********* Trigger Warning *********

****** Anxiety, Depression and Suicide ******

As someone who has struggled for almost 4 decades with anxiety and depression. As well as someone who is a suicide attempt survivor, this song hits way too close to home.

It to me at least has a resonance with Hurt. The cover version that Johnny Cash did of the Nine Inch Nails original composition.

Mental Health awareness and wellness are so important. We need to take away the stigmas associated with Mental Health altogether. Especially for Men, because we tend to be the group with highest suicide rates by far.

Being told you are only allowed a handful of emotions. If you show more you are lesser than.Being told that asking for help is weakness. Being told that showing emotion is weakness.

That you must just suck it up. Which in turn becomes burying it within. So it festers and begins to slowly poison you. It may play out in addiction or any other number of destructive tendencies.

I also want to say to those who so harshly judge without empathy, the people who are so lost in the darkness. People who can't or are unable to see hope in their journey.

I want these same people who so easily judge. Have them go through the experiences and traumas that lead you to feeling you have nothing left. Feel that you have no point or purpose.

Feeling that you don't deserve acceptance, happiness or to be loved. Have your brain tell you every moment of your day that you are a burden, a failure, a loser, stupid, ugly and worthless. Or any other hundred terrible things.

Now take that daily process and turn it into years and decades of that broken narrative.

Tell me after that experience, if you would still think these souls are selfish and weak. Tell me then, that those who are unable to see any other way... They should just accept it as "it is what it is" and "life isn't fair".

All excellent ways to minimize someone's experiences and traumas. All tonedeaf responses to someone who may be crying out for help. When they get those types of responses, why would they bother asking for help?

It is so hard to ask for help when you have so many competing takes being thrown at you both inside and outside of yourself. Then be met with these toxic stigmas and watch whatever hope you clung onto fade away into the ether.

At the point I made my attempt, I did not see that I could hurt anyone. Not my family and not my friends. I wasn't doing it as an act of anger, backlash or revenge. It was my brain telling me the only way to escape this Hell, was to end things.

I actually had convinced myself that my family and friends were better off without me. Without all of my failures. Without all of my stupidity. Without all that encompasses my worthless existence.

When you are so lost in the Darkness. You are alone with your negative narratives that haunt you 24/7. It is draining and exhausting. How many more times do I have to pick myself up? How many more times will I be wracked with the unceasing grief, loneliness and self-loathing? When will the seemingly endless parade of "life lessons* stop drowning me? When can I just have peace?

I am now 47 years old and it has been 11 years since I tried to end my existence. I think of all the experiences I have been through both good and bad since that July day in 2012. All the people that I have got to know since.

It has been hard when you have spent almost 4 decades hating yourself. Hating how you feel. Hating how you look. Hating how you think. Hating the person looking back at you in the mirror every day.

The healing process never truly ends. I realize that this is my battle for the rest of my time here. The Darkness always searching for the cracks and fractures. Looking for a way to consume me whole finally.

Hopefully each day brings you one step closer to living the life you actually deserve. Not the fractured one you embrace as you knew no other way to be.

It is not weak to ask for help. It may be the bravest thing you ever do!! You deserve to be helped. You deseve to be happy. You deserve to be accepted and loved. You deserve to be here!!

Most especially find a way to love and accept yourself.

Speak to Me lyrics

Speak to me, I will follow I heard you call my name Lying on the bathroom floor No one here to blame There's a message I know can be found I'm listening, I hear you, your sound

Speak to me in a language That I can understand Tell me that you're listening Give me some kind of plan Give me something, you'd be my drug of choice You lead me, I follow, your voice

I will disappoint you I will let you down I need to know you're here with me Turn it all around I'd be grateful, I'd follow you around I'm listening, I'm here now, I'm found