It doesn’t always go the way it should.
Not everyone has developed ears sensitive enough to hear a cry for help.
It is easy to get swept up in delicious, grand fantasies of loved ones comforting and consoling you. Loving arms that will whisk you away from your own anxious heart.
But the world is unpredictable.
When I first admitted my darkest thoughts from the depth of my depression, it was to my mother, at the age of fourteen. I now understand how she couldn’t see through her own pain – how nothing could have prepared her – how losing one’s father to suicide might harden the human heart to such things.
I wasn’t comforted or held or rescued.
I was told never to speak such things. I was accused of conjuring hyperboles with the purpose of upsetting her. I was shamed, punished, and ignored.
But my story will never be a tragedy.
My story is one of hope. I have fought and overcome the worst of my depression. I am thriving and I am healing and it is because I chose to speak up over and over again. I kept telling my story until I found the right people – good people with the ability and the compassion to help.
Your story can be one of hope too. But you have to reach out.
There may be people who try silence you. Reach out anyway.
There may be people who can never understand your pain. Reach out anyway.
There may be people who blame and belittle you. Reach out anyway.
Because when everything around you is darkness, it takes only one small light to show you the way home.
— Jess Aleigha
Together We’re Building
A better picture of mental health
Read another story or share yours
All Mental Health Stories | Depression Stories | Anxiety Stories
