depression and suicide.

i was in the middle of those difficult teenage years when i first connected depression to suicide. i had always had the dis-balance of  the extrovert-introvert. my inner life and my outer life were as distinct as night and day. i was the happy boy at school, full of quiet mischief and barely lovable incompetence.at home i was a shadow, barely walking the walk i talked, out to some, in to others, the perfect picture of a breakdown waiting to happen.

and so it happened.

one fine day i stood on the roof of the family apartment and looked down at the grass below. the grass would not break my fall. i looked out into the skyline of the city and thought of my family in ruins and all the little tragedies that made up my blossoming life. it was there that i first thought of jumping off that roof into the freedom of the ground below. i came face to face with the seed of a depression that can grow into the tree of suicide.

to those that live outside the shadows this is all bunkum. sad things happen. move on. grow a stronger heart. this is a misunderstanding of the nature of what it is to be a depressive. it is an overwhelming feeling that futility is the foundation on which the slowly moving earth is built. there are no quick answers to this person. the world is a bundle of joy one minute and a cursed wasteland the next. it is the state of a fractured soul. i would like to say that love can cure this broken heart but in many cases it is just the begginning. it must come out of the shadows and endure the burning sun until it is healed. it must embrk on a lifelong search for worth amongst the remains of a formerly transcendental life. the journey is long but it is possible. suicide is not a solution to depression the same way numbness is not the solution to the vagaries of love. the soul must come out into the sun of life and find meaning in the daily brightness of the illumination God offers.

the depressive must do this.

i must do this.