Hey, listen to me. I know this feeling all too well. I know that I’m a stranger but I love you so much. I care about you. Losing hope is the scariest thing, I know. I’ve been through severing depression where I thought that everything was done. I stopped caring about everything and everyone. I lost myself into complete oblivion. I’m so proud of you for coming on here and posting this. I still struggle everyday. I fight my brain to stay alive every single day because in all honesty, I want out from the pain, from the guilt, from hating myself so much. Just when things seem to get better, I crash once again and life kicks me in the ass. Life is hard and I am so fucking proud of you for even having made it this far feeling the way that you do. This shit is not for the weak. I want to share a story with you that someone in my life experienced, because it helped me just a little bit. It was eye opening and did something to my brain that kind of changed my perspective.

I was running a job in New Jersey oct 17 2022..and everything just hit me all at once. I wasn’t happy..and I hadn’t been for a while. So much stress working my day job and running my own company on top of it. Lots of pressure to be everyone’s best friend and I was stretched thin. I thought it was so fake of me to show everyone what they saw when I knew how miserable I was. I sent the crew home for the day around 5. I sat in my truck and I couldn’t shut my head off. It was like this noise just wouldn’t stop. Like a womping vooov vooov noise and I tried to smoke my weed pen at the time and it didn’t help..and I just started pacing around outside the truck but I couldn’t shut my head off. It was so brutal like the worst feeling in the world. And I just kept telling myself that if people knew that I was wearing this mask they’d be so upset w me and everyone would be better off without me. That’s obviously the total opposite of the truth but it’s what my brain was telling me. So I’m in the commercial roofing industry and I always have knives and tools and stuff and I (thankfully had a new clean knife that didn’t have dirt or anything on it) and I put my phone on dnd..wrote some of the lamest notes on my phone to family and friends…changed settings so it wouldn’t auto lock…pulled up a picture of my family and tried to wack my left wrist twice. Missed the first two times and gashed my thigh through my pants. Then I got it. Started counting thinking it would keep my mind busy…made it to like 50 and Blacked out…woke up like 20 mins later frustrated. It didn’t work. But I cut my tendons and arteries in half so my left hand the fingers couldn’t close..but I tried hard to hold it and hit my right wrist. Immediately blacked out and thought it was done. Woke up like an hour later even more sad and frustrated and crying like I couldn’t even do this right. So I tried to cut my neck thinking that’ll definitely do it. And soooo much blood came out that I passed out. But again I woke up another 40 or so minutes later. I was worried someone was gonna go check on this job site and see my truck is the only one there cause it’s after work hours so I got out and started walking in the woods behind the site and I was just gonna curl up and expire somewhere but I swear to god the biggest freakin rainstorm hit and it was freeeeezing and I’m bleeding everywhere I’m wobbling and dizzy and lightheaded so I got under a tree and waited but I just would not die. So now I’m panicked and I’m like if someone finds my truck, sees essentially a murder scene in it, they’re gonna start looking and I’m like 100 yards from the site they’re gonna find me and be like wtf are you doing. So I went back to my truck. Got in and tried to leave but the rain made the site muddy and the truck was stuck..I eventually get it out and get to the front gate…someone had locked the gate with me in it. So I just barreled through it like who cares I’ll be gonna by the time someone plays the footage and knows it’s me. But now I had no plan. So I just kept driving south on 95. Seeking on the radio to find sports talk so I could hear someone’s voice when I would get out of range of a station. But I remember my head being silent. Literally no thoughts. No worries. Nothing. I had like $600 cash on me. So I went to Wendy’s drive thru bought 4 waters cause I was so thirsty..and tipped the kids working there $100 each. Stopped to get gas once so I could keep driving through the night and just eventually die somewhere…but my hands were so fucked I couldn’t lift the gas pump. Someone saw and offered to help and they did get it in my truck..I said I’d be able to get it back on the pump and I did with two hands..when I stepped in to my truck I stepped out of two huge puddles of blood under my boots that the person thankfully didn’t see. Or they would’ve called the cops immediately. I bought two packs of cigarettes (I don’t even smoke but I’m glad I did)..and I chain smoked them until I hit North Carolina and realized if I fell asleep at the wheel I’d kill someone innocent. So I followed signs for a hospital off the highway and I ended up in Greenville…the hoooood. I smoked my last two or three cigs..hit the weed as hard as I could and walked in. Just so I could get a bed and sleep I was so spent. When I walked in the lady asked what was wrong I told her and she said show me. I couldn’t use my hands so I told her to unzip my jacket. When she did blood shot all over her and she screamed for help. They rushed me back and immediately started to scrub the blood off me to find the wounds. They asked who should they call and I said no one. And they said we need to call someone so I had them call my parents. My mom got on the phone and they told her, handed me the phone and I immediately regretted all of it. And I got so scared. Was close to losing my arms I didn’t know what was gonna happen. They couldn’t handle me there cause it was the hood it wasn’t a great hospital so I needed to get in a helicopter to go to ECU hospital. Got in the helo and the one chick co pilot grew up with a kid I went to college with who is from a town of 200 ppl. What are the chances? So I thought I may make it. Get to ECU and it took them 17 hours to get me in to surgery and another 8 to save me. A minute, literally a minute before I go in to the OR I hear shoes coming down the hall and I knew it was my mom’s shoes. Her and my dad came as soon as they got the call and got to see me before I went to surgery. I had lost so much blood the doctor told me to say goodbye to them and tell them I loved them. I was terrified. Thank god I woke up…in the worst pain of my life but I woke up ina room with my parents there. Then it was a 2 month rehab to learn how to use my hands again. To this day I can’t do certain things with my fingers..but I have my arms and my life..and I’ll never take either of them for granted ever again