Why I Wanted To Kill Myself & Why I Chose To Live

Why did I want to kill myself?

For most of my life, I fought an internal battle of depression and at my lowest points, I thought about ending it all.

As I'm a few months from turning 40 years old, I wanted to reflect on those most detrimental moments of my life and answer "why".

Perception is reality, especially in the mind of a child, and most of my early memories were of me feeling alone. Life felt chaotic and everything was just happening around me yet I was figuratively alone to deal with it.

One of the difficulties as a child is being able to express yourself appropriately to adults because you don't have the vocabulary, linguistic ability, or emotional comprehension to express your feelings. I didn't know how to identify the source of my pain: It was just there.

My father wasn't around, we were moving from state to state, town to town, and were briefly homeless. All of this was happening before my eyes by the age of 6 and I just felt alone throughout the entire ordeal. Loneliness brings on a slow internal torture and I wanted it to end.

When I was 6, I told my mother that I wanted to die and my plan was for me to get under my bed and hope for it to fall on me. Soon after I expressed this, I was admitted into a mental hospital where I was even more alone than I was before.

Whereas before I at least had my mother but being locked away, I had no one. I know now that as terrible as I felt being locked away, my mother felt the same: No mother wants to see her child locked away like that.

For years, I tried to block out this memory because it accelerated my internal struggle of constantly feeling alone, purposeless, and valueless. I didn't have a father to reinforce how valuable I am in God's eyes and help me understand that I have a purpose for being here.

When you don't value yourself, living just becomes a matter of a decision to kill yourself or stay alive. You end up living for other people because you don't want to hurt them so you can stop your own pain.

I thought if I could get others to like me I would no longer feel alone and I could finally apply some value to my life but doing that made me emotionally dependent on flawed individuals and unfairly burdening them with providing value in my life.

After each failed attempt to have someone tell me how valuable I was, I would ultimately end up alone and slightly closer to death. You're just stuck in your head again, reflecting on the state of your life and contemplating weighing that option you can't reverse.

The loneliest I've ever been was living in an empty apartment in Tennessee, sleeping on a leaky air mattress and not knowing anyone around me. I'd work overtime just so I didn't have to be alone at home. I'd have hours-long phone calls just to connect with another human.

I thought often about what's the point of living if you provide nothing to the world and barely anyone cares about whether or not you exist. The most important man in my life, the man who helped to create me, doesn't even care if I'm alive, so why should I care?

I thought if I made more money I would feel more fulfilled but while it eliminated some of my financial problems that I had, it could never cure my emptiness and loneliness.

It took me decades to realize that my happiness can't come from the external but from within. People are going to love you one day and hate you the next and you have to be okay with this. Receiving adulation shouldn't be a necessity but an addition to an already fulfilling life.

I believed my loneliness was a result of being valueless to society and if I just proved myself worthy to others, they'd want to fill that loneliness hole with their presence. What I understand now is that I have an inherent God-given value that doesn't change like the seasons.

My purpose is to serve others and be a positive force in the world, not the profession or activity that I'm part of. Having a career is nice and useful to live but chasing money and accolades never felt as good as doing something selfless and not requiring a thank you in return.

But the most important lesson I learned is that sometimes pain is necessary and can be the greatest teacher in life. Those painful moments that I experienced weren't to be used for pity but for inspiration and they're a constant reminder of what I was able to overcome.

I wanted to die because I didn't understand the value I had as an individual and I thought all pain was negative. God gave me the strength to overcome these obstacles and it's this strength that makes me fearless in everything I do today.

The strife I endured taught me to be gracious to others who are in the midst of their own struggle. I chose life because I understand how precious it is & we only get one opportunity to live it to our fullest.

I now interpret my pain as a privilege to endure: I'm thankful.