Suicide...

I posted this on Facebook on September 26th, 2017.  I was sitting down with thoughts running through my mind about how our community had just lost another.  I spontaneously began writing and this is what came out.  I wrote it and posted it without reading it.  The response I received to it was pretty overwhelming and quite unexpected.  I still haven't read this, but I feel like sharing it here...
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I'm sitting here with a heavy heart after learning that our community has lost yet another wonderful soul to suicide. His was the fourth one I know of in the past year (the third since the beginning of July), all of whom I have connections to in one way or another. Also, in recent years I have known others who have taken their lives, and even a single mother who was dead on the table and brought back to life by doctors after trying herself.

These are all beautiful people of all sorts. You name it, single, partners, children spanning a diverse mix. This might shock most reading this, but I had endured a lot this past winter that had me pushed to the brink of the same thing...completely thought out and teetering on the edge. As messed up as it may sound, the only thing that kept me from taking that leap over the ledge was my doggie

I've had decades of tough pain stacked up against me, and have always had a knack of enduring in a way that has inspired many thousands of people from all over, whether I have met them or not.

My physical pain has never been a challenge. That stuff is easy, just toughen up and go forward has always been my way...and it is my genuine feeling for that. I just got hit by things heavier than I knew how to deal with, and found myself in a place I couldn't escape no matter what I did...all that were completely separate from the physical pain swirling within.

I never mentioned anything to anyone until this summer when we lost another good one in our community. It's not because I didn't have tons and tons of people I could have talked to, because, believe me, I am surrounded by countless people who would do anything for me. I am truly blessed that way. It was just a weight I felt was my own, even though I struggled so hard to navigate my way through it. Every day was nightmare that I was surprised I got myself through. Somehow I stuck it out even though I didn't know how to at the time.

Life can be a real tricky fucker that can throw us some heavy, heavy shit that feels beyond our knowledge of how to cope. It has pushed beautiful people to leave us, leaving behind children, partners, siblings and parents, friends... I'm not one to say I know what the answers are, but I know love is in there somewhere.

As we all have here on Facecrack, for years I have been seeing these posts that people post and copy to show that people are listening, and that their doors are always open, and such. Even with amazing people in our lives, it isn't as easy as that...at least that's how it feels. Even with the love that you know is there it's a silent burden that can be suffocating on all the senses with no ease.

It's such a hard thing. All the people I have known who have taken their lives have all had a lot of really good people in their lives, people who would be there for them in a second, but yet the weight was still too much.

I don't really know what to say next. I know love is a part of the answer, but how does one infuse love into something that is unknown and closed off? I knew I had literally hundreds of people I could have talked to...all who will be absolutely horrified reading this...but it wasn't as easy as that. It never is. It is a very crazy feeling when you can be in a room full of people who love you more than they could express, yet you feel completely alone...on your own, with the weight of the world crushing down.

It's absolutely heartbreaking seeing how common suicide has become. Even though people may be closed off with the burdens they might be carrying, showing love is never the wrong thing. Ever. Express it freely. Shine it brightly. Don't be afraid to embrace it when it is offered. Share it. Become it.