This is probably one of the most vulnerable posts I’ve ever shared: last night I had a nervous breakdown. This is what I looked like a few hours after I had stopped crying. My eyes were so puffy I could hardly see, my skin was blotchy and swollen, and I felt like I had literally been beaten up. This is depression, and it can hit you when you are doing well, when you are making art, when you have good relationships, when you have support and therapy, and when you are on the right medication.

Last night was exceptionally bad. I came very close to ending myself after hours of planning, crying, making a plan for someone to take care of my cat, writing letters to those I’d have to leave explaining that I just couldn’t cope with the pain and grief that left me deteriorating. That the world would be better without a fuckup like myself, a failure as a human. Every moment awake was eating me up alive. Everything I had ever done wrong, said wrong, fucked up, was at the front of my mind and stuck on an endless loop. At the last moment, I texted someone to come over because I was unsafe. It took hours to regulate my emotions, with both him and my cat working overtime to make sure I’d be okay. I hope this is a reminder to anyone who has ever felt this way that you are not alone; I struggle and I struggle hard. I do my best, and I know you are doing your best too. Today my only job is to survive, and wake up tomorrow morning.

-Sarah