This article will talk openly about suicide and related themes.
If someone told you that enduring repeated trauma, growing up without a stable support system, or constantly feeling like the “other” increases the likelihood of suicidal thoughts, you’d probably respond with, “Well, of course.” It feels obvious. But when you sit with the numbers—and when you live the reality behind them—that obvious truth becomes devastatingly personal.
From my lived experience, suicidal thoughts did not come from a desire for my life to end. They came from exhaustion. From carrying too much pain for too long without relief. From surviving abuse, instability, and silence while being expected to keep going as if none of it mattered. When people reach that edge, it is often because the pain has outgrown the support available—not because life itself has lost value.
I know this because I have stood in that space.
In late 2025, I lost my home in a fire. This wasn’t something that happened in secret. Friends knew. Family knew. Neighbors knew. And yet, in the days that followed, the silence was overwhelming. No one called to ask if I was safe. No one asked where I was sleeping. No one asked if I had eaten. Still, I was expected to show up. To perform. To be “okay.”
Five days after my home burned down, I lost my job. With no income and no place to go, I slept in my car and went for days without food. I carried shock, grief, fear, and disbelief alone. The fire was traumatic—but the isolation that followed cut deeper. It confirmed an old lesson trauma had taught me long ago: when things fall apart, you’re on your own.
That lesson didn’t begin in adulthood. It began in childhood.
In my book, Healing Hurts Like Hell, I write about surviving physical abuse, sexual trauma, and the instability of systems that were supposed to protect me but often failed to intervene. Trauma taught me how to endure, but it did not teach me how to be held. Over time, survival became my default—and connection felt uncertain, conditional, and unsafe. That is how pain accumulates. Not all at once, but layer by layer.
And this is where suicide risk truly lives—not in weakness, but in unmet needs.
For those of us who have lived in foster care or experienced adoption, this isn’t just something we read—it’s something we feel. It lives in our bodies, in quiet moments, in the questions about where we belong and who we are. The weight of disrupted attachment, identity struggles, and unresolved grief can sit heavy on the heart. What we carry is often misunderstood. It has never been about a lack of gratitude or resilience—it’s about the depth of what we’ve had to survive and make sense of.
Through it all, I survived.
Not because the pain was small, but because something in me refused to disappear. Hope did not arrive as optimism. It arrived as defiance. As breath. As choosing to stay, even when staying hurt. Resilience did not mean I wasn’t broken—it meant I kept going while broken, and eventually learned how to put myself back together in new ways.
Healing, I’ve learned, does not erase trauma. It teaches us how to live alongside it without letting it define our ending.
Trauma without connection becomes unbearable. I know that because I lived it. And while I didn’t always have the support I needed in those moments, I’ve come to understand just how life-saving real connection can be.
Suicide prevention is not just about crisis lines or awareness campaigns. It’s about showing up when someone’s life falls apart—the kind of support I needed and didn’t always receive. It’s about calling, checking in, making space, and offering care without conditions. It’s about communities and systems choosing compassion over convenience.
I am here today because I learned—slowly, painfully—that my story is not over. And neither is anyone else’s.
Hope does not mean pretending the fire or the abuse didn’t happen. It means believing that even after everything burns, something remains worth saving.
To anyone reading this who has thought about giving up, who has tried, or who is quietly struggling—I know what it feels like to be in a place where no one shows up for you. No rescue. No understanding. Just you and the weight of everything you’ve been carrying.
And somehow, you’re still here.
Sometimes that looks like getting out of bed when you don’t want to. Sometimes it looks like choosing to stay one more day when you’re exhausted in a way sleep can’t fix. That is you showing up for yourself, even when it’s hard.
You are not broken for wanting the pain to stop. You are human. And you are not weak for needing support—even if you’ve had to be your own support more times than you can count.
The truth is, every time you keep going, in even the smallest way, you are making a choice not to abandon yourself. And that matters.
Healing is not linear, and hope does not always look like joy; sometimes it looks like staying, breathing, and choosing yourself one more time. Your story is still unfolding. Even when the world has been silent, your life remains worthy of care, connection, and compassion.
You are not alone—and you never should have had to be.
If you or a loved one are experiencing an emotional crisis call, text, or chat 988.