Parents can be our greatest allies, they can fiercely love us, but they can also be the cause of our trauma.

Instead, I cemented my role in relationships as a pleaser, a convincer, a girl who, well into adulthood, would contort and conform to the desires of a man, overlooking his easy dismissal, and dampening her self-worth, all to be loved.

Suicidal thinking as an adult felt so much different than it had as a teenager. As a teen, it was about revenge. I wanted people to be sad I was dead. As an adult, I was not worried about anyone else. I just wanted an exit.

“My brain never stops,” I said. “I have an internal monologue that is running all the time. I constantly weigh and analyze everything I do and say. I worry something bad will happen to someone I love. I worry my dog, Petunia, will die. I worry about whether or not to have children. I think no, but then, like, what if down the road I regret that? I

So far, the hospital is not so bad. This is an all-you-can-eat treat situation. Then they take my iPad, wallet, and my phone. For some reason, they let me keep my Kindle. I am given a tiny blue notebook with about ten blank pages and a super small pencil.

Now, today, I no longer have to convince anyone how bad I feel.

“I was experiencing very bad anxiety, exacerbated by the pandemic. So at first I wasn’t eating because I was so anxious, I didn’t have an appetite. Then it turned into a competitive game with my scale. A how-low-can-I-go situation, because I wanted to feel in control of something.”

I do not know what they mean. Maybe they don’t mean anything.

It’s shocking how much faster I recover from an ending when I don’t have to also disentangle my sense of self from the other person. I