 That hope sign in the background is going to be ironic for this video. I'm actually not sure about the wisdom of filming this or not. I'm really not sure if it's going to go up online or not. If you're watching this, you obviously know what decision I made. Hello, my beautiful internet friends. Welcome back to Sunday. We're going to talk about something pretty challenging today, a difficult subject for a lot of people. So let me start off by saying, first of all, definitely a trigger warning. If you have any issues with suicide or depression or anything along those lines, and today is not a day to hear about stuff like this or hear someone talk about it, please navigate away. I will put a link to an adorable video of puppies in the description down below that you can watch instead of this video. Secondly, I need you to know that I am okay, that I do have help, and that I'm going to make it. But I wanted to tell you honestly about where I am and about what being suicidal looks like for me. Why? I think it's kind of important to talk about for a couple different reasons. First of all, it helps me. Second of all, it might help you. But lastly, or thirdly, I don't think thirdly is a word. I don't think that being suicidal always looks like what it's portrayed as in the media. I don't personally feel like I fall into the box of what being suicidal looks like, right? And so from the outside, it would be very difficult to recognize. So I wanted to share my experience today and that's pretty much what I'm going to be doing and just talking from my perspective. Carrying on. You guys know things have not been super awesome lately. Struggling with staying alive is not a new thing for me. It's been on and off for the last eight years. I've had significant issues with depression and anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder and just feeling like there is absolutely no reason to stay on the planet anymore. For extended periods of time, but I've always found a way to hold on. I've always found a way to make it through. That feeling has definitely become overwhelming again lately. I think it's probably triggered in part by a lot of setback, but also it seems to be how my brain works sometimes. I haven't yet figured out a way to fix it. If that's even possible. I don't know if it's possible. So the last few weeks have been really dark. It's so weird to sit here and smell out the camera and say that I spent a lot of many days actively trying to distract myself from wanting to quit life. But I do. I also have a really happy life, a very happy marriage, amazing friendships, a great family. And I spend chunks of many days thinking about how I just can't be here anymore. How I'm just, I would like to slowly erase myself from everything and just disappear permanently. And when I'm around the vast majority of people, I know it doesn't appear that way. I'm engaging. I can carry on conversations. I smile. I laugh. I'm interested in other people's lives sincerely. Like that's not a joke. That I'm not faking it. But then there's just like incredible emptiness. And the second that I am not, that the on button in me is impressed, I am just dead inside often. We often hear about like the signs and symptoms of someone dealing with depression or suicide. And there are things like withdrawing from activities that you love and giving away possessions and things like that. Those have never been indications for me ever. I would say almost the opposite have been indications. I try to get like more involved in things. I try to do more things I like. I try to like, you know, become more engaged. Maybe I pull away from people. But I think I'm a really good example. I didn't think I was gonna get emotional at all in this video. Why it's important to check on your friends who struggle and ask them how they're really doing? Because I think I could fake just about anybody out right now and like always. The other thing about being suicidal that I feel like is not well represented is that it's almost always talked about like feeling worthless. Like your life is so meaningless or like people don't care about you. You don't feel love or you don't feel like you matter. You feel, you know, worthless. I don't feel that way. I don't feel that way at all. And I'm incredibly lucky and grateful not to. I know that I have a lot of value. I like who I am. I work on becoming a better person every day. But I put a lot of work into myself and I'm proud of the person that I am. And I like I said, I love the people around me and I know that so many of them genuinely love me. They really care. I have people in my life that would pick up the phone if I ever called and needed them. I don't presently struggle with a lack of feeling loved or like I'm worthy of life. I almost feel the opposite. I feel like I could go through life bringing a lot of value to other people but always feeling broken. Always always feeling like this rock in my chest. Always feeling like it wasn't enough and always feeling so very sad at the bottom of all of it. My worry is that it will never change and what happens in the moments that things get really, really dark. I almost get tunnel vision. My therapist talks about it like a funnel. You know, if your brain is working well, you're looking through a funnel the right way, you know, where it's like small on one end and then you get to see the bigger picture. When things get dark, which is what I call depression or being suicidal, it's like that funnel is flipped around and you're just looking into like a darker and darker tunnel. In the minutes when things get crazy dark for me, I find it nearly impossible to believe that anything will ever get better, that I will ever feel differently than I feel in that moment because I have so much experience feeling that way. That I think, you know what? At the end of the day, I'm always going to be empty. I'm always going to feel this brokenness and I don't want to deal with that forever. And a lot of people have these like visions or fantasies of what would fix the problems in their lives. Like Brian, for instance, really likes fancy cars like super cars and if he could have like one or two and we were financially stable and didn't have to worry about money and he could just like take care of his super car and me and the puppies and the kitties. That would be his perfect life. He sees that and he's like, I would be perfectly happy. Now, what are the issues in that life? Of course there would be, but to him in moments like when he said, he's like, I'm sad or upset because of this, this would fix it. I don't have that. I can envision literally the perfect life where I have everything that I've ever wanted where I can impact people and achieve things and do literally like the biggest things that I could picture and I could see that happening and I can't picture it without that feeling. And so I begin to question like, what am I doing here? Do I really want any of this? If I'm always gonna carry around this darkness and this sense that like at the end of the day, everything is meaningless at the end of the day, I will never feel okay. And that feeling itself is kind of hard to quantify, but it's almost like a physical emptiness in my chest. Like I'm not really living my life. Like I'm not really here. That emptiness, that darkness feels like it's whispering the truth to me that nothing is really worth anything and nothing really matters. And then it's always gonna hurt. Here's where this video gets a little more uplifting because it's been dark for a little while now, hasn't it? In those moments, it's not about convincing me that that feeling is wrong because there's not a lot of great cognitive thinking going on. I have learned that the most important thing in those times is to distract myself. In the past week, for instance, I was kind of spiraling fast. I was at home working by myself and I got to a weird, weird dark place mentally and I was like, you know what? I need to get out of the house. Like I have to go. I'm gonna go work at a coffee shop. And even though I didn't feel like doing that even though I didn't want to do that, I literally like made myself go through the steps of like packing things into my backpack and like getting in the car and driving to the coffee shop and sitting there to work because I knew that like even just a change of location might jar me out of that mindset just enough to give me to the end of that day and things might be better the next day. Other times it's calling someone just to have a conversation. Maybe not about anything serious. Sometimes it is to have a very serious conversation about what I'm feeling. Sometimes it's taking the dogs outside. Sometimes it's literally anything to like just get my mind doing something different to distract myself because otherwise I will keep spiraling and that's when things get really dangerous. Something else that I found is really, really important is to find people who don't overreact. When I express how I'm feeling, what I mean by that is it's really important to take people seriously when they say that they're suicidal or they're struggling to stay alive or they're super depressed and don't know what to do. Like it's important to listen to be there and to take those words seriously. But for me, when I've expressed that to people and their reaction is to be like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. Like what can I do? Or like we need to get you help or like should you go to the hospital or like you know when they get panicked when they get emotional over it themselves or like frantic or frazzled or anything like that it immediately puts me into the mind instead of like I have to fix this, I have to fix you, I have to help you. So I no longer get the help that I need in that moment if that makes sense. So I have people in my life now that I can text like, hey, I really feel like clip jumping today because that's a joke I have with a lot of my friends and depending on the wording in the situation in the day you have every right to feel that way. And instead of like calling the police or like calling me and being like, oh my God, whatever they might you know, give me a call and check in or send me a message back being like, hey, I really get it. I understand maybe I've been there myself but don't go clip jumping, you know. And the reason for that is because we've had conversations where I'm like, hey, I don't need you to panic when I talk about this. Sometimes I just need to talk about it. And so two things if you struggle with these kinds of thoughts and feelings I would say that it's important to talk to people in your life and then kind of set down guidelines of what you need in those moments. I mean, do you need someone to panic on your behalf? Honestly, does that help you? Cause I think it does for some people or do you need someone to just be quiet and listen? What helps you and then communicate that to them in advance that when you get to those places they can give you what you need because it can be really hard to hear someone say like I'm thinking about killing myself. If I heard that from someone who hadn't told me how they wanted me to respond, I would definitely feel lost. I'd try to do like whatever I could but giving people around you context on what helps is really important. And if you are on the receiving end of that if you've heard someone say that to you I think it's important at least in my personal opinion. This is just my experience. I'm not a professional to not panic and to not make it about you. It can be extremely affecting to hear someone say that it can feel like maybe you're not doing enough as a spouse, as a parent, as a friend, but that's not what it's about. I promise you that is not what it is about. It is not a personal failing of yours or of theirs. So listen, ask how you can help but try your best not to make it about you. Try your best not to completely panic and try your best to be present in that moment because I found that that is really helpful to be on the receiving end of. Final thing, a recent development in my life. My counselor and I were talking about this because I talked to her honestly about what's going on and she told me that it's important to know about actual resources in your area, like 24 hour resources because what I always had in my head is that like if I ever got to the point where I thought I was actually going to kill myself that if I called 911, they would immediately like put me in a site hold for 72 hours like that's not something that I want. And so I thought that was like the only option like either call my counselor if it's work hours and she's going to answer if the help that I need is beyond talking to a friend or that I would like go to a hospital or call in 911 and then be like in a site hospital, right? Like I thought those were the only two paths possible and she was like, no, absolutely not. There are places you can go where there are 24 hour counselors available. So now I have a list of those places in my area. Find what resources there are for you. There's also these cool apps that are remotely sponsored. I'll link one below that I've used that help you in those moments. Help you remember what to do like what your personal safety plan is like who you're going to call when you feel that way which are really helpful because again you're not really thinking that straight when your mind gets that dark place. That's my experience. It feels very exposing to talk about that but I also think it's something that needs to be talked about more often because I have rarely run into someone who will have an honest conversation with me who has reached adulthood who hasn't struggled thinking about suicide at least one day in their life. It's way more common than we think it is and it's a serious thing but you can absolutely find what works for you find help for it and find a way through it. I'm in that dark place right now. It's not just because I'm having lots of issues with my life. It's not just because I'm in physical pain. It's because my brain does this anyways and those issues probably exacerbate it. I need you guys to know that I honestly will be okay. I'm not going anywhere. I know what to do in those dark moments and I will continue to do that even if in the moment it feels completely futile and helpless and hopeless because I know that there always is hope as that sign and this tattoo say I am not going to give up and I will continue to put more pieces of help in place if things ever get more serious and I would encourage you to do the same thing and just a word of reminder if you know people who struggle with this sort of thing check on them. It doesn't always look like what you think it looks like when someone is struggling with suicidal thoughts or deep dark depression. Sometimes they look incredibly functional. So thanks for listening guys. I really appreciate it. Let me know your thoughts and your reactions in the comment section down below. I kind of feel like this is in vain to say after I just express all that but please don't worry about me too much. I truly will be alright. You guys are really awesome and you make such an incredible impact on my life. So thank you for your words. You really help me. A huge thank you as always. Go that to all of my patrons. I appreciate you guys so, so, so very much. Thank you. I love you guys. I'm thinking of you and I'll see you in the next video. Bye guys.