The past, a brief history

I have dealt with depression my whole life. I didnt know what it was for a long time, but I always knew I was different. I was 9 years old when Freddie Prinze shot himself and I remember thinking that it made sense. I could understand what he did and to an extent why he did it. The reactions of the people around me made me keep quiet about my feelings and thoughts, everyone was horrified and sad and mystified why someone would do that. Even then I understood.

I got married when I was 29 to a woman I should never even have been with. the dynamics of the relationship were all wrong, I didnt want to be alone and she wanted to get away from her ex husband and claimed to be very in love with me. I have no idea how true this was, Im not claiming she wasnt , but she cheated on me with her ex within a year of marrying me and again and again during our 9 year marriage. I was no saint either and the whole thing was a mess. Im still in touch occasionally with the daughter of the woman I was married to and we talk sometimes. Its nice, I like her.

I have never seriously tried to kill myself. After my first marriage ended was as close as I have ever come. I was severely depressed and weighed around 675 pounds. I was trying to kill myself with food, taking a passive aggressive approach to it and figuring I would die eventually. When she left to go live with her daughter and told me she wanted a divorce I felt like such a failure. I had a bottle of painkillers and a bottle of Jack Daniels and a note written, but a friend happened to call me as I was settling in to take the pills and we talked for a few hours. I decided to give it one more day because she said she wanted to see me and we talked some more and hung out. I never told her what was going on when she called me. Time and circumstances have driven us apart and we arent friends any more but there will always be feelings for her somewhere inside me.

I took a look at my options and wound up moving in with a guy I have known for now for almost 30 years. He is pretty much my brother. I lived in his spare bedroom for almost as long as I had been married and slowly got a little better and better as time went by. I started taking a little better care of myself, there were even hours at a time when I didnt think about killing myself. I hated where I was living and my life in general but things were improving a bit. I made a few friends and started having a bit of a social life. Then I met the girl who helped me discover BDSM and the local community in Indianapolis.

Within a few months of my first BDSM related event, I met a lot of people that I know and treasure to this day. They accepted me. They didnt judge me. Sure, there was drama here and there but it was like a big family and what family doesnt have drama? It was within the BDSM community that I met the people who mean the most to me today and are the reason I am still alive. I married one of them, her name is Amy and she is my wife. I will love the other one as long as I live and then some, her name is Jessi and she is the one i turn to when I need someone to talk to. She fights the good fight against depression too and I can talk to her about things that I cant say to other people. She can with me too and we lean on each other when we need to. There is also Sarah, a great friend who helped me get rid of some baggage that plagued me for a very long time. And a lot of other people both in the distant and not so distant past that have supported me, loved me or just plain listened to me.

I still think about killing myself sometimes. Its just something I live with. Sometimes it seems like the best option of all the options I have. But not nearly as often as it has in the past and I dont think about it nearly as much. Where before I was lucky to have hours or even minutes when I didnt think about it now I can have whole days where I dont. I am working on being happier a lot more now than I ever have and I am lucky to have people around me to help me. I dont always remember that but I always try to.

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