I am doing much much better with my depression. I don't think I could even get officially diagnosed with it any more. I owe the biggest thanks to drugs for this improvement. Psychedelic therapy was life changing for me(I'll probably write more about this another time). But I want to give this prefix and set the stage a bit to make it clear that I am no suicidal in any way and I haven't been for years. But that was not always the case.

It was the probably close to ten years ago. I was in my early 20's. I was living the life. I had lots of friends, we hung out nearly daily. I was going on trips and adventures every week. From impromptu international trips, to repelling of local water falls to chilling next to a camp fire with friends. i had an amazing job making way more money than my young self knew what to properly do with at that time. I was even living on a sail boat having almost nightly sails with friends and new people I met. By all means my life was great. Yet it was at this time in my life that I was the most depressed I had ever been. Maybe I'll go into the details as to why in another post but tl;dr religion messed with my head and I felt like a failure because I wasn't married with kids yet.

This was the setting to one of the most pivotable moments of my life. I don't even remember exactly why I was feeling so down and miserable that late night alone on my boat but I remember very clearly what I did and didn't do that night. I had a gun. It was loaded. Safety was off. I held it next to my head nestled in my temple. But I did not pull that trigger. I remember holding it there for a long time contemplating that action that I did not take. But for whatever reason I chose not to. I chose to keep living.

Later I ended up saving that bullet and word it as a necklace as a reminder of what I didn't do. And that moment has been one I have looked back on often as a strangely comforting moment. As terrible as this sounds, I take great comfort in knowing that my existence is finite and that I could end it at any time. I don't plan on it. But knowing that it is in my power brings me a lot of strength to deal with the trials of life. I feel extremely grateful to have the tools at my disposal to make it so easy and accessible to do. When life gets me down and I struggle to want to go on, I strangely find it motivating to know that if I wanted I could just end it. But I choose not to. I guess I am just curious to see how it all works out.