Suicide

Suicide. The word suicide caught your attention did it not?
What I am about to write is based on the ugly but real subject of suicide.

The truth is, suicide gathers everyone's attention but it is the action which lead up to suicide that are left unnoticed. Except a handful of people, no one really truly knows the deep down truth of my going through being suicidal less than only two years ago.
Starting with depression, I did not realize for some time that it eventually grew into something so serious as being suicidal. Although I have gone through something so difficult and is so often times impossible to explain to the fullest of understanding to someone who has never gone through it, j have changed and have grown the ability of being able to understand others more fluently.
Honestly, before ever going through depression and being suicidal, I was stuck up, and thought much too highly about myself in many ways. The things I said to people with my nose in the air was terrible. Now, don't get me wrong, I do not mean to say that everyone who has not been suicidal think of themselves on a pedestal but am only merely describing myself before experiencing the twisty road of difficulty.

I was happy go-lucky literally night and day. A person would rarely see my face positioned in any other shape other than a smile. It was nearly foreign to see me frown. I was crazy, outgoing, crazy, curious, spontaneous, and spunky. I was known as the Christian girl who had nothing wrong and had a perfect life.
Through the years, I remember hearing Sonoran going through depression but the thought of being sad and down about life was foreign to me. Occasionally, I would hear about a suicide in a news story but I, honestly, could not understand it no matter how hard I tried. The thought of life being so terrible to be willing to end my life had never dawned on me before. It came to the point where the subject confused me to much I almost, I don't know, turned my back to the truth of it. I stuck my nose high in the air saying, "I will NEVER be suicidal". Well, what do you know, only a few short years later, I was caught in the state of depression with thoughts and plans of suicide.

I believe, as a person, I have grown from my experience. Now I still struggle in other areas in my life but I have grown in the way of being able to understand others in many scenarios and situations, what they do, and why they do the things they do.
When talking to people, I can understand everything is not always happy, exciting, or something I may want to hear but sometimes saddening and something that may make my heart ache.
I no longer look down on others as I did before when j see them doing or sayjng something I personally wouldn't because of my morals and oppions simply because as individuals we all have the right to our own opinions and thoughts and beliefs. I have learnt to look at people through another set of eyes that search and investigate rather than condemn and judge. I have learnt that choosing to listen is not time much wiser than choosing to speak. But most importantly, I have learnt that word really do have the power to imapxt like no other thing or person has it will ever have on this earth.
Words can either build up or tear down. Words can either build a castle but can also build a dungeon, words can lighten and encourage someone's day or they can bring darkness and kill, literally. The words we say everyday, both positive and negative, mean the world to someone. I do not know about you, but as a person wanting to once end my life, I do not want to end someone else's world because of something I said but I would rather jelly create it and decorate it with the potential and ability words have to bring beauty into someone's world.
Lastly, I once ran across this quote said by Marilyn Monroe that has inspired, encouraged, and taught me to simply find the beauty in life even in the roughest of times. She quotes, "Just because you fail once, it doesn't mean you're going to fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always believe in yourself because if you don't, who will? Keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling because life's a beautiful thing and there is so much to smile about."

I think Marilyn puts it well. But please, look after your friends. Make sure they are doing well and okay. Sometimes they are going through heavy and dark times. At the time, they may not say it, but they are. Please love them, take care of them, and be there for them. In this time, they need you the most.