Alex sat on the floor, trying to figure out what to do. On the left, sat a bottle of prescription meds. She could take them now, and end it all. End all the pain, end the suffering, the yelling, the crying. She could end the indifference. Sometimes she was so sad, in so much pain, she couldn’t breathe. Then, she would feel nothing. She knew a joke was supposed to be funny, but she didn’t feel it. She knew a movie was sad, hell she was sad most of the time she knew that feeling, but couldn’t experience it. It was an odd thing, to not feel anything. But then the pain would come back, and breathing became harder and harder to do.

Worse, she had to fake it. Her parents said “No one is happy all the time.” God, she would take being happy sometimes. But she was never happy. Ever. Her friends were worse. “I know exactly what you’re feeling! I’m so depressed too!” or  “What do you have to be sad about?” or her favorite “Just get over it! You’re fine.” Alex wanted to scream at them. Get over it? She wished she could. She wished she could wake up one day and just be fine. She would suddenly know what it felt like to be happy, to laugh at a joke that was funny, to smile because she just felt like smiling. They knew how she felt? What bull. She saw them, smiling for no reason, laughing with everyone. They were sad sometimes, they were not depressed. But “depression” and other neurological disorders had become a thing. Everyone had OCD, depression, anxiety, or bipolar. It was sickening.

People were suffering. Suffering! And nobody cared. Everyone over used the words to diagnose people with mental conditions and chemical imbalances in their brains to describe being sad, or neat, or scared to do something they probably shouldn’t anyway.

Just one more reason for her to swallow the whole bottle in front of her. Her mother told her she’d go to hell if she committed suicide, but almost anything was better than this. She would rather go to hell then go to her piece of crap therapist who nodded his head and prescribed more medicine that made her tired and sluggish. It didn’t make her better. But did he care? No. She hated him. She hated herself more. She couldn’t even tell him the pills weren’t working. She couldn’t tell her mother that her therapist was terrible. God, how she hated this life.

On the right side was a suitcase with clothes in it. Everything she would need was in that suitcase, including $12,000 she had saved up by dropping out of high school and working 50 hours a week for the last year. She never bought anything, she never did anything, so saving was easy. If she took the suitcase, she was leaving and never coming back. All her important documents were in there, she could get a new job, get a new life. She could try, one more time to be happy, to love her self, love the world, love someone else.

It was a long shot, but almost anything was better than this.

“Alex! You better clean up after yourself! I’m tired of picking up your shit!” Her mother yelled from the living room.

Right, she couldn’t leave a mess…

“Don’t worry mom,” she whispered. “You’ll never clean up after me again.”

Alexandra Jane grabbed her suitcase, left the bottle of the pills on the floor, and left the house she had lived in for the last 17 years. She never turned back again.

Note from the author: All those living and suffering with depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar, or any other mental illness, know there is help out there for you. You are loved, you are appreciated, and you can overcome whatever you set your mind to. Please, get help if you need it. 

– 1 (800) 273-8255 The National Suicide Hotline Number

Please call if you need anything. Do not let your battle win. It’s a daily fight, but you can do it.