Heavy note that I felt compelled to share.

Trigger warning: Suicide

I’ve been kicking ass and taking names for 25 years, in less than a month it’ll be 26. To some that’s normal. To me that’s phenomenal. Because by the time I turned 18, a mere teen transitioning into his real life, I attempted to take my own twice and failed.

It was mostly to do with how my brain operated. It wasn’t doing what it was supposed to. It was telling me that everything was bad. And that there’s an easier way out. I had a really good upbringing. I had plenty of friends. I was the student body president. I was the class clown. But my brain was telling me “all this is worthless and stupid and you can’t keep this up much longer.”

I’ve never been more happy to have failed what would have been the biggest choice of my life. Twice.

Since then I’ve seen psychologists, medical doctors, pastors, and I’ve since become more comfortable and open about talking about my survival story. Because it needs to be talked about because I’ve since seen one of my best friends and my younger sister’s best friend unfortunately succeed in taking their own lives. And I’ve seen what happens to families, friends, and communities. No one should go through that. I wish no one ever had to ever again.

I wrote this because you need to hear one of two things:

1) You are loved so damn hard by so many people even when your brain is telling you that’s not the case. I promise. Even further, you are loved by a Creator who sacrificed everything for your sake. And if that still doesn’t help, hit me up. I’m happy to talk to you. Not to try and convince you that what I’m saying is true. I just want to hear your story. I want to be your friend. I’ll listen. That was all I really needed all along.

If that didn’t apply to you, here’s your message:

2) Think about every interaction you have with every single person from here on out. Be extremely intentional and think very carefully on what you say. Because you don’t know what they’re going through, and you could literally be the reason their loved ones see them again. And you might not even know it.

Happy to be here. Thank you for loving me. Now go love everyone else.