I want to tell my friends about my depression and suicide attempt - help me please?

Hi Reddit.

I want to tell me friends about my depression and suicide attempt, so that I can ask them for the support and help I need. I have written them a letter, but I am not sure if I have laid it on a bit thick. Please can someone read it a nd let me know what they think before I send it.

Thank you kindest of strangers on reddit.

"Hello all,

I have been wrestling myself with the idea of telling you all this for years. I feel like this now could be the right time to do so.

I suffer from extreme depression and severe social anxiety. I am sure that as a statement won’t come as a huge surprise to you, but I needed to express the extent of this. I have suffered from some form of depression for as long as I can remember. It will come on in small bouts of depression. I can have a few weeks of feeling like I can do anything and be as happy as anything, then go to feeling completely worthless in a matter of moments. For years, I was able to manage it through various different coping methods. I did this on my own, without confiding in anyone or receiving any medication/help. In hindsight, this was a mistake as it led to me withdrawing within myself and shutting people out of my life. The last few years, I have found myself struggling to cope. I began to see all my energy and love declining and replaced with a love of solitude and silence.

There have been many contributing factors to the increase severity of it – My general depression, My home life and not being able to feel safe and secure in my own home – hence me moving, my Brother, my Dad passing and also feeling totally alone. The biggest has always been and always be my brother. His mental health issues have had a huge effect on me and my self-worth.

He bullied me all the way through my childhood – telling me every single day that I was worthless. Slowly over time, those words sank into my brain. They became my own voice, in my own head, telling me I wasn’t good enough, that I was worthless and that my life was pointless. This festered and simmered in my mind until it became my truth and reality, ending up getting way too much for me to be able to cope with.

In my final year of university, I made an attempt to end my own life. I felt I had no other choice. I felt so low and helpless, that the only comfort I could find in my life was not waking up the next morning. The only word I can think to describe my mind state and feelings at that time is ‘numb’. I wasn’t scared or unhappy; I just felt nothing - no emotions. I don’t know if you ever felt numb before, and I really hope you haven’t and never do, but my experience of it is one of the strangest and most harrowing experiences of my life – and I’ve been to Leeds Vs. Milwall. You feel so totally isolated from a sensible and normal reality that you lose the ability to think rationally. The feeling of loneliness and isolation overwhelms you. It gets to a point that all you can think of is an escape, a way out of this life – to not exist.

The only reason I am still here today, is purely because of guilt. I was worried about leaving my parents alone in the world with Graham and to have to find me. There have been other occasions where I have felt this low and it was most recently in last few months. Fuelled by losing my dad, the issues with my brother and some other stuff, I started to feel empty and worthless again. I started to push people I loved away again. It was because of this that I realised I need to go and seek help. It has taken a long time for me to get the right help. I have bounced from medication to medication over the years, with none of it ever helping. However; I am now one the road to recovery and I am already beginning to feel happier and stronger within myself.

I am telling you all of this, not because I want sympathy or attention. Rather, I am telling you this because you are some of my closest and truest friends, friends whom I trust intrinsically and completely. I have long needed to get this off my chest and to tell someone about the issues I have faced, to confide in someone. It was only now, that I am getting stronger, that I felt the confidence to actually tell someone about this and to open up. I appreciate that in the past my behaviours, on social media and in person, has often seemed erratic and weird. Whilst I would never try to blame my depression for this, it had a lot to do with it. y house move is going to be the catalyst that sparks a new energy in me and gets my life started.

However, it’s not going to be easy for me and I need your support. I am not an overly needy/touchy feely person; I never have been or will be. I don’t want things to change too drastically or for our friendship to become in any way awkward. However I do need you guys to help me out. Sometimes I might need a friend to talk to, or even just someone to go grab a coffee with. Sometimes I might need someone just to ask how things are going and what not. I have never been the best at communicating with people, but I want to change that. I want to have meaningful relationships with my friends and my family. We come into this world with nothing, and we leave it only with love – everything else is just borrowed"