Naming the Darkness

“When you can’t look on the bright side, I will sit with you in the dark.”

Unknown

At the end of 2023, I thought about killing myself. The thoughts lasted about a month.

If you're reading this and worried about me, I'm okay now. I'm far past that month. I'm writing this because the silence around this topic is more dangerous than the discomfort of naming it. I wrestled with whether to write this at all. Not because I feel too vulnerable, but because this subject is somehow taboo. Everyone wants people to be supported, but we're afraid to just say it. Say the thing that is real. We're afraid people will think we're weak, or worry about us when we've already recovered. Because. Because. Because.

But that tension, that fear of naming it, is exactly what makes you not want to get support when you're going through it.

So I'm saying it. I thought about ending my life. And I want you to know, Lyla, that if you ever get to that place, you can say it too. To me. To your mom. To someone. You can name the darkness.

It was a perfect storm. Work stress at a breaking point with client losses, internal politics, lack of progress, and feeling completely alone in carrying everyone else's weight. I'd just let someone go at work, a decision that gutted me, and then they sued me personally for racial discrimination. The irony was cruel. I'd fought for them, tried to keep them, advocated for diversity on our DEI council. And this person knew the agency's history and it felt like extortion. Someone I thought was a friend was trying to destroy the company, and me personally, with lies for personal gain.

My therapist, who I'd finally started opening up to after never having been to therapy in my life, quit being my therapist when her child was born. Completely understandable. And also exactly what I'd feared: that I'd let myself be vulnerable, start to rely on someone to help me work through things, and they'd just leave.

At home, your mom was dealing with her own anxiety. I couldn't fully share what I was going through because talking to her about my despair meant I'd then need to support her anxiety about my despair. I was drowning, but I couldn't ask her to pull me up because she was trying to keep her own head above water.

I felt alone in carrying responsibilities that everyone around me either couldn't or shouldn't be doing. Things I was doing for them. So I felt alone in that.

Suddenly, everything I'd tried to build felt like it was crumbling, and I was failing on every front. Worse, it felt like people wanted me to fail. Maybe that was paranoia, maybe not, but it was real to me.

So I did what you're supposed to do. I reached out.

My brother, who I rarely have deep conversations with, was struggling too. When I tried to open up, his response was, "Your job is to take care of me." Not the other way around. It hurt, but I understood. He needed support, and I wasn't giving it.

Next, my sister. She's my go-to for real talk. But when I shared what my brother said, she said, "I don't feel any obligation to take care of you. That's not how I think." I didn't open up to her after that.

Finally, my closest friend. I asked if he'd ever struggled, how he got through it. "I just deal with it," he said. Old school, sure, but honest. Later, when I hinted at how bad things were, his check-in was a joke: "Have you killed yourself yet?" I said, "Not yet." That was it.

I had my lifevests—my siblings, my closest friend. But I couldn't inflate my vest because they didn't have anything to give in that moment.

Looking back now, I don't think any of them knew how bad of a place I was in. When you're in darkness, you think you're being clear, but you're probably not. You think you're screaming for help, but it comes out as a whisper. And all of them were dealing with their own struggles. It wasn't that they didn't want to help or wouldn't give me what I needed. They just didn't have it to give. They were drowning too.

But in that moment, it felt like rejection. And it made everything so much worse.

What pulled me through wasn't one thing. It was a combination of defiance and not wanting someone else to "win" or control my life. It was spite, honestly. Still a negative emotion, but it moved me away from despair. I eventually got to the holidays, where I always feel a bit more loved. I got past the withdrawal of not having a therapist and reset how I use outlets to work through emotions. I started talking to Rachel again, letting her back in even though it was complicated.

Time passed. The lawsuit was resolved. I had written and verbal evidence of how I'd supported this person, character witnesses showing how baseless the claims were. But it wasn't really about winning the case. It was about surviving the betrayal.

Here's what I wish I'd known when I was in it: nothing that felt so incredibly heavy at that time really mattered that much. I don't say that to diminish it, because at that time it weighed so much on me. But I should have thought about quitting my job far before suicide. Or taking a couple of weeks off. I should have found another therapist before that consideration, despite my fear of being deprioritized again. I should have considered so many other things.

But your mind goes dark when you lose hope. It can't see the options that are right in front of you.

The things that felt like they required my life actually just required me to let go of other things. My job. My pride. My need to carry everyone else's weight. Those were the things that needed to end, not me.

I heard someone say once that life both happens to you, but also flows through you. When you're in that dark place, life is only happening TO you. It's crushing you. Overwhelming you. All-consuming. What you need is someone to help you get to the second part, where life flows through you again. Where you can breathe.

If you ever find yourself in that place, Lyla, here's what I want you to know:

Call me. Text me. Write me. Just let me be there. I would get in my car, go to the airport, do whatever I needed to do to simply be there with you and hold you. I wouldn't let you feel alone. I would just hold you.

It won't be a burden on me. It will be an honor that you trust me to help you.

I'm not saying I'm skilled or trained to navigate every situation. Every situation is different, so I almost certainly won't know exactly what you're going through. But I have experience navigating darkness now. And it won't be too much for me. It will be a relief that you're seeking support.

If you reach out to someone and they can't help you, that's not rejection. They might be drowning too. They might not have the skillset or capacity to navigate that conversation. Keep reaching. Try someone else. Try me. Try your mom. Keep reaching until someone catches you.

Let go of everything else if you need to. Your job, your responsibilities, your pride, whatever is weighing you down. I'll support you in that. But never let go of yourself.

There are always more options than your dark mind can see in that moment.

You are not alone. Even when it feels like you are.

And you can always, always name the darkness. Because the silence is more dangerous than the fear of saying it out loud.

I love you. And I'm here.