A semicolon is used when a sentence could have been ended;  

but it wasn’t.

I’ve struggled to find the words for Suicide Prevention Week. Somehow, the things that are closest to our souls are often the hardest to release. It’s been on my heart in so many ways this week, and, to be honest, preying on my very humanness. The desire to help and soothe and to fix, for myself and for others, things that we can’t wave a magic wand. Things we can’t simply make disappear.

But depression and anxiety are a complicated duo.

They can’t be wished away. They also can’t be coddled into silence or wrestled into submission.

The emotion, the pain, the darkness…they have to felt. And that is some scary stuff. The depth of it is like being caught in a tidal wave. It’s why we develop other ways to cope. We soothe ourselves with food or alcohol or sex or the Internet or cutting.

It’s been a challenge to process the message, honestly, because I’ve felt so close to it at times. It’s crossed my mind more than once that the world would probably be better without me. And while having the thought and acting on it are different things, it certainly stems from the same darkness.

We’re so afraid to say something. In a world where we share exactly where and what we’re eating for breakfast on Instagram, share snaps of our newborn babies moments after birth on Facebook, vent our latest political rants on Twitter – we still don’t want to “intrude.”

We don’t want to share our pain because we don’t want to bring others down; we don’t want to admit we’re scared because we don’t want to be vulnerable; we don’t want to acknowledge our depression because we might be judged.

Here’s the thing: when you start to let it out? You realize you’re not alone. And that is something I’ve been so grateful for over the past year. The fact that others are willing to share reminds me that we all have stories. Those stories need to be told in order for us to continue.

What I’ve been processing this week in my own life is this: what seems insurmountable isn’t. What feels overwhelming can be overcome. What needs to be shared will be received.

Please, choose to keep going. Share your story; there is so much more to be written.