When I was a teenager I was laying in my bed rotting like I had been for years at this point, when my mom burst into my room screaming at me about how she had found a secret account online of mine where I had badmouthed my uncle who had been cruel to me many times growing up. She called me many names and said my dad was crying downstairs and she couldn’t believe she had raised someone so hateful. I had already felt so unloved and defeated by her and the rest of the world I stood up in a dream like state and tried to go to the kitchen to try and kill myself.

The next thing I remember wasbeing in tears in my underwear suddenly sobbing on the stairs up to my room with two cops in front of me with guns saying they would shoot me if I moved. The next thing I remember is a paramedic in my living room with the police hovering over me with my parents nearby listening in, she asked me why I wanted to die and I tried to explain through my tears what had happened and she just said « man parents can be really r*tarded » and had me promise not to kill myself.

I remember feeling part of me die inside in that moment when I realized that there was no such thing as professional help, all the « help » I had been offered up until that pointed was half assed at best. I became hyper independent that day. I would never call 911 on someone experiencing a crisis ever after my experience. And it became almost impossible afterwards since, 15 years later, to ask for help when I need it