**A TRAUMA NARRATIVE FOR AWARENESS

(Trigger Warning: suicidal crisis, medical emergency)**

It started quietly.

Not with a dramatic moment, not with a scream, not with a breakdown —

just a slow, heavy slide into a kind of emptiness that made the air feel too thick to breathe.

By early evening, the world already felt dim and far away, like she was looking at everything through glass.

She kept telling herself she was fine.

She’d been through worse.

She could handle this.

But the truth was, she was unraveling.

There were no coping skills left, no therapist to call, no medication helping her stay above water. She reached out to a crisis line hoping for a hand to hold her steady — and instead felt dismissed, misunderstood.

That one moment of invalidation hit like a blow, and the hopelessness that had been building for weeks finally tipped over the edge.

As the evening went on, reality began to blur.

Her limbs felt heavy.

Her thoughts felt loud.

Her chest ached with a crushing pressure that wasn’t just physical — it was emotional, spiritual, existential.

She couldn’t think clearly.

Her hands shook.

Her vision flickered in and out like a dying lightbulb.

She drifted between panic and numbness, trapped in her own body, terrified of what she had done yet too far gone to pull herself out alone.

She tried to stay awake, crawling mentally toward any anchor she could find.

Her breathing stuttered.

Her heart felt foreign in her chest.

Her skin tingled with that electric, terrifying sense that something was catastrophically wrong.

And then—

A soft sound.

A shift in the dark.

She opened her eyes just enough to see him.

Her dog.

Small, silent, trembling.

His eyes were wide with worry, his whole body tense as if he was begging her — without words — to stay.

And something inside her cracked open.

Not guilt.

Not shame.

Something deeper: connection.

A reminder that she was not alone in this world, not really, even if her brain had convinced her otherwise.

That tiny moment of clarity — her dog’s worried face — was enough to make her reach out for help.

She banged on the bathroom door.

She stumbled into the hallway.

She could barely form words, barely stay upright, barely hold onto reality — but some small, fierce part of her fought to live.

She told her brother.

He called their mom.

She dragged her body down the stairs, vision tunneling, legs weak, chest burning, mind floating in and out.

By the time her mom arrived, she was barely conscious.

The drive to the hospital felt like a lifetime.

Her body twitched and spasmed.

Her thoughts dissolved into static.

She could hear people talking but couldn’t respond.

When they reached the ER, she collapsed into a wheelchair.

Someone tried to ask her questions.

Everything hurt.

Her stomach lurched.

Her world tilted.

She didn’t remember much after that — just flashes:

A nurse’s gentle voice.

Hands trying over and over to get an IV.

Cold sweat on her forehead.

A doctor appearing quickly, which scared her because doctors only move that fast when things are bad.

Her mom’s face — terrified, heartbroken, helpless.

The taste of something awful she forced herself to drink because she wanted to survive now.

Her body shaking uncontrollably.

Someone holding her hand.

Someone brushing her hair back.

Someone saying, “Stay with us.”

Hours later — after fluids, monitoring, care, and sheer stubborn life force — her mind slowly returned.

Her vision cleared.

Her chest loosened.

Her body stopped fighting itself.

And she realized something no one ever talks about:

Survival doesn’t feel triumphant at first.

It feels confusing, painful, raw, vulnerable.

But it is still survival.

It is still a beginning.

She didn’t survive because she wasn’t suffering.

She survived because even in her darkest moment, a tiny part of her still wanted to stay — and that part saved her.

Why this story matters

Because so many people think suicide attempts look dramatic or obvious.

But most often, they look exactly like this:

• quiet despair
• a moment of invalidation
• a broken support system
• a spiral that happens fast
• and a life that almost ends
• until something — a pet, a person, a flicker of instinct — breaks through

And this:

People don’t survive because they “weren’t serious.”

They survive because they are strong.

Because help arrives.

Because their bodies and hearts fight for them even when their minds are exhausted.

And because life — even when it feels impossible — still wants them here.