I spent the past week in a psych ward after attempting to end my own life. I have been unable to find work for a year and a half, I have few friends close by and fewer means to meet new people or integrate in local communities. While fervently applying and still without luck of finding a steady job, I have been working hard at other creative projects that have not yet been able to become financially successful quickly enough to catch me as the ground kept falling out from under my feet, and I have been at my wits end trying to keep myself and all my relationships held together. Last week, the dam broke, and I was free falling through a mania that I was unable to catch myself from. I irreparably damaged several friendships and attempted to hang myself from a bridge and was coaxed down by emergency services, whereupon I was transported to a local psychiatric hospital and admitted for the week while I tried to gain resources and tools to fix my circumstances.

I would still be in there if not for three godsends in that hospital: a dedicated and passionate nurse named Brian, and a fellow patient named Kiera, both of whom I found quick fellowship with. The third godsend was a guitar that I was allowed to play at my disposal, so long as I was under staff supervision. It was the first time I have been able to sit down to play in more than eight months, and the only way I could get so much of this negativity out that had infected my brain was to write and purge those feelings and pains onto the page.

I am not yet healed, and my circumstances have not changed outside of the hospital, and in fact feel worse than when I left for that bridge last week, but I am doing all I can to push forward and make a new path for myself. If you too are facing similar feelings, please share them in the comments below, and leave kind words for others. We don't have to be alone if we're together here and now. If you also have a story like mine to tell and feel like you should share it, please do.

If you feel like you're in danger of yourself, please reach out to someone - anyone. If it feels immanent lease reach out to whatever suicide hotline is available to you in your country. The phone number for the US hotline is 988.

If you're capable of donating a little money my way, it would help me toward my journey of trying to start my life over again.