It has to look normal. But you don’t know it doesn’t look normal. You look vacant and empty to those around you. the disconnect so great as to raise the hairs on the back of Virgil’s neck. You don’t hide this place well. When you fell into this place you started to change. The grey dull mask you wore as you fought to spit out words thick as concrete in your mouth, is different. They sense the change. You can’t hide this from them. You need to tell them what is going on because they can keep you safe. You can get past this and into the next fertile valley where your mind flowers once again and life is okay. I wish nothing more than to impress upon you how critical this is. It feels like forever. I KNOW. it feels terrible. I KNOW. you want nothing more than to leave this world. I KNOW. you want to die. YOU DON’T. Somewhere in there is the loving compassionate person you are. IT IS IN THERE. Yes, I know you are angry at me know. I should not have said that. I did. Just hold on. Hold fast. Change is coming. It is in the wind. I know you feel as if someone is tearing the flesh from your bones. IT HURTS. I KNOW. I’m here, flesh intact. whole. I’m here telling you to hold on. When it comes the lights will come back on. It will chase away the grey to the far reaches of your soul. That blissful dawn when the world suddenly comes back into focus is there. IT IS COMING. There is no greater feeling. YOU KNOW THAT. Within your shut down, darkened, deadly mind you know. You are still clinging tightly to your reality now. You want to die. You know how you are going to kill yourself. I KNOW. You are driven only by the task at hand. You want to create enough space to end it all. I KNOW. But there is no space. Even the fact that you can think there will be is testimate to where your head is at right now. All around you stand the most incredible people. In that grey haze they still stand there. You can’t see them anymore. I know you cannot see anything but your plan. I KNOW. I need you to trust me. Me, as in YOU. I know they are all right there wanting nothing more than to try to make it better. There is so much care and love. Trust me. Step back from the fireworks of suicide in you head. Open your eyes and touch the world. Don’t disconnect and dance within that vicious party going on up there. It may seem wonderful. IT IS NOT. It may look easy. IT IS NOT. That rope you have in your hand, in your mind’s eye, it is real. It is the end for you, and as such ME. Put down that fantasy. It is FANTASY. Suicide isn’t easy. You know that. I know that. Didn’t go so easily in the past. DID IT? You don’t just die Beth. If only it were that easy. YOU have to do the work, and it is going to hurt. A LOT. I know up there in your thick skull it looks like a breeze. It is all neat and simple. So inviting. IT ISN’T. I know you have made up your mind. You have committed. You’re 100%, hell 1000% sure it is the way. It is the best solution to everything. I know you feel that way. I’ll tell you what it is the best solution to. It is the best solution if you wish to cause utter torment and pain to everyone around you. Those people you can’t see now within the darkened confines of your depression. It will not make their live’s better, easier, freer. No. It will make them worse. You think it is the best option to make their lives better. IT ISN’T. I don’t know how to make you understand, so I am writing this to you. READ IT. Take it into your pores. Let is seep within you and think about it. Taste it. Touch it. FEEL IT. I am here, alive. I am here, surviving. I am here, thriving. YOU CAN MAKE IT. Give us a chance. WAIT. Let the plans rest. Don’t act on embellished fantasies your mind has created in a desperate measure to be free on the depression. You can wait a little longer. You know pain. I KNOW. You are tough and stubborn. BE STUBBORN. don’t give in. Don’t give up. I’m here waiting. The best is yet to come Beth. I’ll be here waiting for you.