I am going to ramble a lot during this, I have not put anything down on paper, or typed, in a long time. So I am sure I will jump around to different topics and while writing it I know each paragraph I type I find a new idea that I want to talk about. so enjoy the ride of trying to see where I can go with this and hopefully I see y’all around.

            2020 was one hell of a year COVID aside. College ended in the worst way possible. Did not get to have any of those end of the year memories that most people were able to have. Was not able to celebrate with friends or hang out and be excited with how life was all ahead of us. Something that I know is still there but has just been hard to see being stuck in this cycle that COVID has made most of us fit in to. Honestly, I do not even know what I missed out on by not having a usual graduation. But I know an afternoon in my sisters backyard was not the way I envisioned graduation going. Of course that was also after working for the day because that has been my life since early April. But work has been one of the best things to have happened this year. While I am not in a field that I want to be in right now, I am in a small family business that I enjoy being around most of the people. So while I will move on at some point I am happy for now.

            Its hard knowing that a whole year of my life has basically been taken from me when one of my biggest fears is making my life one that matters. Which is a very heavy topic that I might get in to. But I wanted to travel and better myself as I was leaving college. But I am always so tired after work, even on my days off I struggle to find the motivation to do things. Its simply hard when leaving the house equals danger for my family and putting peoples life at risk. But also staying my parents basement in a lot of my free time makes me worry about becoming the stereotype of a college graduate stuck living in my parents basement. But nothing can be done about that for the time.

            The good news is that this is the first year since I was 9 that I can honestly say I could focus more about living life then just trying to stay alive. But like I already said I could not do much with the year when all I could do was stay in the basement. I am so grateful that I can say that suicide was not on my mind this year. My meds are finally doing their job and therapy is going well, I only go twice a month instead of weekly. I want to say that I made it by being able to say something like this. I got lucky throughout the last couple years. I really should not be here, and I still ask myself why I was lucky to survive when others who I have deemed as more worthy were not able to survive. The topic of worth I know is not a topic that we are able to have mostly because everyone has their worth. But it is still hard for me to think about how lucky I am to have the friends and family that have always been behind me to keep me alive.

            All this is not to say that I have been perfect this year. I have been able to find a good group of people that I am able to play games with pretty daily that helps me not be in my head alone all the time. I have managed to remove people from my life that it was not just working with. One of my favorite songs is how I view this. 7 years by Lukas Graham has a line “most of my boys are with me, some are still out seeking glory, and some I had to leave behind my brother I’m still sorry.” I still hurt from the people I had to leave behind; some were the people that kept me alive. But I was a worse person back then, I was unstable and hurt a lot of them to a place that me being healthy led to a worse relationship. I hope some get to see this because I just disappeared, but I have always been good at that. But the people in my life have been great for me to have around during this time of COVID.

            I have had a couple really down days. The worst day, one day that I was worried for myself was in mid-June or July. When I got an email from my college saying that was a credit short of graduation. Something that happened before COVID came around, but something that I was not even thinking of a possibility. I had emails saying that I was good to graduate, that I just had to wait for their to mail it. But that was a rough night. I did not eat for a day, I shut down completely for the night. I still showed up to work and did what I had to, but I do not think I was a human for a couple days.  I got it worked out and was able to write an essay in a little under a month and was stressed out the whole time. It was pretty easy to take care of but it did set me back over 1k because of course I had to pay for it. But that was probably my low spot for the year. Something that no one but my family knows about because of how much shame I still feel for messing up this badly to end my college career.

            I do not really know where I want to go from here. This might be everything that I need to get off my chest. I already feel better writing this all down. I do not know if this even makes sense. But what is life with out trying to find something new to do. So 2020 was a shit year. I have had so much taken from me, but that fact that I am still here to have things taken away from me means that I am so lucky I cannot even be mad at the end of the day. But hopefully this means that I can start 2021 on the right foot. That I can truly start to change my life in the way that I can proved good change to myself and the world around me. Maybe I can finally start to see the meaning of my own life and find the value that I haven’t been able to see the last couple years of my life.

I have been really down the last couple days and I could not really get what was going on. COVID has made life really interesting, but I have come out mostly on top, I have already started working full time back at Hejny Rental. Which is where I am going to stay for a while till things settle down. But missing out on school and college has been rough, but I have stayed busy enough to keep going and figure it all out. But when I had therapy on Tuesday we were talking a lot about different things that are happening in my life and it got on the topic of Death and how scared I am of the idea of dying.

I think without having a religious background anymore that I do not find any comfort in the idea of any sort of afterlife, so that has been weighing on my mind a lot recently, for what ever reason that is. I think it is something to do with my grandparents dying in the last couple years and missing them more then I could ever tell anyone. But I really have no idea what happens, other than any time I think about it I have a panic attack and have no idea how to breath anymore. So that has been fun to have to work though the last week or two.

Another reason I was thinking I was sad was because I am graduating college, I official finished all of my course work on Sunday as I went into this finals week. But because of everything I was missing out on everything that comes with graduating. I honestly do not miss any of the celebrations that I am missing, I did not really want to walk. I am still so sad that Grandma did not make it to see me here where I am. That was what broke me the most when she died was seeing her at all my sisters and cousins graduations. So I am really missing her with everything going on. So I know that is not helping me out during all of this.

But the reason that I have found to be the most important reason for being as sad as I have been is that I was the closest I had ever been to killing myself a year ago today. I just realized that yesterday was that it was another one of my anniversary. I have talked about it all before, so I will not go into the details. But I will go into the idea that I do not know if that was the best outcome a year ago.

The easy answer is it was totally worth it. I am so happy that I am still alive and able to do the things that I have done in the past year. The friends that I have made and the people that I have been able to hang out and enjoy life with. Being able to continue to grow as a person and figure out who I want to be. Something that I work weekly on because I have no idea who I want to be or what I want to do. Something my therapist I am sure is getting annoyed to always talk about. Plus life is pretty amazing to be able to live and experience everything that is around me. The people I have been able to work with and help build up in whatever way that I can. One of my teammates after our last game this past year thanked me for being the role model I was, something I was not even meaning to do, I just cared that much. Things like that I would have missed out on. Things I never knew where even there.

But another part of me does not know if it was worth it to keep living after that night. All the nights crying and being alone. The nights of pain and hurt that I have caused to my family as they have had to watch me struggle to stay alive. I have not been suicidal since last year, almost one whole year of being suicidal free. I think that is important to say as I talk about all this. I guess it is a lot of philosophic kind of thinking, but I do not know the value of myself being alive still. In therapy I talk a lot of shame and how I do not think I am worth being the center of the conversation. It just is hard because I do not think I have anything to share with anyone. I will always listen to anyone who needs someone to listen. But I will almost never use someone for the same reason. I know that is still the depressed part of my brain that makes me think I am not worth enough to be alive. The afternoons of watching tv with friends and passing a rugby ball make me happy I am around. But a part of me still wishes I died that night for how ever messed up that sounds.

I just do not know where life goes from here. I am going to keep on living whatever life that I have to live.  But with everything good that is happening, I just think it is important to see that life is still so messed up. Btu that messed up part of life is okay to have. I am excited to see what I can do with my life in the next couple months and life has thrown some interesting curves in to my life that I never thought would happen. I am hoping this overall sadness ends soon, because I hate feeling this way all the time. I hate it

I have wrote this a couple times but for now April 2019 to June 2019 was the hardest part of my life. For the last three weeks of April and the first two of May I left my apartment on campus with the intent of never going back. I had my letter written out and it was always the last thing I looked at before I left for the night only to come back a couple hours later hating myself more and more for not being able to do anything right in my life. I also got through therapy, which I was doing weekly and also taking my medicine every day. Somehow some way I lied and told half truths because there just wasn’t time, I had so much to do with school and rugby that I couldn’t afford to spend anytime locked up in the hospital.

One of those long weekends I even got the chance of my life to play rugby at a regional level, with the U24 Men’s selects team for Minnesota. I loved most of the guys there and still talk to them to this day about that weekend and how life is. But that weekend was one of the worst, but there was no way for me to do anything that I wanted to, like ending my life. I was in a place I did not know, with 25 some guys that I had only meet three times before then. There was no WIFI in the small Iowan town that we were in and my families data plan was out so I couldn’t even use the 3G to talk with my friends and work through the pain that I was in. So I suffered through what I thought was going to be my greatest weekend of my life. Because once depression has its hold, even your highest highs mean nothing.

But we lived, kept on trying to be positive and do what I could for those around me. Because when I thought I wasn’t good enough to live anymore I have also found some hope in giving someone else a reason that humanity is good. Something that I have always used to get by in life. I’ve never survived by myself, always because other people stepped in. At least at my worst. I kept myself alive from when I was 9 till I was 18 and on my way to college. But since other people have known about how bad I am I’ve always relied on others to provide any bit of hope that I see in my life. Some thing that it is an amazing strength because I can keep surviving even when I’m at my worst because of others, but I’ve always seen it as a weakness because I’m never enough for myself. Ill just let people continue to decide about what it really is, I don’t see the point to continue to argue about this part of my depression with others.

It was finals week; I couldn’t even make it to the weekend because I wasn’t going to be in Duluth anymore. The plan worked out perfect, my parents were coming up the next day, May 8^th, so they could clean up my stuff and move it home. That way it was easier on them, which I know is not the truth at all. But it sounded good in my head, along with the part of it was time, time to end it before I had to go home and work 60+ hours a week just so that I could scrape by for my last year of college. Therapy had happened early that week, and I lied my way through that one. Something I got really good at by this point of the semester. I was always to afraid to print my letter in case someone on campus somehow found it and made me get help or questioned me about it. But that day I just didn’t care anymore. I walked to the computer lab and printed it off and walked home with my headphones in and listening to my sad song playlist, all involving different themes of not being good enough and no one would notice if I was gone.

I went to my place early that day, so I could watch the sun set one last time. Ever since my freshman year I’ve had always gone to Enger Tower as my means to escape. It is on the highest hill in Duluth and with a five-story town, the perfect place for me to jump to my death. Heights have always worried me, and I still don’t get my want to jump to kill myself, but it’s the only way that I can think of doing it, at least at the time. So I walked around the park, took pictures and put them on snap. Which is when the questions started to come in from family and friends. But like I said by then I was perfect at lying my way through my pain. Just how I wanted to visit a place that holds a special place in my heart for what it means and how pretty it was. This was all about 5-6 that night. Around 8-9 I think, not exactly sure about that time frame, I made my way to the top. It started to get dark out and looking out over the city and telling myself how no one would notice me not being around in a town of 70,000 people was one of my favorite past times these last 3 and a half years.

I reached out to two of my better friends at the time, ones that have slowly moved away. Because no matter what you want to happen everyone moves on after college, something that is common and hurts a ton. People that I would still kill for, but ones that I almost never talk to anymore because its honestly easier that way to not get hurt. But I just wanted these two people to know how sorry I was for forcing myself into their lives and how I was just a waste of a friend for the both of them as they continued to grow as people. Something I still struggle with to this day, because I still don’t think I add up too much, but every time I look around me all I see is potential. But word got out, those two talked to the group they were with, who all knew me and cared about me more then I cared about myself. They set in plan a way to get me off the tower and to bring me home at the least if not to the hospital. They called and texted trying to not get me off my phone. I guess I still had some part of me that wanted to survive that night because I couldn’t be rude and stop responding to them.

Also there was a family that joined me at the top of the tower. Three little kids and I only saw their dad with them. Honestly they were the only reason I didn’t stop talking. How could I give these kids that much trauma to watch someone take their own life. Who gave me the power to potential ruin their young lives and make their parents have to explain what had happened that night. Even now I think I gave myself to much power that night, which shows me that I still am struggling. Because I don’t think it would have been that big of a deal for that father, something that I really hope I am wrong about. Not cause I’m that important but because death is never an easy topic. So I kept on texting my friends, not for me at all. It was the last thing I wanted to do; I want to die. But for them because others always come before my. I stayed so that that dad did not have to try and explain death to three little kids.

By this time my letter was out on the bench next to me with my phone and my wallet in hand. I figured it would have been better to leave them all at the top so that they wouldn’t have to be taken off of my dead body. I didn’t want to make someone do that. As I was waiting for that family to leave one of my friends called me, crying, saying that she needed to hang out and to talk. Asking me to leave the tower and come back to campus so that I could help me out. Since people were so important, I of course asked her if she was safe and if she was in danger. Something I always ask of I get a crying phone call, but so dumb at that moment considering I was minutes away from killing myself. I told her I wish I could help her but I had business and she would have to find someone else to help her that night. She didn’t like that answer and asked if it was okay for her to come to me. I was hesitant but she didn’t take no for an answer. Then I got another phone call from one of the original two people I said my goodbyes too. She was always so calm to talk to, always seemed to know what was going on and always gave me the best advice. She was one of the people I trusted most, but now is something that if I see I walk the other way.

She kept me on the phone for 15 minutes. I still remember the time blinking on my phone as I hung up because the other friend called saying that she was there but she couldn’t make it up the stairs because of her asthma. By this time the suicidal ideations had passed since my friends had done ana amazing job of distracting me and getting there before it was to late. But since I had hung up on the other friend, she had called the cops because of where I was at and my mental state. Something I still don’t agree with, but also understanding I left them with no choice. In the end me and the friend who showed up were separated and I think five police cars showed up and I got the most attention, having to explain myself to three of them. But remember I was a great liar. I talked my way out of being sent to the hospital by talking about my parents coming up the next morning to move me out of college, and how I was going to be home and safe. How the ideation was gone and I understand how much I meant to others, the biggest lie of the night. I apologized that my friends had called the police and that they could say that everything was fine as another police car rolled up into the parking lot.

The police ended up calling my roommates at the time and made sure that they were home and that they could watch over me for the night until I could get help that next day. I wanted everything in the world to not be locked up in a mental ward and all that that entailed. SO my friend followed me home, I don’t think the police made it back to campus with me, but I could be mistaken. Walked into my room with both my roommates sitting in the living room waiting for me and ripped apart my note as they just sat their watching me. I had nothing to say. I mean what can someone say after they are pulled away from an attempt to take their own life. I went to bed knowing my parents would be up to Duluth the next morning and I was fully intending of not letting them in at all, I still had no want to live anymore. I still wanted to die more then anything in the world.

So my parents got up to Duluth the next day and I asked my roommates not to tell them anything because I wasn’t ready to hurt them as much as I knew I was going to. That plan lasted for about an hour when the head of residential life come to my room to talk about the night before. They said they got a report that I attempted the night before and asked if it was true. I don’t know what made me tell the truth, I could have lied, but I felt like the police called and they wouldn’t have believed me if I lied. They said I had to go talk to a therapist on campus, which I think is dumb. Seeing someone one time after an attempt is not going to fix anything and well they may have got me committed to the hospital, I was too good at lying/putting my best foot forward for that to happen. I think now is the time where it changed, because it wasn’t really lying, it was just telling them what I figured would work. I had so much to look forward to, I had so much “hope”. Did I have either of these things… not at all, but its what everyone wants to hear after an attempt. It’s what I wanted to hear, to have faith that the future would be better for me than anything I had been through. I got back to my room an hour later, and my parents had finished packing my stuff up and I had no option left.

I closed the door and explained everything. The pain in their eyes as I let them down still hurts me to this day. The pain of telling your own loved ones how much you hate living is the HARDEST thing anyone could ever do. I know people can think of things that are hard to do, but they do not even come close to seeing the hurt and sadness that it causes others. Both my parents would do anything to take away the pain that I’ve been at, my mom has taken it upon herself for me having depression and suicidal ideations. Something I think and I hope we are past but it’s been there for the last couple years. So we sat and I was defeated, I had nothing left. I had no will to keep talking about how I was lucky that I had some pretty amazing friends that saved me that night. That those three kids and their dad stayed at the top of the tower just long enough. How the police arrived and handled a very messed up situation and let me not be locked up. I just can’t get over the hurt in my parents eyes, I lost their trust. Before this they trusted me to be open with them, but I lost it that day. My mom wanted to stay up in Duluth with me until I come home for good, but I couldn’t let her do that. I was coming home the next day after I got into the doctor’s office and got meds to help correct me once again.

I had a monthly therapy appointment sent up in Duluth and that’s how I was going to get through the summer. Miss a couple days of work and just work so much that I didn’t have time to be depressed. It had worked the year before and I was sure that I could make it work again. I think that plan lasted about a week before I stated to end everyday with some three different pill cases in my hands just wondering what would happen. This is why I liked the idea of jumping. I could almost guarantee I would have died from that fifth-floor jump. Headfirst from that high up I figured left me with over a 99% chance to die. Pills are a different animal; I could have taken all those pills and I’m sure the chances would have been high. But there was the uncertainty that always made me walk away from them and go to sleep. But as the second week got along I started to drink a beer or two every night to unwind and with all the pills and the alcohol I felt good about my odds. I don’t know what made me keep not doing it. But I never went past the thinking stage of pills. I think it was the uncertainty of it all.

I made it that first month. May 31^st was my day to take the trip to Duluth for my doctor appointment and for therapy. My mom came with me because she wanted to hear what the doctors had to say. I knew that if they found out how bad I was there was no way that I would be heading home that night. But I thought I could wiggle my way back to my car at the end of the day and be able to work at 7 the next morning. It was our busiest time of year and I couldn’t let the guys back home down by not being there for them. I had to get home for work, Again not for me but for others.

I barely got through the doctors, I think I scored in above 25 on the PHQ-9 which is severely depressed and suicidal risk. Something that worried my doctor but I got out of it saying that I had therapy to get to. And I was sure that she would let me leave. A score like that wasn’t new to me, I was above 20 for almost all of the semester. I got to therapy, and as soon as my therapist saw me she didn’t hear any of my BS. I think I lasted about 20 minutes trying to convince her that I was okay and I always had followed my safety plan even that night in early May. But she didn’t want me to leave with out a second opinion from a therapist in the ER. She called my mom in and explained that she was not comfortable with me leaving the hospital that day, but she was willing to trust me in staying safe if I could convince an independent therapist. So she called a nurse who walked us over to the ER.

I was introduced to the ER as a white male who needed a psychiatric eval but was very calm and stable. I looked over in wonder of why they would use that language, and they explained that usually it was forced upon people so they usually were angry and a threat to the people around. I was led further into the hospital to a secure ward for the second opinion. I was given scrubs to wear and my clothing and possessions were taking from me. I was put in a room with my mother and we waited. I ended up watching the twins win a game that night. That was my only enjoyment.

The therapist came in about an hour or two later and we talked for a while. She said I lot of things that I was not okay with and things that made me angry to this day. Questioning me and my reasons for doing this to my mother. Asking if I could see the hurt I was causing her…all things that I knew and reasons for me wanting to take my own life. At least she would only have been disappointed in that and what had happened. I would stop hurting her with my further actions of suicidal attempts. I was doing this to stop myself from hurting other people, I was a burden that I thought no one could live with anymore. I was trying to do the world a favor by taking myself out of it. I’m still angry at what the therapist said to me that night, and someone should explain that is not the way that people should take to someone who is brought to the ER and is trying to get help. I’m sure she had her reasons for saying the things she did and for how she said them, but I wont ever forgive her for saying those things in front of my mother.

About an hour after we talked she said it was her opinion that I should not be allowed to leave, something I disagreed with. This was right about 6 pm Friday night. Work had just gotten down back home and I had that time frame in my head still. This is the point where I lost it. The doctor of the ER came in and said that since the therapist said I shouldn’t be allowed to leave that he was not going to allow me to leave. I don’t think I’ve even been more let down in myself and I don’t think I’ve ever cried as hard or as long as I did that night. Which I guess is a weird reaction for the ER because I kept apologizing to the nurse of the ward because I was such a mess. But she was glad all I did was cry… she was amazing to me and to my mom. I called everyone I could think of, they even let me have my phone…something they shouldn’t have, but I don’t know anyone’s numbers. My first call went to my boss about how I couldn’t be there the next morning. The second to my friend who saved me earlier that month, telling her I was finally going to get the help that she said I had needed for so long. But also her wedding had been that weekend and I was upset that I had to miss it.

I ended up kicking my mom out of the hospital around 9 that night because she had the long drive back home and I wanted her to get home before it was to late. She doesn’t like driving in the dark and I called both sisters to make sure to look for her. Because once again I was more worried about someone else then anything about myself. It broke my mom to leave me alone in the ER, it broke me to make her leave. But I was finally safe… something I hadn’t been in what left like years, but it had only been for 7 months at that point. I had already been parity hospitalized in January. I was lucky, or so I was told by that amazing nurse, I was going to be admitted to miller Dwan that night and could start getting better. She even called my mom to let her know the news, which she didn’t have to but took the time to. My mom was so happy to hear that I was going to be getting help and so happy that the nurse called her to tell her. I was really worried about having a psychiatric hold placed on me, which would have meant I had to spend 72 hours, business day hours in the hospital. Since I was admitted on a Saturday my first two days would not have counted for that hold, and I was so worried about having to stay there through Wednesday.

My family came up every night for the 2 hours of visitation that I got from 6-8pm. My sister even moved back to Duluth for that week so that she would be there for me whenever I got out. I don’t really want to get into the mental ward itself, just a lot of self-therapy and putting my self in a space where I knew I was safe and that I could finally start to heal. I got out Wednesday during lunch time and had plans with two different friends to hang out with before I had to go back home.

I went back to work that Friday, met with my boss on Thursday and actually took the time to explain what happened, since when I called when I got admitted I was a crying mess. He handled everything great and the guys were all supportive and were just so happy to see me. I even commented on how my smile was back, and how he remembered it from the summer before but hadn’t seen it in the month I was back before the hospitalization.

That’s where this story ends I think. I had a small relapse about two weeks after I got out of the ward… but that story isn’t nearly as interesting as this one has been to write. Maybe something time I can get to that one. But now I’ve gone from that small relapse to today without any suicidal attempts or ideation. Something I never thought I would be able to say. I’m hoping to make it a year of being suicidal ideation free, but that’s a big fight and I don’t like giving myself the crappy odds of that bet. All I can say is that my meds are working amazing along with just a few supplements that I have added, and I haven’t had to lie in therapy, or stretch the truth, since that last day of May 2019. But this is why 2019 was a year for me to forget, among other reasons. Its hard to look back and celebrate a year where so many negative things happened, I could celebrate living, something that I’ve taken to try and remember every day, because not every day is given. Not after what I’ve put myself through and what I’ve felt a depressed brain can make one do.

But the struggle is always worth it, even on days that I wish I could lay in bed all day and do nothing I still can remember the days where the sun was shining and I actually felt like I was going to be something in this cruel world. Right now the sun isn’t shining as bright as I want it to, and I wake up more days then not wondering if there is a purpose to this fragile life that we all live. But I’m not suicidal and even though those days aren’t happening anymore I can still see them in the past, and that gives me hope that ill soon be able to have them again in my life. Which also tells me that not everything is as bleak as it was when I started to write this an hour and a half ago, because I have hope for the future. Something I don’t think I’ve been able to say since before I was 9 and had dreams of my own funeral. Which is again a story for another time.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton