Nope. No Way. Never. Don’t ever say this word.

WARNING: Trigger article on mental health.

Until recently, many of us have been afraid to say this word. Many of us have been taught that it’s not appropriate to say this word or talk about this subject. It’s not okay. It’s a scary topic. We don’t need to talk about it.

I am so glad people are being more open about talking about Suicide. Yep, there it is. I said it.

Suicide is still a tough topic to talk about. People worry that they might say something that would trigger some one or someone will tell you about it and you won’t know what to say. Or it could be that you may not know what to say, but you so desperately want to fix it. Unfortunately, depression and suicidal thoughts are ones you can’t just turn off and on or fix in an instant. Man, do I wish we could.

For me personally, I can remember thinking about suicide when I was about 6^th grade or so. I don’t remember what was going on in my life or anything, but I can clearly remember being in a low place over the summer at a slumber party with friends.

And honestly, those thoughts never went away fully. They enter my mind from time to time. The next point in my life I really remember being in a super low place was after I had my first child. It was a very dark time for me and it wasn’t just the baby blues.

That took a good 2 months to get out of and then with my second child that was a good 6 months of storm clouds and darkness.

So when was the last time I had some thoughts of suicide? Honestly, probably within the last few weeks. Situations will throw me off balance and I go down a rabbit hole. Many times I can get out of it within a few hours and no one is the wiser.

But that’s the thing. We have all been programmed to not talk about it when we have these thoughts. Hide whatever you’re thinking and on the flip side people have been programmed not to ask about it.

I’m truly thankful for the progress we have made in recent years, but I encourage all of you to know that no matter what is going on on the outside, a person may be hurting on the inside. And by just simply being there for them means the world!