TIVI

Collection: Hope

Est. Read Time: 12 Minutes

If you believe hurting yourself or ending your life is the only option you have right now, please tell someone.

I know those words can feel impossible to say. I know because I’ve had to say them myself. There is nothing you have done that makes you less worthy of a life filled with love, joy, purpose, and acceptance. I don’t know exactly what you’re carrying today. But I know what it feels like to believe there is no way out.

I’ve been there.

There is a book titled The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware. Ware spent years caring for people during the final weeks of their lives. She noticed that, regardless of their background or circumstances, many of them carried the same regrets.

The one she heard most often was this:

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

I’ve struggled with that line because I lost myself long before I ever thought about ending my life.

I lost myself when I was thirteen years old.

The sexual abuse I experienced interrupted something I didn’t even realize I was losing. It interrupted becoming me.

After that, my life became an exhausting effort to survive. Hide. Be accepted. Cover the shame. Become whoever I needed to become in order to make it through another day.

The problem with creating a false self is that there is no script. Every room requires a different version of you. Every relationship asks for another performance.

Eventually, I had played so many different characters that I no longer knew who the real one was.

Somewhere inside all of that…I disappeared.

By the time I reached high school, life already felt too heavy. I wasn’t where I wanted to be. I wasn’t who I wanted to be. I couldn’t understand my emotions. I couldn’t think clearly. I couldn’t imagine much beyond tomorrow.

And every failure seemed to confirm what I already believed about myself: that I was broken, that I was disappointing, that I would never become the person I hoped I could be.

It was around that time that ending my life first became an option. Not because I wanted to die. Because I couldn’t imagine another way to live.

When I discovered alcohol at twenty years old, it felt like a miracle. The voices became quieter. The shame faded into the background. For twenty-five years, alcohol did two completely opposite things at the same time. It kept me alive. And it slowly drove me toward death.

I didn’t understand that until I got sober.

Once alcohol disappeared, so did the only thing I had ever known that could silence those voices. For the first time in my life, I had nowhere left to run.

There is a line I wrote in another story about addiction that feels relevant here:

If it was abuse that stole my childhood, it was alcohol that stole my adulthood.

Sobriety gave me clarity. But clarity also meant seeing the destruction I had left behind.

I became convinced that I wasn’t simply someone who had made mistakes. I believed I was the mistake.

The voices became relentless.

You’re the problem.

Everyone would be better off without you.

Just end it.

Every day.

In 2025, those voices became so loud that I voluntarily admitted myself to an inpatient psychiatric hospital. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made.

It was also one of the best.

Looking back…I believe it saved my life.

Telling Someone

People often say, “If you’re struggling, tell someone.”

I agree.

But I also think it’s important to tell the truth about what that can feel like.

I told a friend. They yelled at me for telling them. They were scared. I understand that now. At the time, it made me feel even more alone.

I told my therapist. Later that evening I received an email explaining that I needed a higher level of care and that she could no longer continue treating me.

I don’t share those experiences because I blame either of them. I don’t.

The truth is, suicidal thoughts are frightening to hear. Most people don’t know what to do. I certainly wouldn’t have known what to do before I walked through it myself.

But those experiences almost convinced me that I had made a mistake by saying anything.

I’m grateful they didn’t have the last word.

Borrowing Someone Else’s Hope

During that season, I found two people who changed everything: my sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous and a physician who refused to give up on me.

My sponsor told me something I didn’t want to hear.

“Your thinking is lying to you.”

Then he said something even harder.

“You’re going to have to trust me to make some decisions for you until you’re healthy enough to trust yourself again.”

I believed him. Not because I was convinced, but because he had already survived what I was trying to survive. He had been down his own difficult road, and now he was walking down mine with me.

Sometimes you have to borrow someone else’s hope. Sometimes you have to borrow someone else’s clarity. Sometimes another person’s experience has to carry you until your own mind becomes trustworthy again.

Around the same time, I began working with a doctor who patiently helped me find the right treatment. The medication didn’t change who I was. It quieted enough of the chaos that I could finally hear something besides the voices.

For the first time in years…I could think.

What Became My Responsibility

One of the hardest lessons I’ve ever learned came during that season.

I realized I wasn’t responsible for what happened to me as a child. I wasn’t responsible for being abused. I wasn’t responsible for the failures of the adults who should have protected me.

But I eventually became responsible for what I was going to do with the life that remained.

Those are not the same thing.

At first, that felt incredibly unfair.

Because it was.

I kept waiting for everyone else to take responsibility. I kept hoping that if enough people admitted what they had done, I would finally be free.

Eventually I had to ask myself a difficult question.

Even if every person who hurt me apologized tomorrow…then what?

Would I finally begin living? Or would I still be waiting for someone else to give me permission?

That’s when something changed.

I stopped waiting.

Not because justice stopped mattering. It still matters deeply. But because I realized I couldn’t leave the future of my life in someone else’s hands.

Taking responsibility for my future didn’t excuse what had happened.

It gave me back something I thought I had lost forever: choice.

Today

Today, there are still difficult days. There are still thoughts that come without invitation.

I’ve learned that I don’t get to choose every thought that enters my mind. But I do get to decide which ones I give a home.

The voices still visit. They just don’t get to make my decisions anymore.

When they come, I pause. I pray. I call someone. I tell the truth. I remember that my own mind isn’t always telling me the truth. And then I try to take the next right step.

Not tomorrow.

Today.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I’ve stopped trying to predict it.

But I do know this.

Some of the thoughts that I thought were true, today I can see as clearly lies. I’m grateful I didn’t let them make my final decision.

Today, I wake up and surrender my day to God. Today, I choose sobriety. Today, I choose to trust people who have earned that trust. Today, I choose the next right step.

Today, those things are my responsibility.

And for today…that’s enough.

Immediate help is available 24/7 if you’re in crisis or need to talk with someone right now or help finding an AA meeting near you:

• If you’re thinking about ending your life, 988 Lifeline
• State-Specific Suicide Resources, State Prevention

Reflection: Some thoughts deserve compassion. Others deserve skepticism. Learning the difference can save a life.

Continue the Journey:

Previous: 008. A Friend That Almost Killed Me: The addiction that worked… Until it didn’t.

Next: More Coming Soon

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Why This Library Exists

TIVI exists because no one should have to walk the road toward healing, accountability, and restoration alone.

Every story in this library was written to offer one or more of three things:

• Experience – So you know someone else has been there.
• Strength – So you can borrow courage when yours is running low.
• Hope – So you can believe healing and accountability are still possible.

If even one story helps you take the next right step, then it was worth writing.

Please feel free to reach out to us if we can help. We’re here.